Angle sharpener vs freehand

I'm mediocre at best at freehand sharpening. I can do it in a pinch, but it's not my preferred sharpening method. If you can develop the skill, it's much cheaper to do it freehand. That being said, I much prefer the accuracy and repeatability of the Wicked Edge. I just write down the position of the knife in the clamp and can just tune out and listen to music while sharpening.

darkcruzer said:
project farm tested knife sharpeners that use angles, and a stone by hand. he tested sharpness, then tried to dull them to find out which held an edge better. only the $900 wicked edge held a better edge than the stone and he claims to be a rookie at using stones
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The cheapest Wicked Edge will do the same job and it's not even close to the $900 price range.
 
This is my most high-performance knife. Bluntcut made it out of Rex 121 at 70 Rc. The edge width (behind the edge) is 0.007 inches. The bevel on each side is 0.032 inches wide (apex to edge shoulder).

The edge angle is 15 dps. The blade width near the scale is 0.7 inches.

If I sharpen it at 14 dps, the spine will be 0.1745 inches off the stone.

If I sharpen it at 15 dps, the spine will be 0.1876 inches off the stone.

If I sharpen it at 16 dps, the spine will be 0.2007 inches off the stone.

In other words, the difference in the spine height off the stone is just 0.0131 inches between 14 and 15 dps or 15 and 16 dps. That difference is about the width of three sheets of copy paper. You have to be really, really, really good to hold those tolerances freehand. Maybe you are that good. The vast bulk of us are not.

What happens in freehand sharpening is the hand wobbles -- just a bit for someone with a well-developed brain pathway for sharpening at a set angle to a whole lot for someone with just average sharpening skills. That wobble continually changes the angle of the edge. Good sharpeners overcome this lack of precision by following the burr and have little trouble making a knife very sharp. But they always remove more metal than needed. And they remove more metal than someone using a guided system. And their edge never looks as clean as the edge produced by a jig-guided system.


2v2anug5LxAWtWs.jpg
 
These images are drawn to scale.

The photo on the left is a 15 dps edge done with a Wicked Edge. It's dead on.

The photo on the right is someone freehanding a 15 dps edge. They get one side at 17 degrees and the other side at 13 degrees. And their stone gets a bit off a couple other places. The difference between the distance at the edge shoulder between a 15 and 17 degree edge is just 0.004 inches on a 0.1 inch edge height. Four thousandths of an inch. Not many people can hold a stone to that precision.

The freehand edge is still sharp. Probably cuts as well. But the edge is not symmetrical. One shoulder is a bit higher than the other. The edge starts to get off center. The apex moves up into the blade a bit. Not a lot, but over time, it becomes a problem. And more metal is removed off the freehand edge. I'd expect this difference to be someone who has a lot of muscle/brain memory. A person new to sharpening will be worse that what is shown.

2v2aGiJnvxAWtWs.jpg
 
The problem freehanders face is getting rid of the burr. With a guided system, the burr is cut off quickly because the burr is leaning away form the stone (left diagram). If you continue the stroke, the burr will reform on the other side (left diagram). With a guided system, you can cut off the burr cleanly with a short stroke -- maybe a quarter of an inch with light pressure. Freehanded, you might cut off part of the burr, but you're likely to leave a small burr.

After the burr is cleanly removed with a guided system, stropping is highly effective, because you're stropping a clean apex.

Freehanded, might still work, if you strop on a soft base, such as leather. Or you might just straighten the burr out, leaving a very sharp edge that will dull a little faster on the first cut than an edge created on a clean apex.

2v2HqonC5xAWtWs.jpg
 
I'm just trying to encourage beginners to learn how to freehand. It's not some black magic thing that takes years of practice and it is a skill that will serve them well throughout their life's.

As an example I am the one that touches up the knifes in elk camp and if I'm there they hand me their knifes doing the field work too. These guys are veteran hunters and skilled in every other aspect.
They have just never learned how to free hand sharpen a knife. One of them uses a guided system at home and I can't really do his knife justice because there is a transition in his bevel profile where there is a belly in the blade and he reclamps going towards the tip. Showing up with a sharp knife and being able to maintain it are two different things.
Such good outdoorsmen and hunters but they could be a little better.
 
Twindog said:
These images are drawn to scale.

The photo on the left is a 15 dps edge done with a Wicked Edge. It's dead on.

The photo on the right is someone freehanding a 15 dps edge. They get one side at 17 degrees and the other side at 13 degrees. And their stone gets a bit off a couple other places. The difference between the distance at the edge shoulder between a 15 and 17 degree edge is just 0.004 inches on a 0.1 inch edge height. Four thousandths of an inch. Not many people can hold a stone to that precision.

The freehand edge is still sharp. Probably cuts as well. But the edge is not symmetrical. One shoulder is a bit higher than the other. The edge starts to get off center. The apex moves up into the blade a bit. Not a lot, but over time, it becomes a problem. And more metal is removed off the freehand edge. I'd expect this difference to be someone who has a lot of muscle/brain memory. A person new to sharpening will be worse that what is shown.

2v2aGiJnvxAWtWs.jpg
Click to expand...


Yep. And this is why I do not free hand expensive or collectible knives. Fast and dirty freehand for a cheap kitchen knife, sure go for it. If you want a nice, exact 17° on your $1000 Shiro... use a sharpener and an angle cube.
 
