Having trouble with forming a burr.

Allan Molstad said:
No, I am right,,,
It is pointless to grind on both sides at the same time...infact it can cause more harm and pitting to a blade.

The very way to go is to pick a side to start on, and sharpen that side against the stone first.
Only after you have raised a burr on the "up" side is it time to flip the blade over and start to sharpen that side.

and only after you have this 2nd side done and have raised a burr all along the "up" side do you them switch gears and start to do the more traditional form of stroke-flip-stroke.

This will result in a sharp and centered edge.

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=26036
Section Four: Sharpening Basics
and
Section Five: Sharpening Step by Step
Click to expand...


Well we will have to agree to disagree, because my personal experience differs.
 
Alan, I think that you're right for a decently sharp knife in the hands of someone skilled. For someone working with rounded knives who is still working on thier technique, counting strokes and checking for the bur before you switch sides could help build skill. Maybe you're both right.
 
I make knives...so I face this problem all the time, the new knife I have in my hand has never had a sharp edge on it even once in it's life.

The edge of a new knife is very thick..perhaps as think as a dime.
So what I do is just watch out that I dont spend too much time on any one side, BUT I only sharpen one side at a time too.

I pick a side, and start to sharpen that side untill I get a burr raised up on the "up" side.
What the burr means is that the first side is so sharp and so thin , that the steel itself can no longer support holding it's edge out straight, so it bends over (flops) and thats the burr.

That side is done,
so fip the knife and I sharpen the 2nd side.
When that 2nd side shows the burr on the "up" side, I know that the 2nd side is done.

Now I just need to grind off the burr.
after that perhaps some sandpaper, a buffer, or a leather strope with gree crome
 
pablo486 said:
Alan, I think that you're right for a decently sharp knife in the hands of someone skilled. \.
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I think that if what Im saying is only usefull to a skilled knife guy, then it's moot....

My advice has to be usefull to a guy who has never sharpen a knife before in his life,,,only then is advice worth shareing...

The problem that comes with a new guy counting is that a new guy tends to think the counting is important...
The counting is NOT important.

The temptation for the new guy is to think, "Well after 100 strokes per side it should now be sharp right?"
But when he finds the knife is still dull the new guy will think - "Perhaps 200 strokes per side next time?...or 300?...perhaps 600 strokes per side will do it?"

the count number starts to be the most important thing he worries about..
Thats why you have to stop a new guy from getting sucked into counting strokes...
The only important point you have to drive home for a new guy is that it's the burr thats important,,,after that it all falls into place.

Get a burr and get a sharp knife.
No burr, and the knife will never be as sharp as it could be...
 
Allan Molstad said:
I pick a side, and start to sharpen that side untill I get a burr raised up on the "up" side.
What the burr means is that the first side is so sharp and so thin , that the steel itself can no longer support holding it's edge out straight, so it bends over (flops) and thats the burr.

That side is done,
so fip the knife and I sharpen the 2nd side.
When that 2nd side shows the burr on the "up" side, I know that the 2nd side is done.

Now I just need to grind off the burr.
after that perhaps some sandpaper, a buffer, or a leather strope with gree crome
Click to expand...

I don't make knives, so you have more experience. I guess I don't understand how your method gives you a centered edge. Do you raise a burr in the center of the dime, or on the far side? I thought that you would raise the burr on the far side of the dime (the up side). In my head, your method leads to a chisel grind.

(Alan, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm just trying to understand the mechanics)
 
I could agree that counting isn’t the best way you could also time each side or what ever works for you. The main point isn’t counting or timing it’s roughly doing the same amount of grinding on both sides. However, you can most surely get a knife sharp without ever raising a burr. The burr method is just one method among many and for someone having trouble getting a knife sharp it’s a pretty darn good method. However, the problem in this thread is he is only getting a burr after he has ground so much on one side he is creating a chisel edge. The problem as I see it is it is from grinding too much on one side and not enough on the other. My fix for that problem is just what I posted. Is it the only fix? Probably not but it may just be the easiest.
 
Pablo.
As I sharpen one side of the knife, the very thin edge starts to get thinner and thinner.

The more I sharpen the knife, the more thin the steel out along the sharp cutting edge gets.
After a while it gets so thin it bends away from the stone thats pushing on it.
This is the burr...

