filipino sword sharpening help

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Jan 2, 2005
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I've recently bought a ginunting from www.traditionalfilipinoweapons.com, and I was hoping someone who has experience with these could instruct me on the proper way to touch it up and re-sharpen it.

The edge almost looks convex, but I'm pretty sure it's not, I asked the owner of TFW what the proper method was, but he said I should send it off to a expert for that. I practice with it frequently and do use it as a tool occasionally, so sending it off will become too expensive/not worth it in the long run.

I'm thinking I can touch it up with a ceramic stick and when it's time to re-sharpen I could use my water stones. I mean after all a ginunting is basically a machete, so I'm figuring that it shouldn't be any different to sharpen.

any suggestions/help would be awesome!
 
i had one their ginuntings...i think they were convex grind, but cant really remember. most of the talibons and ginuntings i got from the Philippines are convex. anyway, i usually just touch up the edge with the finest side of a regular Emery board (yes the nail file :)...then again, it depends how bad you dulled up the edge. i usually spot check my swords, especially the edges, right after use to avoid going to ceramics or stones. this seems to work fine for me.
 
awesome thanks!!!

I'll prob be using 1500 grit sandpaper to lightly touch up afterwards, which I think is really close to the grit on the emory board. And if it gets really dull I'll prob have to resort to the mousepad sandpaper trick to preserve the convex.

The thing that stumps me about convex edges is a lot of traditional knives/swords possess them, but how the heck did they sharpen them in the field / jungle back in the day?

That's been the million dollar question for me for quite a while.
 
Jack,

The edge is zero ground and not convex. The one I have is the older model which I bought from Saint O' killers. It starts out a lil hollow then its flat for the most part.

Depending on what type of media u cut, you may have to go back to coarser paper.

I used a block of wood as a sanding block and some grinding belts and paper. I started all the way back with 400 and stopped at 800 for a more aggressive edge. 1500 will not be aggressive enough if you use it as a tool to cut branches lets say.

Good luck
 
chugokujin and saint

thanks so much for all the help, I now have all the info I need to maintain my ginunting..

you all ROCK!!! thank you all so so so much!
 
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