I Need help with sharpening :o(

[maddave]

One of my failings is that I can never seem to get a decent edge on a knife blade. It doesn't matter if it's a leatherman, axe or MOD survival knife, it alway seems "adequate" but I can never seem to get that crisp razors edge. Are there any good tips on sharpening, or decent websites with tutorials.

I have used carborundum stones, arkansas stones, wet & dry paper on a sheet of glass etc etc to no avail. Can anyone give me some pointers ?? :-?

[Chopper]

I had this problem until I spent £30 with axminster tools on an ice bear waterstone set, then with following uncle Rays instructions in his book Essential Bushcraft, WOW.
We now have the sharpest knives in Kent, and I have the scars to prove it. Oh and dont forget the stropping and to run the finnished edge along the edge of your car window, it really does make a huge differance. \:

[Bear Stone]

Maddave,
You'll find a modest sharpening tutorial on page 2 of this link. Click on the image to make it a little easier to read.

http://www.knifeart.com/knifearticles.html

Bear

[Andy]

in theory a stop is just making up for a less then perfect angle when sharpening. but hey the trick is to keep the angle the same all the time, this is more important then just what the angle is. i still use a steel for touching up, these help as the make the very edge staight which may have been knocked out of lineeither in use or when using a stone. the glass does the same thing. the other problem lots of people have is over sharpening as, you can damage a very delicate edge and just make things worse

[Hoodoo]

One of the most common problems I've seen is that people give up too soon. For a sharp edge, you need to bring both sides down to meet. This might sound obvious but often it is overlooked. One way to do this is to sharpen one side only until you feel a bur along the entire length of the blade on the opposite side. Once you have that bur, then you sharpen the other side the same way. Finish by stropping but be carefull. If you have a very thin edge, you can roll the edge while stropping so watch for that. A 10x magnifying glass will help you check your progress.

[maddave]

Cheers for the feedback. I'll give some of these ideas a good go and see how I get on :super:

[Adi007]

Many have added their theory of sharpenoing but what I think is just as important is the mindset that you approach sharpening with.

Take your time ... that's the best bit of advice i can give you. Remember that you are trying to wear away metal with a stone (you wouldn't want a blade that wore away to nothing too easily, would you!?!) and this takes time. To this i'd add that you shouldn't try sharpening anything when tired or rushed ... the scope for balls up is too great. One false move anc ruin a lot of work.

Work methodically and if you have to, work over several nights ... don't think that it's a "quick and easy" job.

[alick]

Dave, my suggestions are :
(i) sharpen little and often - it's a lot easier to maintain an edge if you don't let it get bad in the first place - this is why butchers constantly touch up their knives on a steel - the steel doesn't abrade the knife, just pushes the metal on the edge back into shape.

(ii) try a set of the ceramic rods, mounted in a V - you just slice a few times either side to reform the knife edge after use. I've used a £10 Lansky pocket "crock stick" version for several years and I'm just experimenting with a borrowed Spyderco sharpmaker which follows this principle but with two grades of triangular rods and more options. In the couple of days I've had it, it's fixed three kitchen devil knives from pretty wrecked back to shaving sharp and touched up my good japanese knives nicely. If I remember the poll results correctly, I think that the sharpmaker is the most popular system among the british blades crew.

(iii) a good shaving edge that cuts hair on a push stoke isn't necessarily the best for a hard use knife. It can be too fragile. A knife sharpened with a slightly coarser grit has more of a sawblade effect and can bite and cut fibrous material better in practice.

(iv) I wouldn't bother honing a field knife on leather - sure it can give a mirror polished edge and I use this on the blade of a clifton shoulder plane I use for fine woodwork, but on a hard use knife, for me, it's never been worth it.

Me - After the results of the last few days, I'll be buying a sharpmaker from Joe at ODS. It's so much easier than trying to hold a consistent angle on the waterstones, and having a set of medium as well as fine stones saves ages when rescuing a battered edge. (this is why I could never be bothered to fix the kitchen devils with the fine grade crock sticks)
Cheers.

[Shing]

All the equipement you listed should give you a good edge, could you tell me how yoou are using them at the moment?

[Burnt Ash]

Try this:

http://www.ameritech.net/users/knive...gmadeeasy.html

Burnt Ash

[Hoodoo]

Dave, my suggestions are :
(iv) I wouldn't bother honing a field knife on leather - sure it can give a mirror polished edge and I use this on the blade of a clifton shoulder plane I use for fine woodwork, but on a hard use knife, for me, it's never been worth it.

I reckon I would have to strongly disagree with this one. When you strop an edge, you are not necessarily polishing the edge and if the knife is sharpened coarsely, you won't even be close to polishing an edge. But the important thing about stropping is that you will remove the wire edge, whether the edge is sharpened coarsly or on ultrafine grit. And this is important because no matter how you sharpened the knife, if it has a wire edge, it will dull quickly. So I recommen ALWAYS to strop your knife after sharpening. IMO, of course. :-D [/quote]

[Bear Stone]

Hoodoo,
When you say a wire edge, do you mean (what the Brits would call) a burr?
When sharpening at home I use a stone but in the field I use green wood and earth. In both cases the burr is removed by lifting the angle of the blade slightly and making a couple of passes. The burr or wire edge comes off easily - no need for leather - IMO.

Bear

[Hoodoo]

Yup, a burr. I agree that you can remove the burr by sharpening it off. When I use 20 degree crock sticks, I often finish with a light touch on 25 degree crocksticks. Sometimes I will use a smooth piece of steel to remove the burr. But I still think the simplest method is to strop. A few passes on a piece of leather, web belt, or even the heel of your hand works wonders. In the field, you can peel the bark off a stick and strop on the wood. Whatever you do, you need to remove the burr if you want the edge to hold up, eh?