My experience freehand sharpening is pretty limited since I am still in the process of figuring it out. I have used an older Spyderco Sharpmaker system for a while and it has always provided me with excellent results and is very easy to use.
I have recently started to use ceramic bench stones from Spyderco and to be honest there is a learning curve to it. I don't really need to learn how to freehand sharpen but I have been wanting to learn how to do it. It is kind of like learning how to use a calculator that is RPN instead of algebraic. It is just something that is fun to do and freehand sharpening is like for me.

I can get what I consider to be a good edge either way and it takes less time doing it with the Sharpmaker but it is not as satisfying as when I do it with my bench stones.
 
I've been free hand sharpening for years. I consider myself slightly above mediocre :p . I can get a sharp edge. It might not be pretty but it's sharp. That is good enough for me. I don't chase the mirror polish like some do.

I also like to encourage folks to get into free hand sharpening. I feel that is becoming a lost art nowadays.

Another benefit of free hand sharpening. If you are camping or hiking for any length of time, you can keep your tools sharp with just a pocket stone. It is easy to leave a sharpening stone in a camper, cabin, go bag, tackle box, vehicle, etc. for anything that might come up. I prefer a double sided stone or one of those folding types with a handle and 2 grits as well.

My free hand sharpening system cost me a little over $100 IIRC.
$90 for the DMT DiaSharp 6" diamond stone kit. 4 grits on 2 stones.
$10 for green stropping compound.
$5-8 for a wide, leather belt from Goodwill that I turned into a strop.
 
gazz98 said:
Another benefit of free hand sharpening. If you are camping or hiking for any length of time, you can keep your tools sharp with just a pocket stone. It is easy to leave a sharpening stone in a camper, cabin, go bag, tackle box, vehicle, etc. for anything that might come up. I prefer a double sided stone or one of those folding types with a handle and 2 grits as well.
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That's why you carry multiple knives. 😜
 
I want to be able to sharpen all kind on blades including dual bevel knives, single bevel knives, scissor, axes, chisels, planes, straight razors… In my opinion free hand sharpening is the only way to do it. A freehander gets also much more abrasive material for the money and is able to dilute the slurry as needed.

I don’t find guided sharpening interesting and that is the biggest limiting factor for me in a long run.
 
Tapio said:
I want to be able to sharpen all kind on blades including dual bevel knives, single bevel knives, scissor, axes, chisels, planes, straight razors… In my opinion free hand sharpening is the only way to do it. A freehander gets also much more abrasive material for the money and is able to dilute the slurry as needed.

I don’t find guided sharpening interesting and that is the biggest limiting factor for me in a long run.
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I am going to say that using my Sharpmaker is really easy for sharpening scissors, I don't think I am going to go through the trouble to learn how to do them freehand. I sharpen them so infrequently that it would take close to a decade to have sharpened them enough times to even be called a novice.
 
I can freehand sharpen if I have to, but never really happy with how it comes out. I want it to be perfect...even bevels, and dial in the exact angle I want. So it's a guided system for me. I write down the angle for each knife, so it makes for a quick and easy set up when you need to touch up the edge.
 
I prefer freehand. It's more time spent with the knives and I have learned a lot about different steels, angles and sharpening stones. For me sharpening is a big part of owning knives and one of my favorite things to do with them
 
DavidABQ said:
I am going to say that using my Sharpmaker is really easy for sharpening scissors, I don't think I am going to go through the trouble to learn how to do them freehand. I sharpen them so infrequently that it would take close to a decade to have sharpened them enough times to even be called a novice.
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I think that scissors are pretty easy to sharpen free hand. In my opinion you only need to know the the basic concepts of sharpening. Many blades, like gouges and single bevel knives, for example, require more skill to sharpen free hand. Gouges are tons of fun to sharpen using a figure eight motion.
 
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Twindog said:
The problem freehanders face is getting rid of the burr. With a guided system, the burr is cut off quickly because the burr is leaning away form the stone (left diagram). If you continue the stroke, the burr will reform on the other side (left diagram). With a guided system, you can cut off the burr cleanly with a short stroke -- maybe a quarter of an inch with light pressure. Freehanded, you might cut off part of the burr, but you're likely to leave a small burr.

After the burr is cleanly removed with a guided system, stropping is highly effective, because you're stropping a clean apex.

Freehanded, might still work, if you strop on a soft base, such as leather. Or you might just straighten the burr out, leaving a very sharp edge that will dull a little faster on the first cut than an edge created on a clean apex.
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Why the burr would behave differently free hand vs. guided systems? A hard piece of leather is the softest strop I use. Never had any proplems to remove the burr after free hand sharpening. In my experience few passes on a piece of newsprint is enough to remove all the burr.
 
kane22 said:
I can freehand sharpen if I have to, but never really happy with how it comes out. I want it to be perfect...even bevels, and dial in the exact angle I want. So it's a guided system for me. I write down the angle for each knife, so it makes for a quick and easy set up when you need to touch up the edge.
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Me too. I love my Wicked Edge 130. I have about $2000 in it with most of the bells and whistles. But I do believe that everyone should learn how to freehand because you never know when you might need it.
When I bought my WE130, I checked my knives that I freehand sharpened and found that my natural freehand sharpening was about 17dps on one side, and about 13dps on the other. All these years I thought that I had the sides pretty even when they were about 4dps different. They were still sharp though. But the Wicked Edge is just so much easier with perfect results. There's just no comparison, especially if you break out the microscope.
 
This might help some free hand sharpeners. I'm not suggest a beginner emulates this guy %100 and sharpens with a stone in one hand and knife in the other.
Just noting how he finds the bevel angle by feel and sight.

Different sharpening might have different goals in mind also. Touching up a knife while field dressing big game vs sharpening a prized sashimi knife for instance.

 
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