Bowman

I had asked about using coarse sharpening stones to create a secondary bevel in another thread. Ray and Carl both recommended against it. I also asked about using a Fiskars Axe Sharpening tool that I have and they said it would destroy the stones inside of it and the bevel angle likely wouldn't be correct so I abandoned that idea also. I'm about to get another blade back from HT and am not looking forward to cutting edge.

Hi Bowman,
I can't say I "recommend" doing it that way.... it's the only way I know. Once that blade is HT'd it is SO difficult to create the cutting edge. With this one I plan on roughing the cutting edge with my small diamond file then wrapping grits of emery around the mill file and drawing. This will take hours again. A regular Nicholson file (without emery) will be torn to shreds filing HT steel.... I tried that on my first stock-removal and learned the hard way by quickly trashing two files. I'm not sure that there is an easy way to do it without a 2X72. Every time I ask on the forums the responses are immediately "just get a 2X72, that's how we all do it". Well, that ain't gonna happen for a while and I need to keep making knives (cuz it's so dang fun). I sometimes wonder if these guys are capable of making a quality knife without a 2X72. Gotta figure... our ancestors made many beautiful razor sharp knives and swords historically throughout the ages without the use of a 2X72.