Help a city boy learn how to sharpen a khuk...

BruiseLeee

BruiseLeee

Joined
Sep 7, 2001
Messages
5,946
How does it differ from sharpening a thinner, lighter blade like a kitchen knife? I don't really want to use those fancy devices like a sharpmaker or lansky.

Assume mE iz duM and d0n't n0 nuth1n' b0ut 5h@rp3n1n' Nifes.


Thank you in advance...
:confused:
 
What do you mean by different than sharpening a kitchen knife? How do you normally sharpen those?

For me it depends what youre trying to do, how much work you want to put into it, and how often youre gonna use it. I like them hones for knives that I use alot, theyre easy to use, quick and you get them knives scary sharp depending on the hone. However the hones I got only work real well on convex edges.

For flat grinds I use a diamond stone to shape, and then hit the water stones (I never liked stropping, and with a real high grit Japanese water stone its not necessary).

For things with no secondary bevel (aka. swords, display pieces, and what not) I go through the various grits of sandpaper, usually 220-2500, then clean up with a polishing compound.

Really depends on what you want to do. Anyways like they say there many ways to skin a cat, but a real sharp knife helps ;)
 
Yep. I'll second that school of thought Uncle Bill:D

I can get em so they shave hair--now and then. I don't have em sharp enough so I'd dare to shave EVERYWHERE with em though:D :eek:

Seriously though, it is amazing the kind of edge you can get and maintain with the chakma, and for how long between sharpenings.
 
Ah then now the question is when to sharpen:D I usually sharpen my user knives when my knife edge is more sawlike than knifelike;) Though I was seriously impressed with hones when I used one to take out 1/8" nicks from when my ang khola had an unhappy meeting with a steel fence only to be joined with the sidewalk.:D :D :D
 
Originally posted by Federico
Ah then now the question is when to sharpen:D I usually sharpen my user knives when my knife edge is more sawlike than knifelike;) Though I was seriously impressed with hones when I used one to take out 1/8" nicks from when my ang khola had an unhappy meeting with a steel fence only to be joined with the sidewalk.:D
Click to expand...

Rob posted:
"Seriously though, it is amazing the kind of edge you can get and maintain with the chakma, and for how long between sharpenings."
Click to expand...

Federico (to me) it really depends on what one is doing or wanting to do with their khukuri or any knife for that matter.
It really hit home with me, once again, that a large heavy knife, with a good edge profile and blade geometry, doesn't have to be all that sharp to do its job. When I was sitting down admiring Ruel's beautiful Ram Dao I just let the blade fall about a foot into the end grain of an Elm log to see what it would do.
The edge penetrated about 1"-1 1/4" into the end grain with no added assistance!!!!:eek:
I guess I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was because the blade on the Ram Dao is huge even compared to a large khukuri.
However it isn't no where as thick and in no way could be considered sharp, the edge has more of a slight radius than what one could call an edge at the sweet spot.
(I really didn't pay much attention to how sharp the rest of the blade may have been at the time and now that it's been a few weeks I couldn't remember anyway.:( )
I would estimate that the thickest part of the blade isn't any thicker than 1/4 inch if that!!!!
And even more surprising is that in such a large Really Wide blade there is not one hammer mark to be seen!!!!
Absolutely amazing IMO!!!!!:eek:
Naturally the blade is convex and the arc becomes more pronounced about 2 inches up the blade and gently arcs down to the edge.
Beautifully Executed, even to todays standards!!!!

After giving some thought to what Uncle Bill quoted Will Kwan with saying (paraphrased), "I get them razor sharp because I can."
I think that's probably the same reason I sharpen all of my knive's to a razor sharpeness, at least the first time I sharpen a brand new one.
There's just something fascinating (to me) about being able to get something as hard and as cold as a piece of steel to a razor sharp edge.
Especially since I wasn't always able to do that.:rolleyes:

Didn't mean to get this long, but I do want to add that I took a pretty fair sized rolled edge, caused by cutting a 5/16" carriage bolt in two, in my AK Bowie out with a chakma and then brought the whole edge back to scary shaveing sharp in just a short
time!!!!:)
Richard, one of the guys, was very, very impressed both with the Bowie and its reconstructed edge!!!!!!!
Three other guys and myself were doing a micro knife test and had done several things before we went to the vise and started cutting the bolts in two.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the chakma will save a whole lot of steel on an edge and should at least be tried before taking a hone to the knife.

It used to be that nothing short of Full Body Shiver Sharp* would satisfy me.;)
But since being here on the forums and with the increaseing sharpening skill I have developed since being here I don't sharpen my knive's on a hone near as much as I used to.
The judiscious use of a smooth steel and finishing on a strop keeps my knive's to an excepted level of sharpness.
And (But) there are a few that always keep the *FBSS edge in order to show them off once in a while, but then those particular knives don't get used either.;)
 
Excellent points there Yvsa. I usually look at sharpening in a situation where the chakma cannot help such as deep nicks and extremely dulled edges aka saw like blades ;):D. While an extremely scary sharp edge aka FBSS isnt really that necessary, I always figure if your gonna go through all that work might as well do it well.;) :D :D Though again like I said before in my first reply, it really depends on what your trying to do, and what the blade itself wants you to do. For alota of kris and barong that I have re-polished Ive let the blade tell me what needs to be done, rather than try to force my will into what it should be.
 
Bruce Evans, an absolutely fantastic bladesmith :D, over in the Shop Talk Forum started a thread on sharpness here the other day.
You can find it here....

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173010

Seems like sharpness and just exactly what that means is a question that comes up fairly frequently in the forums.;) :rolleyes: :D
And proves that you can't always satisfy everyone with the same thing.

Federico wrote:
"Excellent points there Yvsa. I usually look at sharpening in a situation where the chakma cannot help such as deep nicks and extremely dulled edges aka saw like blades."
Click to expand...

Federico I was simply stunned at being able to get the rolled edge on the Bowie completely out and back to the degree of sharpness it came back to.
The Bowie was much, much sharper than it was before the tests even started!!!!
But it was a real rolled edge and not a nick. The edge had slipped over the side and was maybe 1/32" or a bit more deep and a tad over 3/8" long I would guess.
And you're right the only way to get a nick out is to hone it out.
I really hate it when one of my knive's actually nicks out instead of rolling the edge.

And that's one thing I like about my Busse E-Battle Mistress as well.
I have rolled its edge when chopping very well cured cow bone surpriseingly.:eek: :eek: :rolleyes: :D
Leave it to me to roll an edge on a knife that's supposed to be the absolute king of the hill.;)
 
Ah you have no idea how much it pained me when I saw the nicks:mad:
Actually when I got my first khuk I was a lurker here and came by a post you made about using the chakma. Since then Ive always prayed for and been amazed by situations where I can use just the chakma.;) Though it seems to be my luck, whenever things go wrong they go wrong in spades:( The last time I used my hone, the edge of the khuk literally looked like a saw with multiple deep nicks. Overgrown bushes tangled in steel fences that are next to side-walks=:mad: :mad: :(
 
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