How did you first learn to sharpen a knife?

Coldwood

Coldwood

Joined
Jun 5, 2006
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2,718
I was six when I got my first knife. It was at dinner, I was pissing and moaning because my mother served up yet another dish of boiled cauliflower which I hated. My father plunked down a small folder on the table and said "I'll give you this if you clean your plate." I was bug-eyed, I would have eaten a pot of cauliflower for that knife. Anyway I got the knife and I got busy cutting everything that needed cut, including my fingers. I was occasionally smart enough to know that it needed to be re-sharpened and I bugged my father to do it. He did and he probably tried to teach me how to do it, but I was too young and didn't get it (those were the good old days :) )

One day when I was 11, I happened upon an old Japanese gardener who was sharpening his hand sycle with a water stone. I was fascinated and approached him, unusual for me because I was a shy kid. I asked him if he would sharpen my pocket knife. He didn't speak English and I didn't speak Japanese but we finally communicated. He obliged me by sharpening my knife but he also showed me how to do it, get the right angle, etc.

(Sharpen a kid's knife and he'll cut himself for a day...show him how to sharpen a knife and he'll cut himself for the rest of his life :) )

So that's how I learned and I'll never forget that old Japanese man who helped out a dumb kid.
 
i learned by watching a few old guys sharpen their knives with stones and sandpaper over the years growing up. my dad has an old stone that i would try to use but it was too uneven to do a good job so i started using wetordry sandpaper on a flat block of wood which worked well. this was when i was about 13.
 
I used to watch my grandfather and his cronies use small pocket stones to sharpen thier knives, but my first real hands on lesson was our scoutmaster, Mr. Van.

He held a sharpening seminar in the room at the local church where our scout troop met on Friday evenings. He sat us down in a circle and went around the circle one by one showing us how to sharpen our scout knives. Mr. Van was a stickler on our knives being sharp. If he saw one kid having a problem, he'd stand in back of him and reach around and guide his hands on the knife and stone, in the small circles from kick to tip.

We learned well, and I still do it that way more than a half a century later.
 
jackknife said:
We learned well, and I still do it that way more than a half a century later.
Click to expand...

Ya know, once you learn to do it, you've got it, and you never forget it. I guess sharpening rigs are good, but I can sit down with a stone and put an edge on anything. Sounds like bragging but anybody can learn it within 10 minutes if somebody is there to show you...like so many things.

I once loaned my pocket knife to a friend of mine who is a woodworker and a blacksmith. I came back 20 minutes later and he is grinding the hell out of it on a sharpening stone, totally ruined the point and the edge. I abused him some and then we laughed about it but he still didn't get it :)

Edit: I tried to show him but he had his mind busy on other stuff.
 
Blade Forums and BF member articles on various websites about a year and a half ago. Also the Spyderco Sharpmaker and DVD helped me transition to freehand.
 
I'm 59 years old and I can hardly remember not having a knife. I taught myself through watching, reading, and sharpening for myself (trial and error). I sharpen freehand, it's how I always did it, and how I will always do it. There is a visceral satisfaction I get from sharpening a tool, which (sharpening tools) I think is a primitive instinct in man.
 
My mum showed me how to use a whet stone when i was 13, but i learnt heaps from this forum.
 
Almost 20 years ago I was lucky enough to visit an old iron mining facility in upstate New York. They had drilled out a bunch of core samples from down deep (I don't know how they do that) and they had remainders of that laying all over the ground like goose turds. They were beautiful cylindrical pieces of hard stone about 3-5 inches long and 7/8-inch in diameter. With the mine owners permission, I snatched up about half a dozen just for grins. One of them has proved to be a great sharpening stone...it's almost black with a lot of silica in it. It can make a carbon blade hair poppin sharp.

I've got a wide variety of stones and ceramic rods that I've picked up over the years. I find that some work better than others for sharpening blades of different steels.

I think free-hand blade sharpening is an art and science and once you get it you can put an edge on anything. It's a simple thing to learn, but once learned you can spend a lifetime perfecting your technique...like golf, or tennis, or rifle shooting. And it's a very pleasant passtime, dragging a blade slowly, carefully and thoughtfully across a stone.

Edit: Regarding my last comment, I'm not running a race when I sharpen a blade. I take my time at it, sometimes when I'm watching TV, sometimes while I'm sitting outside watching the grass grow.
 
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I had the honor of watching Sal Glesser sharpen knives; he pretty much taught all the basics to me personally.

It was, of course, all on his sharpmaker DVD. Prior to that, I remember watching my mom freehand sharpen her 7 inch kitchen knives on a 2 inch stone. Knowing what I know now, I still can't do what she does.
 
