Attempted sharpening with rod - ended up dulling the knife completely

D

derukun

Joined
Oct 7, 2013
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4
Okay so I bought a Kershaw Chill just a week ago, and noticed it was already starting to dull (couldn't cut through paper) and at the moment the only piece of sharpening equipment I have is a sharpening steel rod for the kitchen knives, read up a bit on angles and gave it a try... only to find that after attempting to sharpen my chill, it is not completely dull (and I mean DULL... even with force applied on paper it will not cut through. I could probably run it on my finger without cutting myself.)

IS there anything I can do to fix this with what I have? I was using a 20-30 degree angle, starting from the back of the knife, pulling towards me as I moved it downwards on the rod.

Need help quick, I need this knife to be in working condition for work tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Upon closer inspection it seems that on one side of the edge there is a sort of lip protruding... only felt by my fingernails. Not sure if that's useful information or not but there it is.
 
What you have is a burr, and you need to stroke lightly on your rod the side of the blade that has the burr until it is gone. Light pressure is the key, so you don't flip the burr over to the other side. The rod you have is designed to roll an edge back when formed by cutting hard materials or against a hard surface with your kitchen knives. The steel on the kitchen knives is much softer than the steel on your Chill. Not designed for such knives, but it might help repair the damage you have suffered. Good luck. Get yourself a stone or other means to sharpen your knife for the future.

Blessings,

Omar
 
Thanks! It seems to also help to just dig the blade into something (an old book), for some reason. It's not as sharp as it could be, but at least it's not dull anymore. Will probably invest in that Spyderco sharpmaker eventually.
 
Try this.
Take the cardboard from the back of a pad of paper and lay it on the edge of a flat table. Do trailing strokes. The spine leads as you go back and forth rasing the the spine up and towards the tip at the end of every pass.
This will get rid of the burr on the edge of your kershaw.

By the way, "Kitchen knives" can be just as hard or harder than your Kershaw depending on the hardness of each knife and pocket knives can benefit from honing with a butchers steel as much as any other knife.

A butchers steel realigns the edge.
 
To remove a burr when sharpening I general do a perpendicular mild pressure slice into a piece of wood that also happens to have my leather hyde stroping leather glued down the length. I do two "slices" into the wood and then strop. Speaking of stropping I've actually recovered a mildly dulled blade (from everyday use) with just stropping.

As for the OP and his blade issue, since you don't seem to have any sharpening tools I would recomend looking into using the underside of a coffee mug for actual sharpening. Look it up on YouTube and you'll quickly see what I'm talking about. I've gotten knives sharp enough to shave with using the underside of a ceramic mug, cup, plate and other assorted ceramic items. The reason you want the underside of a mug is so that you have the part of the ceramic available to you that hasn't been glazed during the firing process. It's the "rough" bit of ceramic on the underside of just about every coffee cup, mug, plate, etc. and once you get the hang of it you can actually get a very sharp edge.

Remember, if you learn to sharpen a knife the old fashioned way then you'll ALWAYS have a "tool" at hand that you can use to sharpen into the future. I can't reccomend highly enough learning the propper way of sharpeining as it's like riding a bike, once you learn you never forget. Once you master an inexpensive sharpening stone (use an inexpensive knife to practice with) you can then move on to more sophistcated sharpening systems since you'll already have that knowledge. I really can't advise strongly enough to learn the stone first before buying other systems. If you do it the other way around, you'll have very sharp knives at home but if you go camping, or are in an emergency and you need a very sharp knife, if you don't know the stone you'll be lost and have to do with a dull knife or tool.

Just my 2 cents.
 
derukun said:
Okay so I bought a Kershaw Chill just a week ago, and noticed it was already starting to dull (couldn't cut through paper) and at the moment the only piece of sharpening equipment I have is a sharpening steel rod for the kitchen knives, read up a bit on angles and gave it a try... only to find that after attempting to sharpen my chill, it is not completely dull (and I mean DULL... even with force applied on paper it will not cut through. I could probably run it on my finger without cutting myself.)

IS there anything I can do to fix this with what I have? I was using a 20-30 degree angle, starting from the back of the knife, pulling towards me as I moved it downwards on the rod.

Need help quick, I need this knife to be in working condition for work tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: Upon closer inspection it seems that on one side of the edge there is a sort of lip protruding... only felt by my fingernails. Not sure if that's useful information or not but there it is.
Click to expand...

^^That's definitely a burr, and definitely useful to know. ;)

If the edge on the blade was the factory edge, steeling it on the rod might not've helped anyway. If it was very obtuse (>40°), it's very difficult to 'fix' it on a steel. In fact, it may've been a factory burr that initially was cutting anyway. If it dulled faster than expected, that's exactly what a burr will do (it folds under use). Steeling a wide(ish) factory edge with a burr on it can easily end up rounding and/or blunting the edge further.

I'd first look at re-grinding to a more reasonable edge angle (~30° inclusive or so), then go from there. The steel rod likely isn't aggressive enough for that. BUT, if you were so inclined, you could tightly wrap a layer of wet/dry sandpaper around the rod to more quickly re-bevel (220-400 grit). This is only one idea for a quick & inexpensive solution. But, if you're not comfortable with this technique, it may be better to use a stone or guided system for that. If you do want to give it a try, experiment with an 'expendable' blade first (or several).


David
 
You said you used a "sharpening steel rod." Is it smooth? In that case, it removes no metal. It only aligns the edge. It might straighten a burr temporarily until use bends it again.

