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Post by ofarfo on Apr 23, 2012 18:15:11 GMT
Recently I purchased a Cas Hanwei Albrecht II Hand and a Half. The sword had the most useless edge on it imagineable. So I've been working on getting a serious cutting edge worked into the blade. I've been primarily running 600-1200 Emery paper along the edge with a drywall hand sander. This has an extremely flat peice of foam and a handle. With this process I have been able to a apply a reasonably sharp edge, but I still feel like the edge is some what inferior, and I am not positve the the sword will be able to cut Tatami, which honestly for all of my swords is a necessity. (obviously my Iaito is excluded from that last statement.)
My question to those of you out there who may be familiar with the balde itself is related to the secondary bevel. To anyone who has had to resharpen this sword, did you find that you needed to thin the secondary bevel in order to put on a razor sharp edge? I've worked on a few swords in the past and have never had this much difficulty sharpening the edge. Essentially I am starting to think that the primary edge is too drastic to cut well, because the secondary bevel doesn't become thin enough at the point where the primary bevel meets... but I'm not sure. I don't want to push it and damage the blade by removing too much steel.
Any help would be appreciated.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2012 21:15:00 GMT
Start with the hand file and take your time using it to put the primary edges on the sword blade. Double edged swords take much longer than sabres because there are 4 sides to sharpen! Tom K. has a really good article on a very good method in the sword and repair section, right above where you posted your question; you can't miss it. I personally use a similiar method with a slight variation. Usually when you sharpen a sword that is completely blunt, your going to have to also polish the blade if you want the steel to look uniform and clean. I like to start with a file and use a diagnol, horizontal stroke to remove the bulk of material. Then I like to clamp my sanding block, starting with some low-grit EMERY CLOTH (Sandpaper- The kind with the cloth backing) and use a vertical motion, parallel to the length of the blade. Vertical will give you a mirror finish, horizontal will give a matte, dull finish. Depends on your preference. Take the blade up to the highest grit you feel comfortable doing. The higher the grit, the shinier it will get. I rubbed a bayonet made in Solingen that was absolutely dull and rusty too using the parallel method I just described. It works good if you have about 8 hours for each side. Use a lubricant (like oil, or sharpening fluid if you have it...water will work as well), and make sure you leave the dark, gritty fluid on the blade and cloth while your working. It's called slurry and it provides the cutting action required to remove material from the blade. Good luck to you!
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Post by ofarfo on Apr 24, 2012 16:25:24 GMT
Yeah, I would love to anchor the sword in a vice and just work the sanding plane, but I don't have a work bench yet so there has been no place to anchor the sword too. I'm thinking I'm going to run with a 400 grit emery paper and take some steel of the secondary bevel, and then lightly touch up the primary bevel to clean up the cutting area. Thanks for the run down. It sounds like you have a similar method to mine, but with a better shop setup.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2012 18:52:36 GMT
I would recommend you anchor your sanding pad, not your sword. You can clamp the sword so it doesn't move, but I personally think it's much more dangerous to anchor the sword and rub it with the sanding pad. Think about it. If your holding the sword in your hands and rubbing the sanding pad you will have much more control overall and minimize the risk of slicing your fingers off. Check out how the Japanese swords are polished on you-tube. The stones/sanding pads used are securely anchored and the blade is held in their hands and rubbed/brushed against the stone in a mostly vertical motion parallel to the length of the blade. This is the safest and most effective way to achieve a very sharp edge on a knife or sword with no secondary bevel. I do not have a shop. I have a vice that is attached to a wooden base. The sanding pad is held in the vice. The blade is held in my hands for absolute control, which is crucial to not only make your work effective but also relatively safe. If you do decide to clamp the sword and slide the sanding paper across it, I'd be real careful and attentive. The sword blade is not moving, but your hand/hands are moving up and down the blade edge area. Think about it. Once it does develop a decent edge one slip could mean serious injury to your fingers or hands. I would not start with 400 grit emery cloth. I would start with 150 grit to remove most of the material and work my way up. Using 400 grit to sharpen a sword will take a lot longer. The 150 should be used first and the 400 could probably be used the finish the sword. Just my two-cents Good luck to you!
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Post by ofarfo on Apr 24, 2012 19:51:07 GMT
I see what you mean about the safety issue, which is why I sharpen blade trailing. This way my hand passes the edge on an angle that it is unable to cut. This is also preferable to ensure that you don't cut the hand sander. I see you're side of the arguement, but I believe with larger swords you'll find that you can control the final angle better and avoid tiring your arms out by moving the smallest component with the least amount of weight. For smaller swords I get a great edge by holding both devices and grinding the emery cloth across the sword with both peices in motion. I consider this to be a free hand method. Small light swords are easily controlled in this way. The second sword is one that I sharpened in this manner. I will might try going with a lower grit abraisive for the secondary bevel as you suggested. It certainly will allow me to thin out the sword at much faster rate. Thanks for the advice. I'm just a little worried that the finish may not be as even. I'm trying to keep the sword looking pretty... definately require the functionality though, and would rather have a wickedly sharp blade than a wicked sharp lookin blade. it doesn't look like the video embedding has worked, but check out this cut video with the short filipino blade I sharpened in the free hand style mentioned above.
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Post by willhart on Apr 24, 2012 20:35:23 GMT
So my recent experience with sharpening a Hanwei Tinker Longsword.
Anyways, this was using a 160 grit belt, which was shooting tons of sparks every time I touched the blade to the belt. It still took 2 hours to remove the bevel.
When I used the file I clamped the blade down to my kitchen table. I don't have any shop room either. But I feel this is way more safe than holding the blade as you're always filing or sanding away from the edge. But the problem with this is you get to feedback if you're hitting the edge of the blade or the bevel.
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Post by lamebmx on Apr 25, 2012 1:46:27 GMT
I would mount the tool, and move the blade on it. Then you can safely use both passes to work the metal, means twice as fast. When you have the general shape, take care of any burr that has formed. from there on out work edge first, if you have the blade in hand on a stone, edge you are working away from you, push blade on stone. if you have blade mounted you will work it pushing towards the edge. this prevents a burr from forming during the polishing stage.
if its the same or similar blade as the hanwei practical hand and a half, I have not messed with it cuz Im pretty sure i would just turn it into a hollow ground primary w/ secondary which would probably make it very weak and whippy.
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Sam H
Member
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Post by Sam H on Apr 25, 2012 3:25:27 GMT
A slack belt sander works great... although its also too easy to take off too much steel. A light touch and keen eye are necessary.
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Post by ofarfo on May 3, 2012 17:19:40 GMT
I reworked the secondary bevel over about an 1 1/2hrs of hand sanding using a course med, and fine grit emery paper. The actual grit values weren't labelled. Came out pretty well. I'm not sure about the overall effect yet, but we'll see if it can work its way through Tatami next weekend. I'll post videos if its not an embarrassing outcome. :lol:
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on Jul 2, 2012 0:54:35 GMT
Just noticed this post from the newsletter. I won't go right into how I do mine as everyone does it differently. Though I don't think there's any need to get a beltsander involved to sharpen from a butter knife edge. Doing it all by hand is better. And I do prefer drawfiling over 'saw' filing.
However the thing that grabbed me is among all the talk about danger and cutting fingers off nobody mentions gloves? There are some great cut resistant gloves out there which are a combination of fibrous weaving. Even straight kevlar is a good start. For $15 they'll last the average home user years. When I first started playing with swords I'd cut myself every time the last one healed. Since I started wearing these gloves I've never cut myself. On a blade at least. Angle grinder was a different story... :-)
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