Just wondering if anyone has ever used, sharpened, or had experience with Leech Lake Knives. I scored a second hand one and have used it for the first time a week ago. Very lightly used but would like to touch it up a little. No real bad spots on it but think a light maintenance would do it wonders. Would you just use a light ceramic stick to true it a bit? How would a person sharpen the front portion of the spine edge decently? This thing felt like quality as soon as I grabbed it, and would hate to bugger it up!
Sounds like a ceramic hone would work great to touch it up. Keeping the edge is only necessary based on how often you use it and what you use it on. A picture would be nice to ogle on here, you know... Also if you want a recommendation for a sharpener, I tested a WorkSharp Ken Onion Angle Set Knife sharpener that works beautifully and has 3 different stones that turn on a swivel. Makes it easy to pack on a trip if you’re cutting meat say camping or hunting or whatnot. I’ve yet to be disappointed.... I have used belt sharpeners and while I like them they are less recommended because they heat up the blade and may lose the temper. Throwing caution but I’ve used them with great results so I’ve gone manual for that matter. there’s other decent sharpeners out there as well, this one just has angles to set so it takes the guesswork out of the picture.
I have a diamond stone and a ceramic stick, and stumbled across a cheap little hand held plastic holder with small ceramic sticks set at an angle that I think came with a Rapala knife. I only used the cheap Rapala one and bam is the Leech Lake Knive back in fine form!
Tried getting a close up of the engraving on the blade but can't get the camera to see it the best. On the one side it says 1996 SS. I think the SS stands for Super Steel, or at least I read something that made reference to that on these knives. Not bad for a $10 rummage sale scrounge.
Nice. My dad has one like this, very similar. Nice knife. I too have a knife in high polish. So I do wonder about sharpening it because there’s no rough metal at the blade angle and the person who made it isn’t alive anymore. I’d probably use the ceramic on it for the rest of its life.
Talking with someone who lived on Leech Lake and met the original owner, they said part of his process was to end up using buffing wheels in the sharpening process. This was to maintain the whole mirror finish and to sharpen to not leave a burr on the edge. They also said you can send in your knives 1x a year for sharpening, so if things really go south I may look into that.