If it is the kind with groves, it works like a file. If the knife blade is soft enough, a grooved steel may remove lots of metal from the blade and give you a "toothy" sharp edge. (This used to be the process with butchering knives.) It could even produce a burr. If the steel is softer than the knife, it has the same effect as a smooth steel.

You might try obtaining a true sharpening device.

We now return to our regular programming.
 
The rod is quite smooth... it looks like this http://www.thebay.com/webapp/wcs/st...pening-steel?gclid=CIGM64CRhroCFVOe4Aod-kQAhQ. In fact I think it's the exact same model, it's a Zwilling rod.

I managed to fix the edge methinks, attempted sharpening at about 22.5 degrees (just did half of 45 degrees by sight) and its at least cutting through paper almost effortlessly now.

Might try this ceramic plate/cup trick, if anyone has a link to a more detailed explanation that'd be nice. :D
 
Until you can pick up some more sharpening gear (stones or whatever) and get some more freehand experience, you might want to look into a Lansky ceramic 2 rod turnbox. They can be found online for around $10 and give you (roughly) 20* and 25* (per side) fixed angles to work with, so you don't have to worry about holding an angle. They're great for maintaining an edge, and they easily get a knife shaving sharp in a snap (again, light pressure, like just the weight of you hand and the knife, is key). :thumbup:

edit: like this: http://www2.knifecenter.com/item/LSLCS5D/Lansky-2-Rod-Standard-Turnbox-Crock-Stick-Sharpener
 
derukun said:
The rod is quite smooth... it looks like this http://www.thebay.com/webapp/wcs/st...pening-steel?gclid=CIGM64CRhroCFVOe4Aod-kQAhQ. In fact I think it's the exact same model, it's a Zwilling rod.

I managed to fix the edge methinks, attempted sharpening at about 22.5 degrees (just did half of 45 degrees by sight) and its at least cutting through paper almost effortlessly now.

Might try this ceramic plate/cup trick, if anyone has a link to a more detailed explanation that'd be nice. :D
Click to expand...

OK, Now try stropping on the cardboard to polish up the edge and remove any remaining burrs.
You should start to feel and see the improvement in about 5-10 strokes on both sides.
Do as much as you like? I do 30-50 per side.
 
What G. Scott said! But pay a little extra and get the 4 rod and save yourself the hassle down the road in having to pay more for the extra rods separately!
 
derukun said:
Haha, no idea what stropping is or how to do that ..
Click to expand...

Good place to start reading:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/750008-Stropping-angle-plus-pressure

Thomas Linton said:
http://jeffpeachey.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/how-to-strop-a-knife/

[Forget "perpendicular." He did'n know what the word means.]
Click to expand...

I'm guessing (giving benefit of the doubt) 'perpendicular' refers to direction of the stroke along the strop relative to the blade's orientation, for which the cutting edge which would/should be more-or-less perpendicular to the length of the strop itself. Though, with the diagonal-edged chisel he sharpens in the linked vid, it does tend to confuse things a bit.


David
 
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When you cut with or sharpen a knife you lead with the edge.

When you strop a knife. You go the other way with the spine leading and the edge trailing with a little uplift at the end of each stroke. Stropping when done correctly. Makes the diff between sharp and scary sharp!

Try it? You will like it!
 
derukun said:
The rod is quite smooth... it looks like this http://www.thebay.com/webapp/wcs/st...pening-steel?gclid=CIGM64CRhroCFVOe4Aod-kQAhQ. In fact I think it's the exact same model, it's a Zwilling rod.

I managed to fix the edge methinks, attempted sharpening at about 22.5 degrees (just did half of 45 degrees by sight) and its at least cutting through paper almost effortlessly now.

Might try this ceramic plate/cup trick, if anyone has a link to a more detailed explanation that'd be nice. :D
Click to expand...

Steels don't sharpen the knife. They are designed to realign an edge that has rolled. Sounds like you may have inadvertently rolled the edge even more by using too steep an angle or too much pressure. Based on your original post, you said you used a 20-30 degree angle. For many new to sharpening, it's difficult to actually estimate the proper angle, and even more difficult to keep the same angle on both sides of the edge. If you ran one edge at 30 degrees or more, that's equivalent to a 60 degree edge, which is pretty wide. Since the steel doesn't remove any metal from the edge, it would push the factory edge, which was probably 20 degrees, over at a 30 degree angle.

Now, if you make the same mistake with the unglazed bottom of a ceramic coffee mug or plate, you WILL remove metal, and will mess up your edge. Just use very light pressure and mark your edge with a sharpie marker to make sure you're actually hitting the very edge.
 
If the honing steel is hardened to higher RC than the knife blade (most quality steels are hardened well up into the 60s RC), and if it's composition includes any carbides at all (vanadium- or chromium carbides), it'll remove metal by abrasion; therefore sharpening it. More so, if the surface is textured or grooved (works like a file), as appears to be the case in the OP's linked example. Grooved steels can work up a very toothy edge on a previously polished & smooth edge very quickly. It's easy to tell if the steel rod is removing metal, by wiping the steel with a clean, damp, white tissue after a few strokes of the blade, and looking for the removed swarf on the tissue.

A dead-smooth (polished) rod may not remove much if any steel, and those ones may be better for just re-aligning an edge, while minimizing metal removal.


David
 
That steel you linked is not a smooth steel. A smooth steel is polished. That steel will remove material. Anyway, steels can be hard to figure out. Do you have a coffee cup, card board and or newspaper? A magazine? Go find some youtube videos on how to sharpen with these things. Then practice practice practice.
 
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