Hey fatcat55,
Sorry you are having problems sharpening the Pilots survival.
Let's see if I can help you out.
The #499 (Ontario Designation for Pilot Survival knife) has a fairly thick blade stock with a short primary grind. This makes it more difficult to bring to a razor edge than a thin paring knife. The 499 was originally designed to pound, rip and saw a pilot out of a crashed airplane; then if you survived, the knife could be used as a survival tool until rescue. Emphasis of the blade was not necessarily on extra keen sharpness.
Having said this, it can still be sharpened to a pretty good edge.
Try using a set of flat stones. 1095 steel will sharpen well on them.
1) Depending on how dull the edge is, start with a medium or coarse stone. (The duller the knife the coarser the stone.)
2) I place a bright light directly over the stone.
3) Lubricate the stone liberally with oil or water
4) Lay the knife blade flat on the stone. Edge toward you. There will be a shadow under the edge from the light.
5) Slowly rotate the back of the blade upward until the shadow under the edge disappears. Now the edge is flat on the stone. That is the edge angle you are trying to maintain.
6) Pull the knife toward you at a 45 deg angle from shoulder to tip. The angle changes around the belly of the blade so always look to keep the edge flat on the surface. Repeat on the opposite side of the edge.
7) Keep the side to side sharpening until the entire edge is sharp. I drag the edge lengthwise across the top of my finger nail. If the edge is sharp there will be a drag. There will be a smooth skip/slip over the places that are not sharp.
8) A tip some people use is to color both sides of the edge with a Sharpie Marker. The correct sharpening action will remove the color as the edges get sharpened.
9) When the entire edge drags consistently across your finger nail, then move to a finer grit. Repeat the above steps being careful to maintain that angle.
10) I use 3 stones (coarse, med, fine) and a super fine crock stick. The true secret is to work carefully and maintain that initial angle. Do not rush the procedure. It becomes easier each time you successfully sharpen your knife
11)The sharpening kits (there are a myriad of them) all work but it takes time to learn the intricacies of them all. The flat stones give the user a lot of freedom with the angles. Sometimes that is a double edged sword (pun intended)
The Lansky System will work but in order to get the angle exactly to the factory angles, you will have to do some playing around to get the hones to lay precisely flat on the edge. This may be the issue you are having.
Hope this helps. Good luck
Best Regards,
Paul Tsujimoto
Dir. of Engineering
Ontario Knife