[Bear Stone]

Oh yes I agree, the burr has to come off. IMO it's removal is the final stage of sharpening. I'm confused, has it been suggested it should be left in place?

Bear

[Ed]

I'm confused, has it been suggested it should be left in place?

No... this hasn't been suggested. Alick in his post said

(iv) I wouldn't bother honing a field knife on leather - sure it can give a mirror polished edge and I use this on the blade of a clifton shoulder plane I use for fine woodwork, but on a hard use knife, for me, it's never been worth it

But others use the leather strop to get rid of the burr.... not make it look pretty.... hence the discussion... nothing about leaving the burr on the knife.

:-)
Ed

[Hoodoo]

IIRC, Wayne Goddard wrote an article in Blade awhile back about stropping knives and he pointed out that you have to be careful you don't roll the burr over while stropping, which will give you a really dull edge. I think he is more of the school that you raise the blade up a bit on the stone on the final few passes.

[Bear Stone]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Ed.

Bear

[Roving Rich]

ops: So which side of a belt do you use shiny or suede? And i guesss you have to gentle then?
Cheers Rich

[Hoodoo]

I kind of like the suede side but I've used both with good success. Most of the commercial strops you buy are smooth. Once you get rid of the burr, you can put a little more elbow grease into it and some buffing compound if you want to polish the edge for pushcutting. However if the edge is really fine, you can still roll it with heavy stropping. This usually will give you an edge that will shave hair on one side of the edge but not on the the other. :shock:

[Adi007]

A while back (at my local gunshop) I heard a story about a carpenter why only used carbon steel tools and kept them sharp with a ceramic sharpening stones. He never bothered cleaning the stone, he just left it outside on a window sill and the metal deposits just rusted off the surface!

I like ceramic myself ... I never bonded with the holes in the surface of most diamond stones and they just seem to always have too much bite for my liking.

I'd also like to add that I like the Spyderco Sharpmaker, the only problem is that with it, everything looks like it has a secondary bevel edge (when all you got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!)!

[MartiniDave]

I can remember as a youngster, walking round the village where I grew up with my dad, I was probably about 8 years old. He pointed out to me several window ledges that had a dished surface worn in them where the old fen boys had used them to sharpen their various knives. There were also similarly worn paving stones where labourers had put an edge on their shovels.

Sadly most of these are now gone, but it just goes to show you don't HAVE to have any specific type of stone or system, just use what works for you.

I use many types of sharpening device, Hoodoo hones, DMT "stones", bits of slate and I've even got my grandfathers razor stone.

Getting good results is more technique and practice than equipment. Don't give up too easily.

Dave

[Kath]

I can remember as a youngster, walking round the village where I grew up with my dad, I was probably about 8 years old. He pointed out to me several window ledges that had a dished surface worn in them where the old fen boys had used them to sharpen their various knives. There were also similarly worn paving stones where labourers had put an edge on their shovels.

Sadly most of these are now gone, but it just goes to show you don't HAVE to have any specific type of stone or system, just use what works for you.

I use many types of sharpening device, Hoodoo hones, DMT "stones", bits of slate and I've even got my grandfathers razor stone.

Getting good results is more technique and practice than equipment. Don't give up too easily.

Dave

Absolutely!

To add my 2cents ... I think it's because knives are so 'fancy' these days. Who'd want to sharpen something they've paid so much for (and hold in such reverence) on a paving slab or a windowsill? Knives used to be passed down to kids from parents and grandparents, they were made to last and they were made to be used.


(I'll be hiding from Adi007 for the rest of the day after saying this of course! :wink

[Adi007]

Sharpening modern steels in a traditional way is harder ... Older carbon steels were much easier to sharpen than, say, VG-10. I remember my grandfather being able to get a razor edge on a pocket knife using nothing more than a milk bottle!

Also add to this the fact that we are now sold stainless blades - they are nice and shiny when we get them and we want to keep em that way!

Personally, I think that the sooner you get a scratch on the blade, a few spots of rust and get the handle dirty, the sooner you'll get on and use it ... after all, they are just tools!

[Keith_Beef]

I can remember as a youngster, walking round the village where I grew up with my dad, I was probably about 8 years old. He pointed out to me several window ledges that had a dished surface worn in them where the old fen boys had used them to sharpen their various knives. There were also similarly worn paving stones where labourers had put an edge on their shovels.

Sadly most of these are now gone, but it just goes to show you don't HAVE to have any specific type of stone or system, just use what works for you.

I use many types of sharpening device, Hoodoo hones, DMT "stones", bits of slate and I've even got my grandfathers razor stone.

Getting good results is more technique and practice than equipment. Don't give up too easily.

Dave

In my bit of Sheffield, all the houses have two or three steps leading up to the back (kitchen) door. The steps, especially the top step, is always rounded. As a kid, I was told that the stone had been worn away from a combination of sharpening the kitchen knives, and from cleaning the step with a "donkey stone".

I've also read a connected story about why stainless knives got a reputation for bluntness. It seems that when all kitchen knives were plain carbon, the women used to rub the flats againts the back step to polis off any rust spots. Without setting out to do so, they were sharpening at the same time. So the women thought that carbon steel knives needed no sharpening. Along came "Firth Rust-Free" and the like, and there was no need to polish on the back step... and so the knives were no longer getting an accidental sharpening session every friday. So all the stainless knives blunted quickly.


Keith.