Ever get frustrated sharpening?

Yo Mama

Yo Mama

Gold Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2011
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I'm newer at sharpening, have a sharpmaker and a strop block. I wasn't getting results immediately so I got frustrated. Instead I took my time, and went from medium to light stones. Then the strop. After about 30 minutes, the knife is nice and sharp where I want it.

Do you ever get frustrated sharpening?
 
I get frustrated trying to sharpen some of these super steels. Very time consuming and very laborious.
 
When I first began yes.

It helps to read as much as you can about what is going on with the edge. That way, when it is not getting sharp. You can go down a mental list of what could be the problems. Angle to high, to low, significant burr, wire edge, not fully apexed ect.

I would suggest reading the stickies in Maintenance, Tinkering, and Embellishment for starters.
 
It happened to me a bunch of times. As I became more experienced, I learned to just put away my stones and do something else whenever a blade began to get on my nerves. Most of the times when I continued the sharpening job the next day, after a good night's sleep and a nice breakfast, I'd finish it in a few minutes.
 
Yes very. I have tried many different types of sharpeners. I finally found one that works for me. The Spyderco Sharpmaker. I can now for the first time in my life get 99% of my knives razor sharp.
 
sharpening used to throw me into fits. But now that I have an edgepro only certain steels have me admitting defeat. I would say right now elmax is my arch nemesis. That steel hates me and its to the point where I try to touch up elmax knives after every use. Its way easier than trying to bring an edge back from the dead.
 
At the risk of sounding like a smart @$$, wouldn't you be better off with an easier to sharpen steel?
 
Franciscomv said:
It happened to me a bunch of times. As I became more experienced, I learned to just put away my stones and do something else whenever a blade began to get on my nerves. Most of the times when I continued the sharpening job the next day, after a good night's sleep and a nice breakfast, I'd finish it in a few minutes.
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Yep. Sharpening mojo comes and goes. Very elusive. Some days you have it...some you don't.
 
I love sharpening, I look forward to coming home from work and sharpening every day :D I have some Naniwa Chosera stones, they make sharpening a true pleasure. They sure cost a lot though.
 
If i get frustrated I stop, plain and simple. Frustration leads to hurrying, which leads to bad edges, So If i do get frustrated I will stop and take a break maybe an hour maybe a day, then I'll rethink it , and give it another go and 9/10 I get the results I want.
 
I got very frustrated sharpening a SAK for a friend after having become accustomed to high wear resistance steels at higher hardnesses. It seemed like no matter what I did, I couldn't get the thing sharp.

Ended up trying only a few very light strokes per stone, and it would finally get sharp.
 
Nope, never got frustrated as I don't have the skill that majority of the members here have most likely nor knowledge on knife sharpening. It's actually one of the reasons why I went from almost getting a knife with s30v steel to just getting a Cryo which has 8cr13mov I figure it be easier to sharpen and I should train myself to properly sharpen a knife and become an expert at it before moving onto more exotic metals so I can take full advantage of it. Though right now I just hit my knives with 2 of the sharpening rods that is in the kitchen and they come out scary sharp after a minute or two. Can't be doing that bad of a job though considering I haven't used any knife/razor/etc sharper than any of my knives after I sharpen them. Though from a quick glance around the forums it seems like I still have room for improvement, which to me means I can make my knives all that much better :)
 
This is a very interesting thread!
Since I was 8 or 9 I've been learning to sharpen knives ,first on my own jeans:( just above the knee. We'd end up cutting them off as shorts for the summer. Then I started and still do try the edge on my finger ,just to see if it will begin to bite into the outer layer of skin .

To me it is it is almost a 'wax on wax off' kinda thing. I use a ceramic pair of V mounted sticks now and they work very good for the most part . Stainless has given me fits and then sometimes not .....?

1095 is fairly easy to sharpen right up to a frightenly sharp blade. I learned to love USMC Ka Bar steel as a young Marine . I didn't know what is was then but I liked it!
I had bought a stainless Randel before I went in the Corp ,it used to give me fits .
Gary
 
Tony8179 said:
Nope. I like these exotic super steels. The burden is on me to keep them sharp.
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Again, I'm not trying to be difficult, but I really am curious as to what advantage they offer you if you feel the need to sharpen them after every use?
 
I found my Mini Grip frustrating for a long while. It didn't make sense that I could get my other knives sharp but not this one. And I kept reading about how 154cm is so easy to maintain and, "I can get it hair-popping sharp" and I couldn't understand what was happening with my knife. Eventually, I decided to try the Sharpie trick and it was then that I discovered that I wasn't getting the edge all that time. Apparently I'd been trying to sharpen it at too shallow an angle. Glad I finally figured it out 'cause I was starting to hate that knife. :)
 
Not to be "that guy", but I find sharpening to be very cathartic and it calms me down after a long days work. That being said, I honestly don't have any difficulty in getting my knives stupid sharp, regardless if I'm using my diamond and ceramic bench stones or my edge pro.
 
Yeah my sharpening mojo seems to have better days than others. I use a Whetstone right now but I have been seriously contemplating getting a wicked edge thinking that will fix my sharpening problem and keep my knives more consistently sharp. I hate it when I can get one part of a blade wicked sharp and the other part is still a butter knife dull.
 
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