Sharpening an Albion

Send it back to albion to do it

I typically do it by hand instead of using any powered tools for fear of damaging the edge.

I rest the pommel on the ground and hold the blade in one hand, then carefully sharpen with a small whetstone, following the existing edge angle and geometry. Then followed by stropping.

Albion's edge geometry is already very conducive for cutting, so the sharpening is just a touch up and shouldn't be much work

Well, against all advice, I took the plunge. I followed the exact method outlined by Karl Bolle in this video , but on my WorkSharp Ken Onion with Blade Grinder attachment. I made a few modifications.

1). I put painters tape 1 inch from the tip, and 2 inches from the guard. I wrote 1,2,3,4 on the tape to mark the order I was sharpening the edges so I wouldn’t lose my place. I sharpened between the 2 pieces of tape using your exact method and It produced a razor sharp edge.

2). When I got to my 7000 grit belt, I took the tape off and did the whole length of the blade. This did not sharpen the tip or near the guard, but it made it so the mirror polish continued the full length of the blade. I then used 12,000 grit for many passes at the end.

3). After sharpening, I taped off the roughly 1.5mm of mirror polished edge and refinished the blade with a grey Scotchbrite. This removed any mistakes I made and blended the edge finish with the rest of the blade without affecting the edge.

The result turned out great, the secondary bevel is almost imperceptible. The only difference in appearance is a 1mm mirror polished edge. The blade is razor sharp and will push cut paper with ease. Only time will tell if the edge will maintain factory durability, but I don't intend on doing any serious cutting, so I am not worried.

Ended up going with 20 degrees per side. I tried taking pictures, but it just looks like a normal Albion, If I zoom in to focus on a segment of the edge that highlights the difference, it won't focus properly.

Let me use this as a final opportunity to present my experiences here.

20deg per side seems to be the standard in knives for some reason, but a lot of people who appreciate performance, both knife and sword users, modify their tools/toys. I personally find it very steep (it is almost half of a 90deg angle after all) for both knives and swords. About 25deg inclusive is what I consider a good cutting edge for both knives and swords. In swords it would ideally be blended with the main bevel. It is plenty durable as long as the edge is slightly convexed and very easy to touch up. You can still influence the durability of the edge as a knife or sword maker, even with the same sharpening angle, depending on how thick the blade is behind the edge, which itself depends on the type of a sword and how narrow or wide it is from the profile.

Quality puukko knives for example, used for woodworking and general farm chores, often have main bevels around 18deg inclusive, with a tiny microbevel from stropping, just barely steeper. And wood is tougher to cut than cloth and flesh. With swords, it's easy to compare the difference between 40deg and 25deg inclusive when cutting cloth, we had some conversations about it here on the forum. Of course cutting performance depends on several other factors, like sword's stiffness, length, weight, balance and last but not least, its user.

Plenty of historical swords have thin edges, you can sometimes see it on photographs if the angle is right. Plenty of damaged historical swords have huge nicks and parts of the edge missing which would not happen to a modern 'sword bludgeon' with 25deg per side and thick behind the edge. But it seems that OP is not interested in cutting.


And some, maybe too many, modern customers and sword makers imagine there is some historical 'battlefield sharp' (and even funnier is that they imagine they know how swords were historically used on battlefields) which shouldn't be expected to cut printer paper (after all paper is not the enemy ) and produce swords with such edges. It is probably rooted in the modern practice of 'knights' fighting in plate armour and hacking at one another with blunt swords, with little effect beside some occasional brain damage. This is a practice that had its heyday 10-15 years ago and it has been since surpassed by modern HEMA, but still exists.

These swords are thick behind the edge and barely qualify as sharp. They will not even cut through an ordinary cotton jacket. A person dressed in a proper gambeson/linen armour would laugh at cuts made with such a blade. In the end, such makers, both production and custom, simply produce swords that are not functional as weapons. They just look good. Unless of course you consider a sword to be a bludgeon, but in that case why even bother (just use a metal bar, a mace or maybe an axe). I wonder how historical is that?


Albion fortunately does not belong to this group, though I'm sure that exceptions happen. They are often thinner and have shallower angles than a lot of modern knives and, in my experience cut well. Some people consider them to be too fragile, because they would deform more on impact than a bludgeon sword would. But who in their right mind would hack with a sword against someone in heavy maille or plate armour, unless truly desperate?

Which brings another point - how often were swords actually used in battles in the mid- to late medieval period? A lot of battles were simply sieges, some were surprise assaults, some of them were decided by archers or cavalry charges where horses and lances were the proper weapons. Some other were decided by infantry charges carrying long spears or polearms etc. There were also instances of a superior force marching into a poorly defended territory, forcing their opponents to surrender. In all of them it was the mind of the commander and the heart of the soldier that brought victory. Were swords really more than glorified side weapons, symbols, used at most for hacking at routed enemies or murdering common people refusing to give up their possessions after the siege? Who knows? But that is a different subject.

based off of the number of passes it took to reach the proper bevel, I would estimate the factory edge wasn't much more than 21 degrees. Albion says 22, but everything is hand ground. I also put the same edge on a machete and did some abusive testing and it held up great.

I had been putting 25° on all blades, except in a few special cases. Mostly out of laziness so as not to have to remember what blade has what. Recently I’ve been changing to 22½°. I know from theory that is cutting better. But in practice I see no difference in efficiency nor durability, although I probably would if measured and kept a record. So, I’m slowly changing the angle when a piece needs sharpening. I did decrease the angle from 20° to 17½° on one machete and it didn’t seem as durable, but will test further. So, it appears at present 20-22½° is going to be best for me.

As for today, I finally got around to dressing down the edge on my Windlass XIV. I notice flash about a month ago and brought the sword to office to remind me. I almost did it last weekend but something came up. I started again yesterday, but in the month, more or less, that it sat in the office the filler material they put in the guard to support the blade let go, it rattled. That took precedence. Today I sharpened. I do not know the grind angle, whatever MRL used. It looked like I may have touched up the edge at some point as the grind marks are not as obvious as I remember MRL’s or KoA’s. On the final inspection before commencing, I discovered a wire edge on both edges. Ooppps, it must have been an oversight on my part but not only was it cutting backyard targets and surprisingly slicing newspaper, so that went unnoticed. Only recently I noticed the flash in the sunlight. Wishing to remove the wire edge only I broke out the leather strop, and applied the red rouge on the rough side but the wire edge remained. I then went to 1000 grit paper, I had intended 1500 grit, and a small padded wood block and carefully worked the edges with WD-40 until smooth. It sliced newspaper nicely before, now like a razor. The end result was faster than using my WS as planned.

I’ll admit the edge in the video, which I bookmarked, and am sure the edge you put on your Albion, are superior, competition grade if you will, but are better than I need on a back yard sword or a working machete or kukri. The latter two being subject to abuses such as striking a rock. But all of which are maintained at newspaper cutting sharp. I’ll be the first to admit technically mine could be sharper, but how sharp do I need to worry about or how to get there? For my purposes what I have work fine. I’m sure some of our readers will benefit from what you did. And that is nice to know information.

FWIW I’m a convex fan, one reason I don’t seek out flat polishing mediums although I have some.

That's correct, and probably one of important reasons for evolution of sword blades throughout history. My point here is, that it is worth to experiment and try different approaches before one settles for something. It's far too easy to just try one thing, see that it works 'ok' and never try anything else. After all, there are better and worse tools for many jobs, things are relative only to a certain point.

I hope my posts helped in some way, otherwise my apologies for derailing your thread.