Knife Sharping

[LordRatner]

Ya, I know sharping aint a word. anywho, I got a stone that has two sides, a light gray side and a darker gray side. What they hell do I do to sharpen my knife?

[Old Scout]

Put some oil on the stone and drag your edge across it.

[mike]

Feel it. Dark greys probably courser. Start on that side, using oil. Once you have a good edge flip the stone over

[Old Scout]

From a fishing page:

All stones are used in basically the same two ways.

One is the ‘slice the cheese’ method.
Hold the knife at a 20-degree angle to the stone. Draw the blade across and down the stone, just as if you were trying to slice off a thin slice from a block of cheese. Take two or three ‘slices’ on each side of the blade. Once the knife starts to get sharp, take one or two slices on each side, then one slice on each side.



The second method is the circular method.
Hold the blade at the same 20-degree angle, and using a circular movement, wipe the blade around the stone. Three circles on each side of the blade, reducing to two circles and then one circle as the blade sharpens.

Some stones are actually two stones joined together, one side coarser than the other. Use the coarse side to begin, and the fine side to finish. Always wipe the stone down with a rough cloth when you have finished to remove the build-up of steel dust, otherwise the pores of the stone will fill up with steel dust and reduce sharpening efficacy.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you work you just cannot achieve a decent edge on the knife. This was my problem. I slaved away at the stone, but a good edge eluded me. It was the butcher who pointed out that my problem was round shoulders. Well, not exactly my problem but the knife’s problem.

The ‘shoulder’ may need some explanation. Even the most skilled cannot maintain a precise blade angle when sharpening a knife. Eventually this will produce a round shoulder above the knife-edge, preventing achieving a straight edge. This rounded shoulder must be removed at regular intervals to allow the sharpener or hone to work over the full area of the shoulder and edge.

Fortunately, there is a terrific device on the market, a kiwi invention that gets rid of round shoulders. It is two tungsten pads set at the perfect angle to remove the ‘shoulder’ off a knife. It is a very quick but effective way to prepare a knife for final sharpening and honing. Once the shoulders have been removed, it is a much easier job to sharpen a knife.

Once the knife is sharp, give it a stroke or two with a good steel. This hones the knife - that is, straightens the feathered edge. The steel is your best ally in keeping the knife sharp, but it must be remembered that a steel does not sharpen, it merely realigns the feathered edge. I usually give the knife a pass or two over the steel, after filleting each fish. This constant tickling up of the edge maintains its sharpness. Once the steel is no longer producing a good sharp edge, it is back to the stone.

The way you use a knife can determine how long it stays sharp. A filleting knife should be used to slice through flesh, not used to push through flesh. To demonstrate this difference in the tackle shop I owned, we folded a piece of paper in half, and put the knife-edge in the fold. Then holding the outer edges of the paper, we pushed the knife against the fold. It was well nigh impossible to push the knife through the paper. But change the angle of the knife, and slice across the fold, and the knife cut through like, well, a knife through paper.

The steel used in your knife is key to how sharp it can be, and how long it will keep its edge. As a wild generalisation, stainless steel is softer than raw steel, and it is therefore easier to obtain a sharp edge. But stainless will loose its edge more quickly. But there is stainless and stainless. As always, good quality stainless will be superior to poor quality stainless, and more expensive. My knives are non-stainless and were expensive when I bought them more than a decade ago. Now that I have learned to sharpen and hone them properly, they are a joy to use.

Caring for your sharp knife is important. My filleting knives are just that, filleting knives. They are used for nothing else. They say the Lord helps those that help themselves, but Lord help those that help themselves to my filleting knives. There is no easier way to blunt a filleting knife than to use it for cutting frozen bait, mono, etc.

After filleting, my knives are thoroughly washed, more thoroughly dried, given a rub down with vegetable oil, and put to bed. If you have a full tang knife, that is a knife whose steel runs right through the handle, and the handle is made of wood, bone, or antler, do not immerse the handle in water. These natural handles will swell and eventually split, or separate from the tang. My knives are kept in a soft pouch, not leather, together with my stone and steel.