Now it may in fact be true that the burr has flopped the point a little off center, but thats to be expected, because we have yet to do any work on the other side.

When we do flip the blade over and start to sharpen the 2n side we again are looking for the burr.
The natural effect of this is to true-up the edge and make everything straight and in ther middle.

But, once again, the 2nd burr has flopped up away from the stone, the edge might well be slightly out of true alinement...But remember, we are not done.

For once we have the 2nd burr raised, we now "switch gears" and to the traditional strone-flip-stroke .
This centers the cutting edge, and removes the last of the burrs.

Now as we use a knife, there is a chance that the cutting edge will flop over out of alinement again, so thats why lots of people use what it called a "sharpening steel" to push the cutting edge back into alinement again,,,,but thats another whole can of worms
 
db said:
I However, you can most surely get a knife sharp without ever raising a burr. .
Click to expand...
Oh yes, thats very true.
Im just saying that while I can get a knife sharp enough to cut with without getting a burr, the knife will never be as sharp compared to going for the burr first.

as for the problem of not getting a burr?

my first thought is that the sharpening system he tried to use has a different angle compared to the knife.

Another reason why I might fail to get a burr is if I use a "Diamond" stone.

I have seen first hand that a Diamond stone will rip so fast into steel, that it bites away the thin burr before it can form and be felt with the fingers.
I tell people that a Diamond stone is for fast edges in the field when you dont have the time to be carefull.
The diamond stone leaves a ton of little scratches that are going to be a lot of work later to sand out.

If the guy was useing a sharpener that had diamonds, he would perhaps never get a burr and could grind his knife into dust looking for one.
 
Allan Molstad said:
The edge of a new knife is very thick..perhaps as think as a dime.
So what I do is just watch out that I dont spend too much time on any one side, BUT I only sharpen one side at a time too
Click to expand...

I guess I'm trying to reconcile this statement. It sounds to me like you work one side then the other while your grinding to "make" the knife then when you get close you switch to the "sharpen one side all the way" method. Does that make sense?

As far as the sharpening steel goes, I'm not talking about a rolled or wrinkled edge, something akin to a slight chisel grind. Wat I mean to say is I'm talking about removing steel from the blade, not re-aligning the edge.
 
Allan Molstad said:
my first thought is that the sharpening system he tried to use has a different angle compared to the knife.
Click to expand...

I think that would be the case if he were just saying "I sharpened for 2 hours and my knife is still dull." WHen you change the angle of a blade and reprofile, that "shoulder" can take a while to get rid of by hand, especially if you don't have an extra coarse stone. But if he went so far as to make his knife look like a chisel, he has by far established a new angle and should have raised a burr.
 
pablo486 said:
I guess I'm trying to reconcile this statement. It sounds to me like you work one side then the other while your grinding to "make" the knife then when you get close you switch to the "sharpen one side all the way" method. Does that make sense?
.
Click to expand...

Ok, just sit back and think about what a knife maker must do with a new blade thats never been sharpened before?

The edge is not even, it's not centered...when you sight down the cutting edge it looks like a flag blowing in the wind.
How would you end up with a straight, centered, hair-poppin sharp, blade?
 
Now, you have to sharpen one side at a time, you dont worry about counting...
But as you sharpen the first side, you do make sure you dont spend what could be way too much time on that first side.

as you grind the edge into the stone, you will be knocking down all the hills and taking them down to meet the lows...as you do the whole first side will get sharp.
yes, it more than likely sharpened a bit off center,,,thats no big deal..
The other side work will bring us back to center just fine...
 
Allan Molstad said:
Ok, just sit back and think about what a knife maker must do with a new blade thats never been sharpened before?

The edge is not even, it's not centered...when you sight down the cutting edge it looks like a flag blowing in the wind.
How would you end up with a straight, centered, hair-poppin sharp, blade?
Click to expand...

Thanks Allan, that makes a lot more sense to me. When I read your first post I thought you were saying that you started with the "flag blowing in the wind" and worked one side untill you got a burr.
 
pablo486 said:
But if he went so far as to make his knife look like a chisel, he has by far established a new angle and should have raised a burr.
Click to expand...
It should not really matter that he turned the knife into a chisel grind edge...there still should be a burr to feel, and then when he flips the knife over to do the 2nd side he just has to keep going enough to center the edge.

getting a 2nd burr should have centered the edge, or gotten it close enough to center...
 
