How To Freehand sharpen around the blade point

[maximus83]

When freehand sharpening on a stone, how do you adjust your sharpening motion to effectively sharpen around the point of the blade?

Because the blade on some knives thins considerably as you approach the point, it seems like you have to adjust the elevation of your hold slightly toward the end of your stroke to account for that and to keep a consistent angle on the edge. Not adjusting means your angle will be off around the point. Over adjusting results in your point looking bad, the bevel widens out and looks inconsistent with the rest of the edge (ask me how I know that).

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

You pivot the knife at the contact point without changing the tilt. This will result in the handle lifting, but that's an artifact of what you're doing. Simply lifting the handle will lead to inconsistent angles. Imagine that a big flat plate is extending from the centerline of the knife. Rotate the imaginary plate.

 

[maximus83]

You pivot the knife at the contact point without changing the tilt. This will result in the handle lifting, but that's an artifact of what you're doing. Simply lifting the handle will lead to inconsistent angles. Imagine that a big flat plate is extending from the centerline of the knife. Rotate the imaginary plate.

Thanks, but lost me with that. Not clear what I'd be doing differently.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I'd stick to a desired set angle, first, and worry less about the appearance of the bevels widening near the tip. A lot of times, those 'pretty' and perfectly even bevel widths, all the way to the tip, are an indication of more obtuse edge geometry near the tip. As the edge curves upward toward the tip, it's usually also curving up into thicker blade stock nearer to the spine. If the sharpening angle stays the same, to match the geometry of the rest of the edge, the natural result will be a wider-looking bevel in the thicker steel near the tip. It'll cut/pierce better, but may not look as 'nice' in some eyes. On the other hand, if one raises the angle as they sweep up into the tip, the bevels may be maintained at a more aesthetically-pleasing and even-looking width throughout; but, the geometry at the edge in the tip portion won't cut as well as a result. For me, I'll stick with better cutting geometry every time.

The flipside with some blades, which may have tapered/thinner tips, is that the bevels might narrow as one approaches the tip at a given sharpening angle. Again, I'd focus on maintaining the angle for better cutting geometry, and not worry so much about the variation in the width of the visible bevels.


David

 

[Lapedog]

It is much easier for me to sharpen knives that have wider edge bevels. I lay the knife flat on its side against the stone. Then I lift the spine slowly until I feel that the knife sort of goes "click" as the edge grind lays flat. Now I just make sure I am "riding" the edge all the way around the belly of the blade to the tip.

Also another reason you may be having trouble is that in my experience many knives come extremely poorly tip ground from the factory. Look at the tip of most your knives and you will see lopsided grinds, uneven angles on each side of the tip and often the edge bevel is much wider on one side as the other.

The reason for this is that you aren't the only one who has trouble sharpening the tip. For some reason knives as good as CRKs have come with terrible tip grinds and not fully ground heel of the blade. (So it gets way more obtuse at the heel)

In my eyes the best thing you can do is either get a professional sharpener to lay proper edge bevels. This makes a difference in ease of sharpening that is night and day.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Thanks, but lost me with that. Not clear what I'd be doing differently.

I'll take a quick video using a pizza cutter to show what I mean.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Here. Does this help?

 

[maximus83]

Ok, perhaps these photos will help show what I've been running into. I use my old Benchmade in s30v, which has seen much hard use, as a "trainer" blade for when I'm learning new sharpening methods or stones, and I want to try it on a hard/modern steel like s30v.

With this blade, the edge is not cosmetically perfect because of all the "experimenting" I've done with it. But it is sharp across the whole edge, will shave arm hair with light pressure, and even the point is super sharp. The approach I used was setting the secondary bevel on 42's American Mutt coarse stone, then using the Artic Fox for apexing to a micro-bevel. No stropping in this case. The way I sharpen currently is slicing motions away from me (both sides) on the stone, keeping fingers/wrists locked, and pivoting at the elbow. I was super pleased with the cutting performance, but as you can see, I did have the problem that the bevel widens out up around the tip and doesn't look very good. I think this is because I was slightly raising the handle at the very end of the sharpening stroke.

These photos may show my overall edge with micro-bevel, and then how it widens out at the tip:

 

[maximus83]

Here. Does this help?

Yes it does, thanks!

