Found a new way to sharpen

P

Paul SAK

Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Messages
17
I am 56 years old and have spent a lot of those years improving my sharpening skills. I always shied away from the cheap sharpening gadgets and the real nice ones that you see in catalogs and at gun and knife shows. I learned to sharpen on a rectangular stone consistantly holding the knife at the proper angle. I must have developed into a pretty good sharpener, because several people would ask me to sharpen their knives for them.

Four years ago, I got laid off after 31 years from my career IT job and decided to take an early retirement rather than start over again somewhere else. I was much too young to stop working completely, so I shocked everyone and went to work part time at a local restaurant.

One of the first things I noticed was a sharpening gadget in the restaurant that really put a good edge on kitchen knives. It is the "AccuSharp" and it is very reasonably priced. It is one of those hand-held things with two tungsten carbide bits. I went to their website and found that this sharpener was endorsed by some top chefs and sportsmen including Ted Nugent the conservative rock star.

Well, I got one and it really works well. It seems to work particulary well on the Swiss Army blades. It's just a lot easier.

Any thoughts? Am I on to something?
 
Like you Paul, I spent my life holding a stone in my left hand and knife in my right. These days I carry a small flat Eze-lap red plastic diamond hone with the handle cut down to fit in my wallet. I don't think I could get used to any gadjet at this point in my life. I like to carry all my edc stuff in small compact items that fit in wallets or on a key ring.

How big is this sharpener?
 
Have you been able to raise a shaving edge with it? I've never liked any of these, but only because the few i've tried sucked horribly...
 
Buck268: Good question. I had never done any scientific testing of the edge. So, I just did this. I verified that I could shave my leg with a new Trekker. Then I verified that I could hardly shave it at all with a Tinker that had not been sharpened in a long, long time. Then I sharpened the Tinker with four light strokes of the AccuSharp. Without any other honing, steeling, or strapping of any kind, I was then able to shave my leg with the Tinker as good as with the new Trekker. I now appreciate what my wife has been doing for a lifetime.

I suspect that the AccuSharp does not produce a "perfect" edge, but it produces a very servicable edge with little effort. I think that is why it has become a very popular kithen tool.
 
As a former IT person you might still have some old (ceramic package !) CPUs lying somewhere - say Pentium (pre 200 MHz and/or MMX generation, where they changed the package to 'open' type).

They are quite large (compared to 486 and other representatives of previous generation of PC CPUs) and work well for touching up the blade edge. I'm using Pentium 150 MHz as my main resharpening tool :) Modern CPUs are useless for sharpening because they don't have ceramic packages anymore, just as are older CPUs (386 and the like) that used plastic packages (flatpacks).
 
Faramir,

Can you tell us a little more about using the CPU parts for sharpening? Which part exactly is it that you use? I have a couple of old Pentium 100s lying around and would love to reuse stuff. Do you have a photo of your the cpu?

Thanks
 
These types of sharpeners have been around quite awhile. I have tried them, but haven't really liked them.
You might try posting this question in The Toolshed section, probably get more responses there. :)
 
Most of the mecanical sharpeners I've used work best on thin blades probobly why it put a good edge on the sak.There useful for kitchen knive but to me for cuting wood and other outdoor materials the angle of the grind is to steep.

I also learned on flat stones and still use them on larger blades but realy like diamond and ceramic rods for most stuff.

A lot of people judge a knifes sharpness by whether or not it will shave,but the angle of the grind and thickness of the blade are what realy count when it comes to cutting.
 
I can attest to that. I have a few carbon blades that shave readily, but the angles are so obtuse they can'teven pushcut newsprint at all. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to thinning them out... Maybe
 
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