freehand sharpening w/ repeatable angle

Heck Fred, you can teach someone a straight punch, reverse palm, front kick and a little blocking and footwork in one afternoon. Sure enough if they don't practice they will never be able to use even that, but if they do, their odds of surviving in a brawl have been improved tremendously. My daughter is 7 and already picking up hand wraps and some Chin Na. The better fighters stick to the basics anyway, and some of the best brawlers don't execute with textbook form in any discipline.

Most folk only sharpen for themselves, the basics will work just fine and as a springboard for further improvement if desired. As long as one understands why things are happening the way they are, unacceptable outcomes can be reduced quite a bit.
 
I'd like to add something here that I find both important as well as difficult - and that is the belly of the knife. Even if you use a wedge and even if you have figured out how you keep a constant angle freehand and you get good feedback and feel confident that you are flush on the the stone, that all "disappears" once you approach the belly and you have to lift up or turn the knife along it's spine plane or both (same thing really). The surface area becomes very small, feedback is poor, change in angle is imminent since your have to be either further away from your body or closer to it etc.

No wedge or angle lines etc. can help here, IMHO only practice to be as constant as possible every single time. The belly/tip area was the last thing on my knife that I was able to get sharp freehand and I find that particularly true for larger knives, blade 4-5 inch and up.
 
awestib said:
I'd like to add something here that I find both important as well as difficult - and that is the belly of the knife. Even if you use a wedge and even if you have figured out how you keep a constant angle freehand and you get good feedback and feel confident that you are flush on the the stone, that all "disappears" once you approach the belly and you have to lift up or turn the knife along it's spine plane or both (same thing really). The surface area becomes very small, feedback is poor, change in angle is imminent since your have to be either further away from your body or closer to it etc.

No wedge or angle lines etc. can help here, IMHO only practice to be as constant as possible every single time. The belly/tip area was the last thing on my knife that I was able to get sharp freehand and I find that particularly true for larger knives, blade 4-5 inch and up.
Click to expand...

+1. I also don't like what guided systems do to bevels near the tips, making them very wide. That said, I don't know if the newer systems have a mechanism that can make an even bevel from heel to tip, so someone please correct me if that is not accurate.
 
I freehand on bench stones (DMTs) 99% of the time. Occasionally, to re-set a bevel, I clamp on an ancient Buckmaster angle guide. There are quite a few angle guides available if you do a bit of searching on-line. If you take your time and pay attention to keeping the angle even, you can get fantastic edges without a complicated guide system.
 
Andy,

Approaching belly & tips are always a challenge for me as well, and recently I found that I habitually raise a bit the angle in these areas.

Mag,

Lagrangian did an analysis on the clamped sharpener & the change of angle in different areas from pivot. It's an old thread started by him.
Other contributors to the widening is often the primary grind is also thicker towards the tips, and I see this happening even when I unconsciously raising the angle (otherwise, if the primary grind is same, it should result in narrower bevel).
 
samuraistuart said:
This doesn't fall into "free hand" sharpening, but I cannot recommend enough the clamp on guides offered by Razor Edge Systems. They have a large guide (I find it useful on 8" chefs knives) and the small guide, which is used for just about every other knife. You can use any stone you like....their warranty tho limits you to using their stones. Haven't tried their stones. I use their guides on diamond stones, Arkansas stones, waterstones, you name it.

Free hand sharpening has always come naturally to me, as I learned before memory, really, by my two grandfathers. I have a vague memory of sitting at Grandaddy's kitchen table watching him sharpen a file knife he made on an Arkansas stone. His method was to lay the blade FLAT on the stone and use circular motion on both sides! You could always tell if he sharpened a knife...it was convexed at the edge and had scratches on the blade bevel! Well, luckily I learned a few better sharpening methods than that one! I should say his knives were VERY sharp, but cosmetically challenged.

The Razor Edge Systems guides let you develop that muscle memory very well. The angle is set by the guide's placement on the knife. It is hard to get below 13° per side with the guides, depending on blade height you may or may not get a very low angle. I have never had a problem doing 15° per side with them, or higher, with any knife. If you want a guide to develop muscle memory for freehand sharpening, I think this is the answer. I have gotten to where my free hand skills may be lacking, as I really prefer the nice crisp shoulders and perfect edges you can get with it, especially on knives I make and sell.
Click to expand...

