Free Hand Sharpening help/tips?

A

ackeith4570

Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
362
I can get a pretty good free hand edge, but when it comes to the heel and the belly/tip of the blade i just cant get it sharp. I use a sharpie and can remove the sharpie from the middle of the edge but when it comes to the tip/belly and the heel i cant, but when i can remove it from the heel or belly it is at a different angel then the middle of the edge and it leaves some bad edges. Any tips would be greatly appreciated thanks!
August-
 
When I freehand, I keep the orientation of the blade always in the same direction. For example if the blade makes a 45 degrees angle across the stone, I keep it there. In order to sharpen the belly/tip, I progressively tilt the handle higher as I run across the stone until I finally reach the tip, as opposed to pushing the belly/tip into the stone. I had the same problem as you when I started free-handing. I hope my explanation helps, and I apologize if its not clear enough.
 
Keep an eye on where the scratch marks are appearing on the blade when sharpening. What I notice a lot of people do is they maintain the same wrist angle they used for sharpening the belly/tip region that they do for the rest of the knife from the heel on up. You need to kind of twist your hand to match the contour of the edge in order to maintain a consistent angle. It's difficult for me to explain personally as I'm not too up to date on the terminology, but there's probably a thread somewhere. What I personally do is place my index and middle finger along the spine of the blade and apply pressure going outward to feel for the edge as I turn my wrist out. Once you get a feel for the right angle you need to turn your wrist out, you can start speeding up a bit as it begins to feel more and more natural to follow the edge.

As per the heel, what kind of knife are you sharpening? Does it have a choil? Why is it do you think that you can't hit the heel?
 
It might be Just the knife for the heel. Its a Buck vantage, now that i look at it, it has un even grind lines, the heel is up about 2 cm lol.
 
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