"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

knarfeng said:
you would be shocked at how the number of folks who post in General who flat out say they don't know how to sharpen a knife. :eek:
Some say they send their knives out for sharpening.
Click to expand...

It amazes me that so many people are missing out on the pleasure of putting an edge on their steel.
 
I finally made a breakthrough last year, and can do a decent job of freehand sharpening. Thanks in much part to Jackknife.

I don't always enjoy the process (some days I'm more patient than others) but I like having a sharp edge. Also, I'm less hesitant to use a knife if I know I can restore the edge myself.
 
sitflyer said:
It amazes me that so many people are missing out on the pleasure of putting an edge on their steel.
Click to expand...

It really took me awhile to figure it out.... I can freehand on a stone, then strop, and shave hair off my arm now. I'm satisfied.


I've thought about doing the convex thing, but I just can't seem to reconcile that I would need sand paper and a mouse pad to sharpen in the field. It just seems that I should use a stone.... I can find a stone or coffee cup out in the wild!
 
Oh, I should add.... when sharpening freehand..... concentration is a must. If I'm rushing through it, I've got to use some guided setup like the DMT aligner.
 
Hand sharpening knives is a art unto itself. Some people have the talent and some don't.
I can get my knives sharp enough for what I use them for but can never seem to get the hair shaving edge that some guys are able to achieve.
 
Woodrow F Call said:
It really took me awhile to figure it out.... I can freehand on a stone, then strop, and shave hair off my arm now. I'm satisfied.


I've thought about doing the convex thing, but I just can't seem to reconcile that I would need sand paper and a mouse pad to sharpen in the field. It just seems that I should use a stone.... I can find a stone or coffee cup out in the wild!
Click to expand...

Sharpen freehand on a stone. Your edge will be convex, will you, nill you.

Actually I use one of those diamond credit cards. I never strop. Works a treat.
 
When I was a kid my dad taught me how to sharpen on an old Carborundum stone. That worked for me until I started buying knives with the newer steels. I got better stones but I didn't have the patience some others have. It just took too long to get the results I wanted.

I found that using a Lansky set up or similar by KME (which is fairly new to me in the scheme of things) that I could cut my time down considerably and achieve an incredibly sharp edge. For the most part that what's I do now. I have updated my original Lansky to a diamond stone set. The KME is a diamond set.

I don't let my edges get dull. When they aren't where I like them, I use a leather strop with Chromium Oxide compound. In a minute or so they're right back to where they started. Stropping is very much like hand sharpening, except you're dragging the edge over the strop, as opposed to pushing the edge into a stone. It's all about muscle memory and keeping the angle consistent.

I can go for months and months not having to revisit a stone when I strop regularly. Since I very rarely have less then two knives on me, and more if I'm in the woods, I never have to field sharpen
 
Raymond1000 said:
Sharpen freehand on a stone. Your edge will be convex, will you, nill you.

Actually I use one of those diamond credit cards. I never strop. Works a treat.
Click to expand...

True to an extent, but on a mouse pad, I'd get a nicely rounded edge that seems to me, I'd have more work to do if I needed to use a stone at a later time. Maybe not.
 
Woodrow, my experience is that the convex edge lasts a bit longer and responds a bit better to a quick stropping. I don't know if this is true or just my impressions, but when I'm out camping and whatnot I've been able to maintain my edge with just a quick stropping on my jeans. I'm not an edge expert so I can't explain it, but stropping seems much more important with a convex edge than a flat one. When I'm using diamonds I can get the edge pretty darn sharp and stropping just refines that edge. When convexing the edge I'm usually not very happy with where it's at until I strop and all of a sudden that edge seems to come out of nowhere. I have no data to back any of this up and I really don't understand the science behind any sharpening, these are just my observations from going in completely ignorant.
 
Cory Hess said:
Woodrow, my experience is that the convex edge lasts a bit longer and responds a bit better to a quick stropping. I don't know if this is true or just my impressions, but when I'm out camping and whatnot I've been able to maintain my edge with just a quick stropping on my jeans. I'm not an edge expert so I can't explain it, but stropping seems much more important with a convex edge than a flat one. When I'm using diamonds I can get the edge pretty darn sharp and stropping just refines that edge. When convexing the edge I'm usually not very happy with where it's at until I strop and all of a sudden that edge seems to come out of nowhere. I have no data to back any of this up and I really don't understand the science behind any sharpening, these are just my observations from going in completely ignorant.
Click to expand...

