Shawn :
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">How long did it take you to sharpen the Battle Mistress in this post?
http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum41/HTML/001047.html</font>
Around 20 +/- 5 minutes. I was watching a movie at the time, if I was just
sharpening the time would be cut in about half.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">how long did it take before you could reliably do this sharpening
from start to finish and have consistant results? </font>
I learned the basics of sharpening from my grandfather and you learn very
quickly from someone of great skill who watches you very closely and points
out your mistakes. If I had to make things up on my own then I would have
taken much longer. I have also benefited much from discussions on sharpening
with people like Joe Talmadge and Will York plus makers like Phil Wilson,
Jerry Busse, R.J. Martin, Neil Blackwood, Mel Sorg, Ray Kirk, etc. . Plus
there are many great books on the subject like "The Complete Guide To
Sharpening" by Leonard Lee, I thought I used to grind edges thin before I
read that.
The strongest recommendations I can make in regards to sharpening is to
outline the bevel with a marker and get some way of looking at the edge
under magnification. The marker will tell you if you are hitting the bevel
or not and the magnification will allow you to see potential problems that
would otherwise be very frustrating. For example I was sharpening a blade
for a friend several months ago and it would not get sharp. When I checked
it under magnification the edge had been severely damaged by corrosion and
thus it was breaking apart. The solution was to simply grind away a good
deal of metal before I had a strong base to work with. If you are working on
flat ground edges then use some kind of guide to start, the Razor Edge
guides are recommented by Joe Talmadge and since they reproduce the same
motions as freehand sharpening you will gain valuable experience with out
all the frustration.
The biggest practical problem comes with your first sharpening. Most knives
are ground way to thick for cutting most materials. If you try to alter the
angle you have some serious work set out for you. It can take about an hour
to make a significant change in angle on a steel with a decent wear
resistance and this is using a very abrasive hone (220 grit Japanese
waterstone with 80 grit SiC lapping compound). The other huge problem is
that a lot of production knives are sharpened with belts and thus have
uneven bevels. There can be valleys in the edge so deep that it takes
hundreds of passes on a stone to make the edge even. Unless you had the edge
marked out this would be very frustrating to deal with as you would have a
large spot (1cm+) that refused to get sharp.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I dont often strop my knives</font>
The stropping is done mainly to wax the edge which fills in the grind lines and thus allows a smoother cut while providing some corrosion resistance. It also lightly aligns and enhances the convex nature. It is not a major step. You can also remove the sandpaper and finish on a flat hone. A convex bevel however does offer greater edge durablity at a particular level of cutting ability due to the slimmer shoulders and lower drag profile.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Did you do the 100 strokes per side and then switch to the other
side? </font>
No, I alternated every 25 strokes or so. If I did them all on one side and then flipped it would generate a large burr as you noted. I have seen them that large you can clearly see them at times and even peel off a strip of metal with your finger nail, that usually only happens with really worn edges though.
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Do you try and maintain the same angle on the canvas as you did on the DMT stones?</font>
No, it will deform so as to match the bevel under light pressure. I generally just keep below it.
-Cliff
[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 06-12-2001).]