 

[Wowbagger]

It seems like cheating but some of us do it.
I use a smaller stone held in one hand and the knife held edge toward me. I wear a jeweler's visor with strong magnification and watch for the miniscule gap to close at the edge while I tilt the stone. When the gap is zero I take a pass in the material around the curve of the tip. Whether I am traveling against the edge or edge trailing depends on the hardness of the stone, how much material i need to take off the edge and how much of a pain a bur is going to be if i were to form one. All that takes a whole lot of just doing it and observing combined with what seems to work best for you and the stones you have to work with.

This is mostly for touch up sharpening.
For "fixing" the factory edge that has been describe very well by others :
I tend to go less on looks of the edge bevel and more on how it cuts. All my knives are users, I tend to be oddly lazy when it comes to how my blades look tending toward Murray Carter's "If you are scratching up the side of the knife you are getting close to effective edge geometry".

But I got off the subject there a little. When fixing a factory edge I tend to jig 'er up in my Edge Pro and saw away with the coarsest stone I can buy. It looks funny but it cuts like a dream after I refine it with a few finer stones. For the really hard wear resistant stuff (vanadium carbide S____V steels) I'm not above busting out a huge super coarse diamond plate to take off the cornice of the factory bevel so I can save the life of my Edge Pro stones and my time and sanity.

What is the cornice ? Mark the edge with magic marker. Try sharpening at a shallower edge angle.
Where ever the marker is removed well away from the edge is the area I am talking about.

Then use the Edge Pro to get a great edge all around the tip.
Failing that or having no sharpening guide use the stone in hand method to refine or touch up the edge around the tip.

Remember what John Wayne said :
"When sharpening a knife dude has got to do what a knife dude has got to do. Some times it isn't pretty."

nah really he said that

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

The tip area looks sort of flat-spotted, maybe from lingering a little too long in scrubbing that portion on the stone. I've done this myself, with similar-looking results. My own tendency, for a while, was to overwork that portion, worrying about not making flush contact near the tip. The tips on such blades are often pretty thick, and there's a temptation to overgrind it to thin it out. The 'fix' for me, was to focus more on continuously sweeping through the full belly portion and tip, without hesitating or otherwise lingering too long in one spot.


David

 

[maximus83]

I had a super frustrating afternoon trying to fix the above BM blade, darn it. It's the 4th time I've tried, and failed, to get AWESOME sharpening results on my Arctic Fox stone with modern hard steels like S30/S35. I love using the stone, but I can only get great results off of it when using softer more traditional steels. I assume it's possible to do better with hard steels, but I have not figured it out yet. The really frustrating thing that happened this afternoon:

• Use the American Mutt stone to reprofile the edge, again, and clean up around the tip. Actually got that part to come out ok, use the suggestions as above in the thread, no raising the handle at all.
• On the Mutt, I actually got the S30V blade sharp enough to shave arm hair with moderate pressure.
• Then when I went to the Fox, everything goes downhill. Tried multiple swipes at same angle (about 18 degrees on the secondary bevel) with no micro-bevel, about 20 passes per side. The edge was beautiful and even cosmetically nice for a change, but the SHARPNESS was actually degraded versus what I had on the Mutt. I tried more passes on the Fox to no avail. Then tried 8K Tormek paste on a hardwood backed leather strop, beautified the edge even more, no difference on the cutting performance.

Pretty darn frustrating, I don't know what's going wrong. Either my minimalist 2-grit sharpening system is a pipe dream when it comes to using it for modern hard steels, or there's something off in my technique and I can't figure out what it is. Because with my job and other commitments I can only spend a couple hours on the weekends practicing, it's just frustrating seeing progress this slow and not knowing what you're doing wrong. This has me reconsidering my "progression of grits" approach with my DMT stones, where I've always been able to get results although the stones are not as much of a pleasure to use.

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

I used to familiarize with this method:

Although recently I've been using lifting the handle techniques.
YMMV.

Edit to add:
From your pics, it seems that the sharpening stopped near the tip. The widening if done completely, should extend to the actual tip itself. It really seems you stopped right before reaching the tip.

All these sharpening tip will definitely shorten the blade a bit.