No, that helps!
 
Haven't posted much here lately, but I'm fine and I hope everyone on the porch is fine and/or getting better :)
I'm fine and ready to start a new year :)
As for sharpening...I don't consider myself a good sharpener but I got much better with the help of BF, and I discovered that sharpening a knife helps me develop a tighter relationship with the tool, which is nice.
Just like Frank, sometimes it feels weird to hear that people spend so much on knives but then consider them almost useless when they're dull. A friend of mine did the duty when I was younger, then he moved far away, and I had to do it on my own. So far, it's been such a nice experience and a relaxing skill to learn too :)

Fausto
:cool:
 
I struggled with learning to freehand. It was keeping a consistent angle then I read about using a sharpie to make sure I was on the edge. and then one day I got and old Camillus knife shaving sharp then another and another and so on. Now it's almost second nature and most gratifying to make a blade razor sharp. Same thing with a strop if you don't know how to strop a blade you will end up with something duller than it was.
 
r8shell said:
I finally made a breakthrough last year, and can do a decent job of freehand sharpening. Thanks in much part to Jackknife.
...
Click to expand...
Woodrow F Call said:
It really took me awhile to figure it out.... I can freehand on a stone, then strop, and shave hair off my arm now. I'm satisfied.
...
Click to expand...
r redden said:
I struggled with learning to freehand. It was keeping a consistent angle then I read about using a sharpie to make sure I was on the edge. and then one day I got and old Camillus knife shaving sharp then another and another and so on. Now it's almost second nature and most gratifying to make a blade razor sharp. Same thing with a strop if you don't know how to strop a blade you will end up with something duller than it was.
Click to expand...
Woodrow F Call said:
Oh, I should add.... when sharpening freehand..... concentration is a must. If I'm rushing through it, I've got to use some guided setup like the DMT aligner.
Click to expand...
Peregrin said:
...
I found that using a Lansky set up or similar by KME (which is fairly new to me in the scheme of things) that I could cut my time down considerably and achieve an incredibly sharp edge. For the most part that what's I do now. I have updated my original Lansky to a diamond stone set. The KME is a diamond set.
...
I can go for months and months not having to revisit a stone when I strop regularly. Since I very rarely have less then two knives on me, and more if I'm in the woods, I never have to field sharpen
Click to expand...

I'm enjoying, and hopefully learning from, this discussion of sharpening. It's encouraging to me to hear that many people struggled at first, and then finally "got it"; I'm still waiting for that breakthrough. (I'm working, as well as waiting, but maybe need to work harder.) It's also interesting to hear opinions on guided systems and stropping. Special thanks to Cory for his detailed comments, and photos, on his approach. :thumbup::thumbup:

- GT
 
GT - Go read the sticky posts at the top of the Maintenance, Tinkering, and Embellishment forum. Great stuff about angles, bevels, apexes, burrs. Couple of inexpensive tricks to help you "get it" are use of a Sharpie to mark the edge, and a loupe or some other magnifier to inspect your work close up to see exactly where you are hitting and where you are missing.

I also like to use "slow" stones as a learning aid, because I can catch mistakes in my technique without a lot of needless metal removal. Arkansas stones are great for that and give me the "traditional sharpening" experience. Grandpa's type of stones on grandpa's type of knives.

If I have some major reshaping to do first, then I'll break out the diamonds or silicon carbide.

Oddly enough, sometimes I do better on a coffee mug bottom than I do with stones. I actually have three mugs with different "grits" at my desk at work, and between those and a legal pad back with some green compound rubbed on it, I can spiff up an edge pretty well.

My wife thinks it's funny that whenever I'm at Starbucks, I'll go browse the coffee mugs for sale, and the first thing I do is turn them over to check the quality of the unglazed ring on the bottom.
 
I learned to use a whetstone at a very young age but I rarely ever do. I tend to go back to the kitchen steel most often. I can maintain a hair popping edge with a steel and finish it on my leather belt. If I still had a stone I'd use it for my traditionals without question.
 
A stone grinds.

A steel burnishes.

Once the edge is established it is subject to bending. We call it a wire edge.

That's where stropping comes in. It's nothing fussy. You can strop on your blue jeans. You can strop on a two by four.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top