I learned and am learning by reading everything about sharpening I find. I sure wish all the info that is on the net now was around a long time ago. This forum, videos, and web pages there is more than enough to learn about. However, the real way to learn is to just do it and keep at it.
 
jackknife said:
I used to watch my grandfather and his cronies use small pocket stones to sharpen thier knives, but my first real hands on lesson was our scoutmaster, Mr. Van.

He held a sharpening seminar in the room at the local church where our scout troop met on Friday evenings. He sat us down in a circle and went around the circle one by one showing us how to sharpen our scout knives. Mr. Van was a stickler on our knives being sharp. If he saw one kid having a problem, he'd stand in back of him and reach around and guide his hands on the knife and stone, in the small circles from kick to tip.

We learned well, and I still do it that way more than a half a century later.
Click to expand...

That's how my dad used to sharpen and I learned from him.
 
Reading this thread brought back a lot of memories.

I'm not as old a Teague but close.;)

I first learned to use a whet stone, the right way, when I was 12 at Boy Scout summer camp. One of the old codgers was sitting under a tree working a pocket knife on a whet stone. I was always attracted to the old codgers, they had the best stories. :D After ten minutes of demonstration, he had me sharpening mine. I sharpened everything I could get my hands on that week.

Through the years I've used ceramic sticks, Lansky Sharpeners and other manner of sharpeners. But I always go back to the whet stone. I still have the stone from when I was a kid.

Reading this thread, I wonder what is being lost. Watching videos and reading web articles about something so tactile...
 
$1 Stone, buck110, black marker, a few dimes for angle, 10 years old, Dad, Uncle Rod,Pat and Jerry.
 
My dad on a big ol' whetstone when I was 6, I still use a whetstone today, it's just alot less fussy and fidjety than a sharpmaker or something similar, I don't need an angle guide, I always destroy the factory angle anyway when I sharpen and just use my instincts, and I always end up with an extremely sharp edge. If it was good enough for our ancestors for thousands of years, its good enough for me. The only problem with whetstones is serrations.
 
I started when I was 12. I used to watch my grandpa sharpen kitchen knives on a stone and then try to imitate it, since he never bothered to try teaching me. For a few years my technique was to rub the knife on the stone until the edge felt sharp. Then at 15, I read the razor edge book of sharpening and learned about angles, burrs, and secondary bevels, and I improved dramatically.
 
Appropriate for father's day - my Dad taught me. The big incentive was that I couldn't have a knife of my own until I could sharpen my Dad's well worn ( and easily sharpened) old Case pocket knife. Didn't learn until I was about 10 - then got a really awful Boy Scout knife clone - rusted shut all sumer long -some remarkable blade steel that was both difficult to sharpen and went dull almost instantly. First good knife was a Camillus Boy Scout knife clone - great steel - brass or bronze liners that didn't rust shut - enormious improvement. he's 84 now and I still learn a thing or two from him once in awhile.
 
About 10yrs old, came across my Grandfathers stone (double grit) and asked him about it. he told me you put a little oil on it and use it for sharpening knives. Showed me the basic motion (w/o a blade) When he wasn't looking I grabbed his Buck folder and squirted a bit of sewing machine oil and tried it out. Over a period of time I learned that slanting it at a less of an angle produced results.

BUT I actually learned how to "properly" sharpen a knife through the some of you guy's on this forum. Watched your video's, read your words and practiced them until I understood the concept and learned the dynamics of sharpening. Spent the next year practicing on every knife I could get my hands on; different types of edges and for different types of steel.

First sharpening system I bought was the "Razor Sharp" paper wheels about a year ago. Now I use DMT stones/home made strop and occasionally the buffing wheel for quick touch ups.
 
Dad taught me with a stone at 6. Then taught me on a grinder at about 9 for axes and tools. Still sharpen some freehand, some with jigs, some with power tools. Always finish with ceramic or glass rods and a strop.
 
I don't think my parents knew much about sharpening. I think one or both of my Grandfathers could do it, but I was a bit too young, then we moved away and rarely spent time with them, especially at their houses where they would have had their stones.

My Scout Master covered the subject during the knife safety lesson, but gave no hands-on training and I didn't have access to a stone. A couple years later, I bought a fixed-blade knife at a knife store to use for Scouting, and the salesman also showed me a crock stick and patiently taught me how to use it. He earned the sale and that is what I used successfully for many years. That was about 1978 or so and only about 5 years ago did I finally upgrade to a Sharpmaker. The knife I went to buy never got much use, but the sharpener turned out to be invaluable.
 
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