Pablo,,,well, what i dont want to say in my advice anywhere is the word 'count"...because thats the one word that gets remembered...

If I give a long speach on how to sharpen a blade, and just in passing say the word "count" , and yet thats what gets remembered , and the new guy will run off and start to count with his knife and stone, '1-2-3-4....709-710-711 etc."

Thus, I push the idea of going for the burr,,
Yes, you do sorta have to make sure you dont get lost in the first side, and spend a hour more than you should have, or you will end up with a off-center edge.

But for most sharpening, it's not a concern.

The person with the knife that could not get a burr no matter how much is grinded his knife into the stone must have clearly some other problem thats getting rid of the burr before he can feel it.

I can start to feel a burr forming after just a few strokes,,,,3 or 4 mins time and it should be ready to flip, unless its a very dull one.
 
Allan Molstad said:
It should not really matter that he turned the knife into a chisel grind edge...there still should be a burr to feel, and then when he flips the knife over to do the 2nd side he just has to keep going enough to center the edge.

getting a 2nd burr should have centered the edge, or gotten it close enough to center...
Click to expand...

I completely agree. I think that this is why the idea of counting strokes came in though. He "should" have raised a burr but for whatever reason either he didn't raise the burr, or couldn't detect it. In that situation, he can't use a burr for guidance and has to have some other standard to go by, such as counting strokes.

I think that the burr method is the way to go, it's the way I sharpen (free hand).
 
I think the problem is the Lansky .
I dont like that system...I could never get a burr on one as well.
Im not the only one, for there have been many topics posted on this forum dealing with the Lansky and a lack of a burr.

The Lansky seems like it 'should" work,,,,once you set it up it's darn near foolproof....but so far, I have seen more guys do like I have, and store it and get a stone.
 
marvinstarving, Pay attention to guys like Cliff Stamp, He knows what he is talking about. The sooner you learn to quit worrying about burrs the faster you will learn to get a knife truly sharp. Burrs are a waste of steel and time. Some blades will not form a no matter what you do. When the blade gets close to sharp, reverse it every stroke and use increasingly lighters strokes. Finish by leather stroping at the same angle or sleightly less. Do not strop to much. Some steels will form a small burr if stroped to much. BTW I do not think it is possible to form a burr with DMT diamond hones used properly.

Leon
 
It's not a trick question...

Knife makers are the guys who are able to take a blade that has never been sharpened before, and turn it into a edge that will shave hair.
And we do this all the time, with every blade we make, so one would expect that such are the people you would want to talk to about getting a good edge on a knife.

I have a number of books writen by knifemakers who talk about "How to sharpen a knife"

I have read a number of posts here on the forum writen by a number of different knifemakers who have give advice on this too.

I have done a number of GOOGLE searches on this topic, found many websites dealing with companies that do nothing else but make and sharpen knives.
John Juranitch - http://users.ameritech.net/knives/Juranitch1977Feb.htm
http://users.ameritech.net/knives/knives1c.htm
http://gpvec.unl.edu/filesdatabase/files/feedlot/sharp1.htm#sharp_e
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=26036
http://www.wikihow.com/Sharpen-a-Knife
http://www.knifecenter.com/knifecenter/sharpen/instruct.html

BUCK - http://www.buckknives.com/sharpening.php#straight
http://www.extremely-sharp.com/direct/sharpknife.html
http://www.ebladestore.com/sharpening_tips.shtml#honing
Japanese - http://www.yoshikin.co.jp/w/maintenance/maintenance_01.html
And if you really want to go nuts - http://mse.iastate.edu/fileadmin/www.mse.iastate.edu/static/files/verhoeven/KnifeShExps.pdf

Perhaps I am guilty of overlooking one knife maker or one knife sharpening pro who says "Dont worry about getting a burr"?
If so, what is his name ?

But as far as I have seen, the more websites I visit and read on this topic, the more knifemakers I talk to or read their books about it, and the more people that sharpen knives for a living, all....all seem to say the very same thing about how truly important the burr is.

Now yes, I guess there well could be the odd guy here and there thats says, "I never needed to raise a burr!"
And thats fine too, good for him...

But when I look around at my brother bladesmiths who bang the hot steel with me, I sure find that there is almost total agreement on how to sharpen a knife and how very important it is to raise and then remove a burr in doing so.
 
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