First the back story:

If you can believe it, a friend that was able to attend Blade 2007 (I was not able) bought me a Yard Keeper as a gift! What a great gift.

I have been kind of undecided as to whether or not it was going to be a safe queen, or a user. Since I have other knives in that size range that I like to use, it has pretty much sat in the safe.

The re-profiling post that HD did a couple weeks ago on his YK REALLY made me want to get mine out and play with it. Although this knife did come extremely sharp, I wanted to give it the same thinner, convex edge that HD had on his. It doesn't help that he has also been testing this knife with great results too. I just had to play too.

So, here we go......

New Edge:




And in order to test out the edge......a quick fuzz stick. Of course, the knife has to be extremely sharp to do this, and this is now one of the sharpest I own:



What a GREAT, GREAT little knife. I am looking forward to using it more now.

Brian

No Scapper should ever be a safe queen, Brian! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> Ooohwee that is sharp. How do you get it to curl like that? Looks like shavings from a wood plane. Do you use live or dead wood? Now you see what a fantastic little knife the YK is. It would have been a shame to leave in a drawer or safe somewhere.

ps, you need to put that fuzz stick picture in the Boy Scout Stuff thread. That is awesome!

I always use dead wood. It looks so white, just because it is maple. There are better woods to use. Maple is a bit hard, but I have two monster maple's in my yard, and plenty of dead sticks from them laying around.

I just start by taking a few good sized strips out of the stick to get a nice flat surface to work with. Once I have that, I just think THIN and the knife does the rest. You can tell they are all done in the same area. Do one, then do the next one, but just stop a little short of the first so that you don't cut it off, and just keep going...

Really nice work on your knife Brian. Did you use a sanding belt? I'd like to try that too but am afraid I'd end up with a steel toothpick with a Res handle.

Yup. HD has done many posting on how he does it. I pretty much do it the same way, just with a different sander. Same concept though.

I was worried about screwing stuff up as well. I had a couple of Cold Steel Bushman's lying around. They are very, very inexpensive and I figured I wouldn't cry if I messed those up. So, I practiced on those. That was enough for me to feel confident grinding my better knives.

I wish I knew how to sharpen this way years ago!

That is a pretty edge, Brian. To slice maple that thin is proof of its sharpness. I just stepped outside again and tried your technique. My fuzz sticks are getting fuzzier and fuzzier. Thanks for the tips. I found that the thick spine actually helps in putting pressure on the back of the blade with my thumbs. Now you have a fun knife. You can baton and chop down small trees with it, too. Unsub recently did his edge the hard way, by hand. I suppose he is doing shaved ice with it by now.

Lots of shaved ice here now as we are having the coldest winter in 15 years <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
It is now my favourite carry knife and I find it amazing that something this thick can get this sharp. I did mine on the Lansky by hand but you got yours very very close to as straight freehand on a grinder which is really impressive. I have found that you have to use some smooth confident movements to get it that nice and the more expensive the knife the harder that gets. I did just get some really neat finishing belts from Lee Valley to try out so maybe I will do my next one the easy way.

Nice to see you back Brian.

That is really nice B !!!!

That was a pretty nice friend you have........
just teasing you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Glad you are going to finally get some use out of it and I'm glad you like it.

-Rod <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Nice work HD. Brian I am sure you are pumped HD's edges look great on the computer so I am sure they are even better in person.

Not my work, Jeeps. That is Brian's edge. A fine edge it is, too.

You know.....this is very interesting. Being able to do curls on a fuzz stick like that is a REAL test of sharpness. If the knife is not sharp enough they will just break off and you can't get a lot of curls on the stick. It seems natural to think that a thin knife would be best for that. However, I have found that as long as the edge is good (like this) the blade thickness really does not matter. The top of the spine never gets close to the wood anyway.

So now I have a shaver and a thick tank <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Ah the whole INSPIRED by thing did not sink in. Long day. Nice edge Brian.