Edit 2: older thread
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how-to-sharpen-the-tip-holding-angle-by-sight.1490884/

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I had a super frustrating afternoon trying to fix the above BM blade, darn it. It's the 4th time I've tried, and failed, to get AWESOME sharpening results on my Arctic Fox stone with modern hard steels like S30/S35. I love using the stone, but I can only get great results off of it when using softer more traditional steels. I assume it's possible to do better with hard steels, but I have not figured it out yet. The really frustrating thing that happened this afternoon:

• Use the American Mutt stone to reprofile the edge, again, and clean up around the tip. Actually got that part to come out ok, use the suggestions as above in the thread, no raising the handle at all.
• On the Mutt, I actually got the S30V blade sharp enough to shave arm hair with moderate pressure.
• Then when I went to the Fox, everything goes downhill. Tried multiple swipes at same angle (about 18 degrees on the secondary bevel) with no micro-bevel, about 20 passes per side. The edge was beautiful and even cosmetically nice for a change, but the SHARPNESS was actually degraded versus what I had on the Mutt. I tried more passes on the Fox to no avail. Then tried 8K Tormek paste on a hardwood backed leather strop, beautified the edge even more, no difference on the cutting performance.

Pretty darn frustrating, I don't know what's going wrong. Either my minimalist 2-grit sharpening system is a pipe dream when it comes to using it for modern hard steels, or there's something off in my technique and I can't figure out what it is. Because with my job and other commitments I can only spend a couple hours on the weekends practicing, it's just frustrating seeing progress this slow and not knowing what you're doing wrong. This has me reconsidering my "progression of grits" approach with my DMT stones, where I've always been able to get results although the stones are not as much of a pleasure to use.

It's really hard to evaluate from a distance, but you may be using too much pressure or may be allowing too much swarf and loose grit to accumulate on the stone, which is great for preventing a wire edge from developing and for bevel polishing, but is awful for finishing. When you have an accumulation of loose grit it plows into your edge, which will degrade the sharpness, but will also keep any wire edge from developing, and the action of the slurry helps bring a shine to the visible faces of the bevels, but when you go to apex you want it nice and clear of either grit or swarf.

The stone releases grit under pressure, and different stones of different bond strengths require different amounts of pressure for them to shed worn abrasive. If you use insufficient pressure, you blunt the surface and glaze your stone, which causes it to stop cutting effectively and may even lead to burnishing the edge. If you use too much pressure you will shed particles that are still sharp, and may generate a heavy mud that's mostly wasted stone. Learning the sweet spot for each stone is something that can take time. The Mutt is a hard bond, and is designed so you can really lean into your strokes to hog off metal quickly, while the Arctic Fox is only medium-hard and will generate a light slurry under firm pressure and will apex cleanly with edge-leading strokes when used with light pressure.

 

[David Martin]

Yes, I lift the handle to match the edge bevel and continue to push it across the stone. Leaving the handle low will widen the edge bevel. DM

 

[Lapedog]

Ok, perhaps these photos will help show what I've been running into. I use my old Benchmade in s30v, which has seen much hard use, as a "trainer" blade for when I'm learning new sharpening methods or stones, and I want to try it on a hard/modern steel like s30v.

With this blade, the edge is not cosmetically perfect because of all the "experimenting" I've done with it. But it is sharp across the whole edge, will shave arm hair with light pressure, and even the point is super sharp. The approach I used was setting the secondary bevel on 42's American Mutt coarse stone, then using the Artic Fox for apexing to a micro-bevel. No stropping in this case. The way I sharpen currently is slicing motions away from me (both sides) on the stone, keeping fingers/wrists locked, and pivoting at the elbow. I was super pleased with the cutting performance, but as you can see, I did have the problem that the bevel widens out up around the tip and doesn't look very good. I think this is because I was slightly raising the handle at the very end of the sharpening stroke.

These photos may show my overall edge with micro-bevel, and then how it widens out at the tip:

I see it at the tip. Is the edge grind just getting wider or is the angle of the edge at the tip more obtuse? If it is not more obtuse and only the edge bevel itself wider then it is no problem to worry about at all.

 

[Lapedog]

It seems like cheating but some of us do it.
I use a smaller stone held in one hand and the knife held edge toward me. I wear a jeweler's visor with strong magnification and watch for the miniscule gap to close at the edge while I tilt the stone. When the gap is zero I take a pass in the material around the curve of the tip. Whether I am traveling against the edge or edge trailing depends on the hardness of the stone, how much material i need to take off the edge and how much of a pain a bur is going to be if i were to form one. All that takes a whole lot of just doing it and observing combined with what seems to work best for you and the stones you have to work with.

