Advice needed to increase freehand speed

Magnaminous_G

Magnaminous_G

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Jul 13, 2011
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I like to take my time with things. I take at least 15 minutes to take a shower, 15 minutes to get a nice wet shave in with a double edge razor, 10 minutes to brush my teeth, etc. I'm not a guy who likes to rush things. I remember having roommates in college who could literally jump in and out of the shower and be done in less than 5 minutes. That was never me, and I'm the same way with sharpening. But I realize I am taking way too long, even though I am happy with my results.

I mostly sharpen other people's knives, which come to me with factory edges that are dull and damaged. The knives I sharpen are mostly the Wustoff and Henckel's sort in X50 with the thick factory grinds running perpendicular to the spine, with a nice, shiny, rounded, butter-knife apex interrupted by rolls and chips. I'm thinking already that I should start with a coarser stone to shave time off, but does anyone have any other tips to reduce time? A powered option is not a possibility at the moment, although I think a slow belt grinder with frequent wetting would probably be a good option when I'm able to get a belt grinder. I don't want to use any powered system that spins at 3000RPM or anything else that might affect the temper.

I find myself taking a good 20 minutes at the least to satisfactorily sharpen a knife like described above. I know some have said that it shouldn't take more than five minutes, but for the life of me, I don't see how I could get it done that fast. How do you do it?

Advice appreciated in advance, thanks!

- Mag
 
Absolutely the coarsest you're comfy w/ for initial profiling (flip-side of coarse is that coarser= more damage if you misstep). Use a strip of 220 W/D flat on your work surface, that removes steel in a hurry.

But 20 minutes for a complete reprofile and secondary, by hand? I'd say you're working fast.
 
If you have to work any sort of progression then 20 minutes is good to exceptional, especially if you're working with the factory edge on an abused knife. On a touch-up, or some work on just the fine stones maybe you could shave that in half. The faster you remove stock the larger the burr will be, the higher likelihood you'll miss a stretch of edge and have to go back, the higher likelihood you didn't cleanly finish the edge off and have a burr/wire etc. I can and have done fairly comprehensive refurbishing for non-fussy coworkers in about 10 minutes. Right off the bat that means no loupe, entirely by feel and I keep any cut tests to a simple swipe through some paper and a bit of arm hair.

Use a coarser stone to start and only progress up one step, leaving the edge fairly toothy. Most of your clients can't tell the difference between a 4000 grit JIS edge and one from the coarse side of a Norton SiC stone. Certainly the dinner plate or glass "cutting" board they're liable to take it won't notice the difference either. Most folks can't even tell if a knife is dull or sharp until its butterknife dull with chips and rolls.

Edit to add: My Crystalon stone eats up cheaper kitchen cutlery steel so fast its almost overkill, probably no better in many respects than a coarse waterstone, but in general I find it to be a better choice for speed. Coarse waterstones leave fewer deep scratches, burrs, pressure bulging etc, but the hard stone leaves a better working edge.
 
The things I've noticed, that really can speed things up, are:

  • Finding which abrasives & grit sizes work best for a given steel. Sounds obvious, but this takes a lot of experimentation and will likely take the most time to figure out.
  • Use the abrasive on as hard a backing as you can
  • Take advantage of as much abrasive surface area as you can utilize. A larger surface area of abrasive also allows a faster and smoother sharpening stroke, so velocity makes abrasives work that much more aggessively.

For sheer grinding speed in quickly hogging off damaged edges or establishing new bevels, those three will return the most for the time/effort invested.

I wouldn't worry about trying to speed up edge refinement stages, because I've always felt it's counter-productive to rush things at the back end of a sharpening job. The quality of the final edge always suffers, when rushing to get there. Over time, with improvement in muscle memory, even the finishing stages will become more automatic (almost), and that'll tend to speed things up anyway. But it's best to just let that come on it's own (it will), and not worry about trying to force it to happen.

I'm a big believer in putting new edge grinds on blades that will, in themselves, be much easier to maintain by simple means like stropping, or micro-bevelling in as few as 3-5 passes on a ceramic hone. In general, that usually means somewhat more acute edges (wider bevels that are easier to feel on the stones/strops), and an edge finish that doesn't have to be re-created from the ground up every time the edge gets tuned up.


David
 
Yeah, a complete reprofile is far diff from just slapping on a working edge. My BM 522/520 work knife was already dull the other day when I cut some wire w/ it-- now a butter knife. Drove me crazy, but no time. I found a piece of 320 and spent 2/3 minutes drawing the edge over it-- DONE-- at least as far as having a good coarse working edge. Later at home I spent maybe 20 seconds w/ my handheld ceramic-- now a razor, w/ teeth. Works-- but that's a far cry from a reprofile....
 
+1 on what David said. Also avoid low grit scratches above the bevel shoulder, otherwise same of getting a speed ticket - much slower going afterward.
 
If your basing your speed on the 150 Omura that's half the problem, though a good stone it is very slow by comparison and to me seems closer to a 500-800 grit. For a starter set the waterstones you have are good but if you want more speed then a better stone and faster movements will be the two main factors.

Currently I can finish a knife in 8-10 minutes, and that's Japanese knives with much harder steel. If I tried to use the Omura for my main grinding stone it would not go so fast.

Hand speed is another big factor, if you noticed in my last video with the Norton stone I went REAL fast at one point, that's my full speed and the speed I use daily.
 
400 grit is the lowest I go, and only a few minutes at most on such a coarse stone.

I really wish I coulf teach people, its a passion.

Seeing a polished edge that silently cuts through paper is a hard earned talent.
 
Wow 20 minutes would be fantastic for me and I do sharpen at a very quick pace once I get into the right position and set-up. Really don't want to thread jack, but this is still relevant to the OP's question:

What's a good low grit waterstone 100-300 grit that can handle both softer carbon and modern wear resistant steels?
 
S30V is kinda the cut-off in steels that you would want to sharpen on a waterstone, even the best waterstones struggle and basically stop working once the wear resistance reaches a certain point.

Because you started your set with shapton glass you could always add to it. They make as low as a 120 grit.

I like Nubatama stones so I would select one from that line to best fulfill my needs.
 
I experienced the greatest increase in speed over the course of a single day and carefully studying my own technique. At the time I had muscle memory and hand speed and angle consistency up to snuff. But it was genuinely criticizing my own judgement on when it was time to move from one stage to the next. It was like an epiphany when I realized I was over working myself and the blades.
 
One of my major break throughs on sharpening speed was when instead of raising a burr and have to feel it with my fingers, you put the edge under a powerful light and sharpen until there's no reflection. This way you never spend more time than is necesary on a stone, and you are sure you've hitted the apex.
hope it helps.
 
It's all in the hips. No seriously, I'm not just making a Happy Gilmore reference...

I've found that keeping my hands stationary for the most part, and using my hips and shoulders to stroke the knife back and forth really increases the speed that I can actually move the blade at. Just something about the movement generated by including the hips gets it going way faster than if I was just trying to move the blade with only my wrists and forearms.

I don't have any grand theories about why it works, but it's how my shop instructor taught me how to use a hand file for fast stock removal and it seems to translate well to grinding.
 
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