Just one other quick point about preparing fish, especially important as we are move closer to the hotter weather of summer - never prepare fish on surfaces that are used for preparing meat, chicken or vegetables. You can get very sick indeed from the beasties that can lurk in fish, when combined with the nasties that can lurk in meat and chicken.

[blah-blah]

throw that stone away and get some good diamond hones, the light grey is more than likely a finer grit use that one last. Start out with the darker side if blade is realy dull. take a quarter lay it on stone lay blade on stone with quarter under spline or backside of blade that will give you a good utility edge. stroke knife down stone keeping that initial angle. Same # of strokes both sides.
james
also it depends wether or not the blade is concave convex or flat
but the advice given above should be good

[LordRatner]

Thanks guys, I will use this info tonight

[mike]

HAHAHA should we get into the "scary sharp" method ?

[blah-blah]

no, three angle grinds might be alittle to much for newbies any one else use plate glass with 1000grit 3m sandpaper
james

[mike]

HAHA but it works soooooo well....






first I used it was on chisels, it spread from there

[blah-blah]

Do you use it on the back side of the chisel?
Make it like a mirror and then start on the front scary sharp, I agree
james

[Big_Joe]

Get a 'Lansky" sharpener... impossable to let you screw up a blade.




I myself have been known to use the Granite surface plate and jewlers rouge... "aint sharp till it's shiny"

[mike]

Originally posted by blah-blah
Do you use it on the back side of the chisel?
Make it like a mirror and then start on the front scary sharp, I agree
james

just lap em, and use a veritas jig. Easiest way I know to get the right grind.

[ForestCam]

Best way to sharpen a chisel is with a belt sander with a 180 grit belt then move on to the stone then move on to a leather "strop".

Seems like every time I grab a chisel at work I gotta go through this process, don't know what in the hell my co-workers use them for.

[blah-blah]

If you do the back first, get it nice and flat and shiny, you will get one of sharpest chisels you have ever used also the japanese chisels are easier to do this to, because the backs are hollowed out, less material to flatten. Also this method of sharpening works well for plane irons.
james

[mike]

I polish the back say inchish of plane irons, but never bothered on my chisels. I'll have to try it.

[blah-blah]

180 grit sounds kind of rough for a chisel. You can use a finer grit and have less hand work
james

[blah-blah]

Mike I think you will like the results
james

[Pazuzu]

I generally go to 600 grit stone with my knives, then a quick strop. 17 degree to start, 22 at the edge (final 2-3 swipes). Makes for a sturdier edge, and quick as fawk to touch up. Raise a burr on one side, slide it off, strop it up, shave the back of your hand, then you be done.

The first time is the hardest, setting a new edge angle and getting it sharp. Then, once a week, about 2 minutes should bring the edge back.

Try setting a factory 25 degree edge to 17 degrees with a RC of 61

I can shave paper in half the *thin* way...with a 4 inch tactical blade

[DMG]

The spyderco tri-hone works great and is almost idiot-proof. To make it supersharp use that and then red jewelers rouge on a cloth wheel on a grinder. Be careful holding the knife when it is on the wheel. Do not let the edge point into the spin of the wheel or something awful may happen!
DMG

[TexasBlake]

I use a Speedy Sharp, which is a small type thing with a carbide blade. You basically hold the knife down flat, and use the speedy sharp to sharpen the blade. Makes baldes sharp as shit in about a minute. We have to use them all the time at cookoffs because our knives get dull fast.

[SanDiegoCJ]

Originally posted by IndianaJones
I use a Speedy Sharp, which is a small type thing with a carbide blade. You basically hold the knife down flat, and use the speedy sharp to sharpen the blade. Makes baldes sharp as shit in about a minute. We have to use them all the time at cookoffs because our knives get dull fast.

You're really reaching today "Indy".