This is mostly for touch up sharpening.
For "fixing" the factory edge that has been describe very well by others :
I tend to go less on looks of the edge bevel and more on how it cuts. All my knives are users, I tend to be oddly lazy when it comes to how my blades look tending toward Murray Carter's "If you are scratching up the side of the knife you are getting close to effective edge geometry".

But I got off the subject there a little. When fixing a factory edge I tend to jig 'er up in my Edge Pro and saw away with the coarsest stone I can buy. It looks funny but it cuts like a dream after I refine it with a few finer stones. For the really hard wear resistant stuff (vanadium carbide S____V steels) I'm not above busting out a huge super coarse diamond plate to take off the cornice of the factory bevel so I can save the life of my Edge Pro stones and my time and sanity.

What is the cornice ? Mark the edge with magic marker. Try sharpening at a shallower edge angle.
Where ever the marker is removed well away from the edge is the area I am talking about.

Then use the Edge Pro to get a great edge all around the tip.
Failing that or having no sharpening guide use the stone in hand method to refine or touch up the edge around the tip.

Remember what John Wayne said :
"When sharpening a knife dude has got to do what a knife dude has got to do. Some times it isn't pretty."

nah really he said that

Omg Jewlers glasses! Genius! I must get them. I sharpen exactly like you where I hold one stone or rod in one hand and knife in the other.

I am using my eyes to watch it too. Though I am going mostly by feeling of the edge "clicking" against the stone as I raise the spine up of the knife I have laying flat on its side against the stone.

Jewlers goggles would be a huge help in seeing what is transpiring as I sharpen. Unaided eyes it is hard to see and your eyes play tricks on you. Also it is easier if you have light coming from underneath the knife you're sharpening when doing this method. If the light is coming from above it will reflect off the edge and make it difficult to see.

Thanks for the genius idea! It will help alot with knives that don't have well ground edges.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I had a super frustrating afternoon trying to fix the above BM blade, darn it. It's the 4th time I've tried, and failed, to get AWESOME sharpening results on my Arctic Fox stone with modern hard steels like S30/S35. I love using the stone, but I can only get great results off of it when using softer more traditional steels. I assume it's possible to do better with hard steels, but I have not figured it out yet. The really frustrating thing that happened this afternoon:

• Use the American Mutt stone to reprofile the edge, again, and clean up around the tip. Actually got that part to come out ok, use the suggestions as above in the thread, no raising the handle at all.
• On the Mutt, I actually got the S30V blade sharp enough to shave arm hair with moderate pressure.
• Then when I went to the Fox, everything goes downhill. Tried multiple swipes at same angle (about 18 degrees on the secondary bevel) with no micro-bevel, about 20 passes per side. The edge was beautiful and even cosmetically nice for a change, but the SHARPNESS was actually degraded versus what I had on the Mutt. I tried more passes on the Fox to no avail. Then tried 8K Tormek paste on a hardwood backed leather strop, beautified the edge even more, no difference on the cutting performance.

Pretty darn frustrating, I don't know what's going wrong. Either my minimalist 2-grit sharpening system is a pipe dream when it comes to using it for modern hard steels, or there's something off in my technique and I can't figure out what it is. Because with my job and other commitments I can only spend a couple hours on the weekends practicing, it's just frustrating seeing progress this slow and not knowing what you're doing wrong. This has me reconsidering my "progression of grits" approach with my DMT stones, where I've always been able to get results although the stones are not as much of a pleasure to use.

Stick with what you know works. With more wear-resistant steels like S30V, the ease with which you've gotten better results on your diamond hones is telling you something, as is the ease with which your simpler steels sharpen up on your other stones. Work on technique issues using each of your hones paired with the steels that respond best to them. If or when you become accustomed to using all of them, apply those techniques to the other stones and other steels. Manmade abrasives other than diamond can sometimes do OK with initial grinding of many steels. But, I'll make a prediction, in that I think you'll still favor the finished results on your diamond hones with S30V and similar wear-resistant steels. There's a reason they do better, and it's all about the abrasive being 100% capable in cutting everything making up the steel being sharpened. After learning the touch and practicing technique with something that works well on the steel being sharpened, you'll still see at least some gains in results when you take your skills to other stones, with other steels.


David

 

[OldNavy]

Another vid, that may help

 

[HeavyHanded]

The pizza cutter/plate analogy is perfect.