So look at this.... can you do
that with the spine of your Knife? In this video I show you 20 reasons why such
a sharp spine has the value of gold and I'll show you some simple tricks how you can achieve
this sharpness on your knife. So stay tuned.. Hello YouTube. Welcome to another video about
the victrinox Venture collection. A sharp spine on my knives is a lot more for me than just "a
nice to have". Around the topics of fire making, food prepping and woodworking, are lot of
different tasks, which can be done with the sharp back of your knife. Often it's a matter
of protecting or saving the cutting edge from your knife. But sometimes it works even better
with the spine than with the Ccutting edge. This video is not only interesting for those who bought
the Victorinox Venture this video is interesting for everyone who own an outdoor knife and want
to have a sharp spine. The special thing on the Venture is that I never had another knife in my
hand which such a sharp spine out of the box. This sharp spine is not a coincidence. We made
it intentionally because we saw the advantages, the added possibilities, the additional values
of such a sharp spine. But as I already said, you can get almost every knife spine on the
sharpness level. Especially with the trick I show you at the end. With this trick you can
achieve at least 5% extra sharpness on an already well- grinded spine. For the ones who don't like
a sharp spin,e I can just say: " You make nothing wrong." Listen on your heart and don't do it
if you don't feel saf. Later in this video I will tell you more about my thoughts, why I am
not afraid that you will hurt yourself badly on the sharp spine of your knife. If you own a
Venture and you don't like the sharp spine, just take a grinding stone and round off the
edges a little bit. This is done in a few seconds. Nothing easier than that. But if you want benefit
from the additional versatility of a sharp spine, watch this video until the end. But before we
dive into the sharpening process, I would like to show you 20 tasks in 3 minutes where a sharp
spine is a blessing. Now I would say let's go..... You can clean the cut surface of a tree
trunk so that you can prepare food on it You can round off an edge of a board You can peel the bark of a Branch You can clean roots and make them flexible
so that you can use them as binding material. You can use the sharp back of a knife to smooth
a rough surface... like with a card scraper. You can finw tune a Bow... You can descale a fish You can peel potatoes You can peel a cucumber. Yes doesn't work
perfect but if you have nothing else... do it. ...but peeling carrots works perfect. You can grate hard cheese if you want cook
spaghetti or pesto somewhere outdoors. You can also grate chocolate if you want
to make chocolate pancakes or omelets You can scrape off burn spots from from
food which was too close to the fire. With a sharp spine you can scrape off plastic, if you need tinder. In this case you can't see
the flames but believe me that works great. You can scrape off curls from a
dry stick and use them as tinder and you can use the sharp spine of your knife
to scrape off fine shavings of fatwood..... and of course you can also use the back of
your knife a striker for your ferro rod. You can also use the spine of your
knife to roughen up the surface of a bark so that it can catch
easier the sparks of a ferro rod. And again.... I really like the added versatility
that the knife with a sharp spine offers you. I don't want to be without. But so many knife
companies round off the edges of their knives because they think a knife with a sharp spine is
not a well-finished product. I agree with this for a kitchen knife. But regarding a Bushcraft
knife I'm the opposite opinion. If you think it is too dangerous for me if the whole back is
sharp, you can also take a sharpening stone and round off the edges partially at these
spots, where you think I want to put on my thumb during the carving process. Anyway, that
you get in danger to cut yourself on the spine, you need more than just the push motion. You need
also a sideways move like this and you need a lot of pressure and a lot of speed.... like this.
Yes it can happen that you cut yourself, but is this ever happen to you?? And if yes, was it
grave? Please let me know in the comment section below. But for me this isn't really a problem
I'm afraid of. All in all I just want to say that I'm super happy that Victorinox decided to
deliver the Victorinox Venture with a sharp spine, because round off a sharp spine is a lot easier
than sharpen a round spine. Now we change the place we go to my workshop and there we dive
into the three steps of the sharpening process. So welcome to my workshop. I would
say let's start with the first step: "the rough grinding step". The rough grind
step is only necessary if the spine of the blade is not sharp enough to produce sparks if
you strike it over ferro rod. On this knife the spine need a rough grind step that you get
90° angle with a more or less sharp edge. This knife for example it works not perfect,
but it works a little bit. So I would say on this spine you can over jump the rough
grind step. The Mora knives are the only ones in my collection, who are not able to produce
sparks if you strike it or ferro rod. The reason for that is that after stamping out the blades
they are not treated on the back side on the spine. They are not over grinded. So the
spine of these knives look like this.... they have a marks from the stamping out process
and the edges are quite round. All other knives are over grinded so that's why, and don't
understand me wrong I like the Mora Knives, that's why they need a rough grind step that to
get a 90° Edge more or less sharp. I made that on my Mora Companion and I had to remove half
a millimeter until I get a nice clean flat with sharp edges. If you want to do that with normal
knife sharpening systems like this Lansky Set or this TS Proof or this Apex clone you will
have problem how to hold the knife that you can sharpen the 90° spine and with this Stones
you need half a day if you want to remove half a millimeter from these blades. So for this rough
work I recommend to use a belt grinder or a bench grinder or at least a sharp file. If you have
more professional machines than me it works even better. But it works also with these cheap
machines. I don't want to waste too much words, how you have to do that. But in my case it worked
often better to keep the 90° edge if I worked like this and not like this.... or like this
and not like this. If you don't have a machine just take a good old file and do it
like this or take the big sharpening stone. Now the rough grinding work on
both moras is done. Now you are able to produce sparks and you are
able to make some fatwood curls. So I would say now you are on about 80
or 85% of the possible sharpness. But if you want to get here to this sharpness
level you have to invest a little bit more time. But nothing wrong if you stop the
work here. Nothing wrong with that. With this you can strike a ferro rod and you can
make fat wood curls, nothing wrong about... Now let's jump to the second step, the "fine
sharpening step". This step is based on the first step. You can enter also direct on the second
step, but this step require a certain basic precision and a certain basic sharpness of your
knife spine. In other words your knife should be able to produce sparks and shavings from fatwood.
