Dull dull delica

[psy-ops]

Thanks a lot everyone.

Psy-Ops, I'm not sure I know what you mean in regards to your first point. If I always sharpen it to 20 degrees, what would cause the grind to broaden? And wouldn’t re-sharpening it with eg. a 17 degree angle make the edge to fine to stay sharp for any decent amount of time?

Thanks for the help tho

I wish I had time to draw a picture. The mound between the angle(edge) and the knife will stay at the same thickness. Sal, on his sharpmaker video, speaks and demonstrates the need for this. It has helped me tons when sharpening. You need to remove some of the "mound," for lack of a better word, before you sharpen the edge, or else your edge will get too steep. So you can't always sharpen at the same angle.

If you have a 1/8" thick knife blade, then you only sharpen the angle grind at 20 degrees, but the rest of the blade stays at 1/8" still, all your sharpening will do is shorten the grind. Think of a pencil point, if all you do is sharpen the lead but never remove wood eventually all you would be doing is shortening the lead.

Maybe I am explaining this wrong. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Brad Greulich]

No need to say sorry, you just explained it great, I know exactly what you mean now. Thanks a lot, I now have a fair bit of shrpening ahead of me.

 

[psy-ops]

One thing to be careful with is how much steel you remove.

I would use a medium stone and remove some of the mound with about 5-10 passes. Then I would go back to the 20 degree lansky.

it is a basic regrind.


just don't go crazy on the re-grind. too much steel removal can make a very thin edge.

good luck

 

[Jason B.]

How clean is your knife when you test the sharpness? The reason I ask is because if you cut tape it will leave glue on the edge making it feel very dull. If your blade is clean when you test the sharpness then I would agree with everyone else on it being a wire edge and would suggest some diamond paste and a leather strop.

 

[Dog of War]

Hope you let us know how things work out, Brad. Sometimes sharpening problems just take some persistence to figure out.

If your Delica has seen a lot of use, the problem could even be due to the steel having weakened a little "deeper" behind the edge, which can lead to getting a really stubborn wire edge. In that case it may be necessary to remove more steel than usual -- which still shouldn't be a lot, not enough to noticeably change the appearance of the knife, but enough to get into good steel again.

Also many sharpening problems can arise from using too much pressure. Let the stones do the work, and keep using lighter and lighter pressure as you go along until you're finished.

Good luck!