That’s Not A Knife - This is a Knife

[BeSharp]

Had a request to sharpen a sword with a 38.5" (1 meter) blade:

https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapon/herald-series-medieval-weapons/the-marquis-medieval-sword/

Blade is EN-45 high carbon spring steel.

Fortunately my "rig" has two T-7's side by side, each with a 25" / 65cm long double-sided aftermarket universal support bars.

To take advantage of that, I used two Tormek SVM-140 long knife jigs.

[BeSharp]

Had to increase support bar to knife edge distance to 150mm to clear the blade guard.

Blade thickness behind edge is about 2mm. I'm used to .5mm in kitchen knives. So, the blade is 4 times as thick, 4 times as long, and there's 2 times as many blades = 32 times more steel to grind than an average 8' / 200mm kitchen knife. Yup, I'm starting with the 80 grit CBN stone!

Goniometer shows 30 degree angle.

After grinding, changed to the 400 grit stone.

[BeSharp]

This is how much metal came off this ONE knife, er, sword.

Tips:

1) don't raise the handle too much when doing the tip. Remember the sword is over a meter long!
2) don't have to press down too much - the sword is heavy enough (3 lbs 10 ozs / 1.8 kg), let gravity help you
3) when switching directions, it's easier to first put it straight down with the tip on a mat.
4) if someone asks you to sharpen one, don't : )

I did this merely out of curiosity. Don't think I want to do it again. Didn't both honing it or removing the wire edge. Still, managed to cut (sorry) the BESS number in half.

And, no, this isn't an April's Fool joke : )

[John_B]

I just hope all the sharpeners out there know that touching the edge of a truly antique sword will greatly diminish its value. Just like cleaning coins or firearms.