So in this step we will use finer grinding tools then my bench grinder or my cheap belt grinder
or a file. Basically we use the same sharpening tools as we need to sharpen the cutting edge of
our knives. So with this sharpening systems and a little bit creativity we can produce super
clean super precise longlasting 90° spines. And now I will give you some ideas how such a
guided sharpening device for knife spines can looks like. If you have a Lansky Set at home or
something similar you can make such a guidance jig. It's just a wood block, some magnets, a screw
and a nut and the washer.... that's all. Now you can hold the knife in vise. You can adjust with
the screw the high of the guidance point. With such a digital protractor you can measure the
perfect angle for a 90° spine. Then go through from corse to super fine and after you will
have the perfect spine. Or if you like to work with such an apex system you can make something
similar so just take a pot man magnet like this... ...now you can adjust again the jig for the
perfect 90° spine and you will also have different grits. Like this you can make a perfect 90° spine.
So now we have a wonderful spine. Woww look at this performance.... this is fantastic. But you
will feel a little bur and if this is enough for you, if you don't want to go a step further, I
would recommend let let the bur on the knife. But if you want to go step further I would recommend
to remove the burr.... very carefully like this. The burr from grinding is not the best burr. In
the last step I will show you how you can make a better burr than the burr from grinding.
Of course you can also use a professional belt Sander or this Ken Onion belt sander
from Work Sharp. This works also perfect to sharpen the spine and the sanding
belts you can have in different grits, so this is perfect. Or you can also use the jig
we made to sharpen the protruding tang or the spoon carving tool. This diamond plates you can
also buy in different grits. How to make such a jig I showed you in the last video. The link for
this video you find in the description box below. So what we have now after the second step is
a plain, clean, exact and sharp 90° spine. The only thing we can add in the third step, is
five or 10% more sharpness. I show you now how this works. The technique I want to show you is
an old woodworking technique. You can use it for sharpen a card scraper like this with a burnisher.
A card scraper is a hardened piece of metal with a bur on the edges. This burr is made by pressing,
by cold forming with this burnisher. And this burr you can use like a micro plane. Due the cold
forming process of the bur with the burnisher, the material is densified and hard and that's
why this burr this is long lasting. You can also create the burr with the belt grinder for
example. Then you get the burr on this side. But there's the danger that the material get too
hot and the carbon particles from the metal burn out. Like this you never get the bur with
is long lasting. And with the Bell grinder you don't densify the material. That's why to create
the burr with a burnishing tool like this is the best way to create a hard long lasting and
sharp burr. Recently I saw a video from the YouTube channel "Machete Bushcraft Australia" and
they showed how to create a bur on the back of a machete. What I want to do now is the same on the
spine of a knife and not on a machete. To create such a bur the spine of your knife, you need a
burnishing tool. You can buy such a burnishing tool but I don't have. That's why I have to
improvise a burnishing tool. I took the shaft of this screwdriver, in this case this was hard
enough. Or I made it also with this hard metal pin and you can also try to do it with a honing
steel. I don't have much experience with this, but you can try it. Believe me, how to sharpen
a card scraper, this is a science of itself. I don't want to open this book. What i do is,
I'll show you in four steps how I do it. This doesn't mean that this is the best method
.This is just what worked for me on my knives. The drawing on step one looks like the
stamped out spine from a cheap mora knife. The drawing on step two shows us a well-
grinded spine with a proper 90° Edge. This is where we are now. On drawing number three you
can see that we have to lift the bur, so let's do this. We put our knife on a flat surface,
take the burnishing tool and we put it flat on the knife. Then we tilt it about 10° or something
like this, now we make some strokes... like this. Then we turn the blade and I
make the same on this side. Don't press too much. Okay and now you can feel a bur on
this side and here it is totally falt. On step number four I hold the knife like this... I hold the burnisher in a
90° angle to the side flat, I tilt it maybe 10° and now I push
down the exposed burr to the side... The same on the other side. And the last stroke I made, is maybe 20°,
so that the burr makes a curve like this. .....and now look at this.
I have a perfect burr. Now i have a perfect perfromance. Look at this this is a
joy... look at this shavings. At the end of this video remains the
question: can I hurt myself on this burr? And I think the risk is manageable. So
I need a lot of pressure and I need a lot of speed that I get a cut. and Hey try it
yourself. I just can say I have such a burr on all almost every Bushcraft knife
I own. And until now I never hurt myself. So my friends, that's it for today. If you want
to know more about creating a burr on a knife, please watch the video from "Bushcraft Machete
Australia". The link you find in the description box below. My English is too bad to explain you
all details of this science. So watch this video, they explain it fantastic. So this is the
last video in this year. I will do a little YouTube and social media break until mid
of January.... something like this. Thanks a lot for your support, I wish you a wonderful
Christmas and see you in the next year. Ciao!
