Ever since learning how to convex by the mouse pad/sandpaper method, I have convexed all of my V-grind knives. The person who showed me how to do it on another forum was a maker named Garrett Schmidt, a knifemaker, who came up with a clever set of diagrams to show how its done in a very intuitive way. In Garrett's words, "the main thin you are trying to do when converting a V-grind to a convex, is to knock off the bevel shoulders'. Taking this thought a bit further, you can, but do not have to, actually touch your edge. By knocking the shoulders of the V off at the bevel you are decreasing drag through the slice and increasing cutting performance by reducing friction at the edge/bevel junction.

Now perhaps this doesn't make this a true convex conversion, but rather a hybrid which seems to optimize the advantages of both edge types. Personally, I feel a little the way Doc does. I enjoy convex, but I hate the effort it takes to strop a blade to razor sharpness. Mostly what I do is convert the V-grind to convex by mousepad/sandpaper through to 2000 grit. Then instead of stropping, I simply put a micro-bevel on it with the sharpmaker. The micro-bevel takes about 30 s to produce and I think yields as good as an edge as a true convex one establed by stropping. A final point is that even if you have a fully convexed blade, there is nothing stopping you from using a stone or a ceramic rod in the field to put a micro-bevel on. It won't take any more effort to field sharpen your blade like this than any V-grind under the caveat that your micro-bevel is performed at a more obtuse angle than the final edge of the blade. Also, in contrast to the purists - you aren't suddenly destroying your convex grind by putting a 0.5 mm microbevel at the very edge. If you want to re-convex it, take a about 30 swipes per side on 1000 grit then 2000 grit with the mousepad/sandpaper and proceed to a strop. Its as easy as that.

Batonning - heck doc - we probably had our share of debates on those other forums. If you know me - I baton 20x more than pre-pubescent parade girl ever would dream of. I've batoned the hell out of 0.095" thick knives without problems. The way I usually qualify things is that there is a continuum to how you baton. You start the split and you can usually feel when there is too much resistance to proceed. You don't have to finish a baton if you feel it is adding to much stress. If I were in a survival situation, I wouldn't hesitate to baton. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't use common sense while performing this activity or really on my personal experience with the knife I'm using.

One reason I baton often with my knives is so that I get to know how they perform so I know how they will perform when I call upon them. Better to have a blade snap in my backyard than at camp. If it happened in the wilderness, I'd probably have to go to the trouble of reaching using my weak side hand to draw on my secondary belt knife <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Finally, I'll admit. I buy scrapyards to beat the piss out of them. I don't find them particularly pretty knives, even when they are brand spanking new. They are about as pretty as Mike Tyson but also as tough. For me, the whole point of buying Scrapyard is so that I can smirk at the words 'abuse'. 'Abuse' its not even in the vocabulary of Scrapyard!