Getting an invisible edge
Sharpening a Ka-Bar blade such as this one will make it much easier and safer to use. Putting a keen edge on a knife blade isn’t difficult but does take a bit of practice and effort. One needs to keep in mind that knife sharpening is an old profession. It takes years to become a true master – the legendary Japanese swords needed days or weeks of manual polishing to reach their level of sharpness. Most knife edges coming straight from the factory have a good grind angle but only a marginally acceptable edge. Transforming a rough grind to a keen edge takes time and effort and skill, which costs money and commercial enterprises need to make a profit. This results in factory edges that are acceptable, but not necessarily superior.
This Becker Ka-Bar Companion BK2 was just sharp enough to pass a carefully administered paper cut test. Barely. The pictures show that the factory sharpening left some pretty deep furrows in the edge.
Now is the time to soak my waterstones and sharpen a Ka-Bar blade. There was no need to change the blade angle, just finish off the sharpening process.
After using a rough water stone, then a 3000-grit Japanese water stone and finally a 10000-grit water stone and a bit of stropping on a leather with green chromium oxide paste, the edge looks a lot nicer and the blade slices through paper with no effort at all. The angle is still high, as is necessary for an all-around knife. This angle of over 20° will work for hacking wood and keep sharper longer than had I made a finer angle as would be seen on a fileting knife. And my straight-edge razor blades need an even finer angle than that.
This knife now resides in my Emergency / Disaster Bag, although it is affixed to the outside so that it is easy to reach should I need to fend off attacking squirrels, slugs, or zombies.