Let me be blunt. Most of my knives are traditional style , so they are not super pointy to begin with. But it did not take long for me to fall for a couple of more modern styles,once I started hanging out here. When I bought a leek,I remembered how nice a real point can be. And then I realized that most of my knives had a point once. I seem to have rounded the points on many of my old favorites. And when I read posts celebrating those classics,my fears are confirmed. So after a few hours of trying to regain the points I've lost, I don't want to loose them again. So my plan when I sharpen now is to try to grind the whole edge evenly without quite hitting the very tip till the last few strokes. Does any one else have a method for keeping their collection from becoming pointless?
-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
bladeforums has shown me how pointless my knife collection is.
- Thread starter W.M.B.
- Start date
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Messages
- 44,314
Practice, practice, patience, and more practice. It might be your technique needs refinement, better/newer abrasives, maybe even a guided system like the Edge Pro or Wicked Edge. Anytime I sharpen a knife, I usually follow the angle set by the factory, unless it is totally uneven or too acute. My recommendation is to read through some of the threads in the Maintenance section, as sharpening is considered maintenance; and see what you come up with. There are a lot hundreds of videos on Youtube and instructional guides, books, etc on the Internet. You just have to dig through and find what works for you. Keep in mind, what may work for one does not mean it will work for all. At the end of the day, this is just advice.
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2013
- Messages
- 13,275
I practice with 6 dollar kitchen knives first. Even go to a thrift store pick up some cheap knives. You may find a good one that people are giving away. Until I came to bf I never looked at centering of a knife, was concerned about lockup, degree of bevel edge, or micro bevel, steel, super steels, stropping. Bf has helped me immensely. The gifts that I have been given are not repayable.
I have a couple of antique combo stones,I believe they are called carborundum?I use them for the first steps to establish the angle and apex the edge.then I progress through a red, and then a white Arkansas stone,before stropping on leather backed by a piece of wood,loaded with red compound.
I have been able to keep them shaving sharp, but apparently I had been rounding the tips gradually,over time.I just had not noticed what must have been slowly happening a bit every time I sharpened.I was reading an older post about the venerable 110,and it occurred to me that mine had a real point once,too.I prolly just need to be more observant.
I picked up some great kitchen knives like this.a couple of kershaws, a 9inch victorinox chefs knife,and an ancient boker carving knife that I asked for info on in another thread. All for a buck a piece. Great idea.
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2010
- Messages
- 8,340
My problem with hand-sharpening was always inconsistent edge angles. My Edge Pro Apex solved that -- best investment I have ever made for my knife collection -- highly recommended.
The trick to keeping your points sharp is to finish each stroke (on a flat stone) with the tip on the center of the stone. If your blade slips over the edge of the stone (this is especially easy to do on a rod sharpener), the tip gets rounded off. It's all in the wrist. haha
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2013
- Messages
- 322
There is MY answer. Now that you describe what is happening it makes perfect sense. Thank you.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2013
- Messages
- 2,051
There is a Bladesmith out of Portland that makes knives using the Japanese style. I do not want to mention him by name as I do not think that he is a paid manufacturer or supporter here. However, he teaches the "last molecule of steel" concept when he teaches how to repair a broken tip on a knife. With this concept you would mentally visualize the profile of the knife all the way out to the last molecule of steel, then remove all of the molecules of steel by grinding that do not fall into the profile, all the way out to the last molecule. This same visualization process can be used when sharpening, or when repairing what have now become rounded tips. You will have some grinding to do, but this is certainly fixable. When sharpening, pay attention to sharpening the blade all of the way to the tip. This will prevent any further rounding. The tip through the belly of the blade is the most challenging part of the knife to learn to sharpen freehand, IMO. It requires raising the handle in sort of a continuous fluid motion while sharpening in order to maintain the bevel all the way to the tip. As RevDevil stated, lots of practice and lots of patience is the key to success. I cannot count the number of years that I have been doing this off and on, and I have yet to master it. I get good results, but I am far from mastering the skill on every blade shape that I own.
Yup this is what I guess the problem is, over the years you slowly grounded off the tip. I use 4in stones which are quite narrow so I actually take it about the last .5cm or so till I lift the knife off the stone, it's what I am comfortable with. But I rounded the edges on my practice knife to say the least, but over time since I was practicing with it I slowly brought the tip back with normal sharpening it seems (1 or 2 reprofiles probably didn't hurt either, it is a practice knife after all).
If you want a point back on those knives just try sharpening them back up and don't run the knife off the stone. If that doesn't help head over the maintenance sub forum they probably have a few tricks up their sleeves to help.
I've found several things that cause rounded tips. Several people have already mentioned running the point off the end of the stone, or other wise dragging the sharp point against the sharpening surface. That will definitely do it.
But I've found what I think is the bigger problem, at least in many knives I have worked on: Most sharpeners seem to stop before they get to the tip. This sounds weird, but let me explain. If you apply marker to the edge bevel and then do your normal sharpening routine, you may find that you are not removing the marker from the *very* last bit of the tip. Over time, this means that any blunting or rounding from normal use will never be fixed by grinding it back to a sharp point. I noticed this on numerous blades 6 or 8 months ago as I started really focusing on producing very sharp tips.
The fix for this is simple: Observe where the sharpie is not being removed and adjust your sharpening technique until you remove all of it. For me, this normally means elevating the handle of the knife higher than I thought I needed to go in order to bring that *last* bit of the tip into contact with the stone. You'll probably also find that you need to spend quite a bit of extra time on the last 1/4" of the blade to reshape it and bring back that really sharp tip you are after.
Using a loupe is VERY helpful here, as it will show you very clearly just how round your tip is *and* where to grind to fix it. You can always grind off metal in front of the tip to remove roundness and restore sharp lines that meet in a point.
I hope this made sense.
Brian.
But I've found what I think is the bigger problem, at least in many knives I have worked on: Most sharpeners seem to stop before they get to the tip. This sounds weird, but let me explain. If you apply marker to the edge bevel and then do your normal sharpening routine, you may find that you are not removing the marker from the *very* last bit of the tip. Over time, this means that any blunting or rounding from normal use will never be fixed by grinding it back to a sharp point. I noticed this on numerous blades 6 or 8 months ago as I started really focusing on producing very sharp tips.
The fix for this is simple: Observe where the sharpie is not being removed and adjust your sharpening technique until you remove all of it. For me, this normally means elevating the handle of the knife higher than I thought I needed to go in order to bring that *last* bit of the tip into contact with the stone. You'll probably also find that you need to spend quite a bit of extra time on the last 1/4" of the blade to reshape it and bring back that really sharp tip you are after.
Using a loupe is VERY helpful here, as it will show you very clearly just how round your tip is *and* where to grind to fix it. You can always grind off metal in front of the tip to remove roundness and restore sharp lines that meet in a point.
I hope this made sense.
Brian.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2013
- Messages
- 2,051
Murray Carter is mentioned frequently in this sub-forum
Thanks for stepping out there. I too have mentioned Murray in other sub forums, but I did not want to break any rules here. I guess I could have listed his physical address in Portland, then it would have been easier to find for the OP.
I think that in my attempt to keep the original shape and bevel I lifted the handle too much at the end of the stroke.I do not let the knife run off the stone. I have reground almost all of them now,and it seems to me that intentionally not sharpening the last millimeter of the tip till the very end will cause it to gradually get pointier over time. Without having an unsharpened example to compare,how can you be sure that you are not modifying the shape gradually?