I still don't understand how a guide likes this helps you sharpening the belly/tip area?
 
awestib said:
I still don't understand how a guide likes this helps you sharpening the belly/tip area?
Click to expand...
Perhaps I should do a video. Like I have the time for that, tho. It is all about guide placement. If you haven't already looked up the guides, and how they operate, I would say go to their site and check it out. I think they even have the instruction manual available for view. The part of the guide that contacts the stone is a distance, "X", from the edge. You place the guide so that the front portion of the part that makes contact with the stone is also distance, "X", from the tip. So you should be able to visualize just by that last sentence, the distance from the edge to spine is, roughly, exactly the same all the way from choil to tip. Yes, the handle still must be brought up a bit, just like you would during freehand, in order to make the belly and tip sharp. But even tho you do raise the handle slightly, the front of that guide is still in contact with the stone....so it is exactly repeatable.

When I go to sharpen a knife, I usually go with 15° per side. Using trig, it is a simple matter of placing the guide on the blade flat in the position that gives you 15°. And that 15° will be constant. My edge bevels are perfectly even, from choil to tip, if my primary bevel grinding was done well!
 
In case anyone interested, to get 15° per side, raise the spine about 1/4 of the blade width. It's almost 15° and factor in hand wobble, it might be just there.

Example, the knife is 2" wide, at the heel. So if the middle of the spine is approximately 0.5" from the stone, it's just below 15°, because sin 15° is 0.2588. Hopefully this is helpful.
 
i don't remember where i saw this idea, it was around the early 90's. easy to make wood stand that holds the stone at whatever angle you build it to. it is much easier for you to hold a knife flat, then try to hold it at a certain angle.
 

Attachments

  • DSCN9126.jpg
    DSCN9126.jpg
    57 KB · Views: 34
  • DSCN9128.jpg
    DSCN9128.jpg
    72.6 KB · Views: 38
I'm sure a system approach to sharpening would yield the most consistent results. However, being able to keep a knife sharp in the field is important to me and, I'm sure, many others. That simply precludes packing around an Edgepro, KME or even a Sharpmaker. So learning to freehand sharpen with stones is an important skill. I accept the fact that there is a degree of inconsistency in the degrees of angle I'm using when I freehand sharpen (pardon the bad pun). But if someone as uncoordinated and clumsy as I am can learn to freehand sharpen a knife to shave hair and push cut paper, anyone can. At least well enough to keep a working edge on a knife while traveling light.

Using a guide of some sort can be helpful if it develops muscle memory that carries over to working without the guide. Just be careful it doesn't become a crutch.
 
Lee48 said:
I'm sure a system approach to sharpening would yield the most consistent results. However, being able to keep a knife sharp in the field is important to me and, I'm sure, many others. That simply precludes packing around an Edgepro, KME or even a Sharpmaker. So learning to freehand sharpen with stones is an important skill. I accept the fact that there is a degree of inconsistency in the degrees of angle I'm using when I freehand sharpen (pardon the bad pun). But if someone as uncoordinated and clumsy as I am can learn to freehand sharpen a knife to shave hair and push cut paper, anyone can. At least well enough to keep a working edge on a knife while traveling light.

Using a guide of some sort can be helpful if it develops muscle memory that carries over to working without the guide. Just be careful it doesn't become a crutch.
Click to expand...

:thumbup::thumbup:
 
Lee48 said:
I'm sure a system approach to sharpening would yield the most consistent results. However, being able to keep a knife sharp in the field is important to me and, I'm sure, many others. That simply precludes packing around an Edgepro, KME or even a Sharpmaker. So learning to freehand sharpen with stones is an important skill. I accept the fact that there is a degree of inconsistency in the degrees of angle I'm using when I freehand sharpen (pardon the bad pun). But if someone as uncoordinated and clumsy as I am can learn to freehand sharpen a knife to shave hair and push cut paper, anyone can. At least well enough to keep a working edge on a knife while traveling light.

Using a guide of some sort can be helpful if it develops muscle memory that carries over to working without the guide. Just be careful it doesn't become a crutch.
Click to expand...

Amen to that! As I see it, the angle does not have to be held perfectly. Any free hand sharpening will produce a very slightly convexed edge, and the more experience, the less the convex. But don't let that discourage you from doing free hand sharpening! Nothing wrong with that at all, and just go with it!
 
samuraistuart said:
Amen to that! As I see it, the angle does not have to be held perfectly. Any free hand sharpening will produce a very slightly convexed edge, and the more experience, the less the convex. But don't let that discourage you from doing free hand sharpening! Nothing wrong with that at all, and just go with it!
Click to expand...

That's it, and a bit of convex liable to help the edge out over time. Tools that need a flat or more nearly flat cutting surface tend to have bevels that make this easy to do freehand anyway - chisels, regular scissors, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top