How did you learn to sharpen?

The Lansky system is pretty much goof proof and is easy to find. It makes it easy to hold the same angle which is the key. If you want to really learn I'd suggest a book which really helped me. "The Razor Edge book of Sharpening". I ordered it from one of my knife parts suppliers and I suspect you could get it from Amazon. Have fun!
outlawxx
 
With bench stones I practice using knives I am not worried about if I scratch them. With knives I am worried about scratching I put tape over the blade. I don't worry about crock sticks or a sharpener that uses guides. GL
 
Most of the time I just use my fine-grit whetstone and a bit of water, spit, or honing oil, depending on my mood (and whether I am close to a sink or other water source). Any of these three ways works just fine now....I tried for a year at least at the age of 11 or so to learn from other people the "slice a layer off the top of the stone" method, but just couldn't manage to keep the same angle well enough. I discovered the circular motion that so many people don't like--probably because they are using heavy-grit stones or diamond sharpeners rather than a fine whetstone. With a really fine-grit stone you can get a pretty good, efficient, relatively long-lasting edge. Ya just gotta make sure you're keeping it the same all around and the stone isn't too coarse.
PMZ

EDIT: ALWAYS rinse your whetstone off; but DO NOT use soap to clean the shavings off.....it will "wax" the stone and make it pretty much useless.
 
self taught on benchstones. It took a long time to be able to put an edge on a knife that would literally split a hair. My friend used my knife to try to shave some hair off his arm since i was bragging about how sharp my knife was. this was about ten years ago. he slowly tried to shave his arm intentionally trying to make it not shave. It actually split one of his arm hairs a good 1/4". He couldn't beleive it. It took many hours on a bench stone to produce those results taking many breaks in between. I totally re-profiled the edge. Thinning it out quite a bit. The knife was a microtech socom. I had two of them until I realized how crappy the lock up system was on them.
Jeff
 
Still learning. I can get a good, strong shaving edge out of most any blade, but as you know that's not too hard to do. I'm trying to get better results and with coarser stones. I haven't sharpened in a long time actually, and after I get my tools organized and the house cleaned up (haven't done that in a while, either...) I'll be breaking out the waterstones. I'm also going to try out mudstones in the near future to see how well they work.
 
rebeltf said:
My Grandpa taught me , the old fashioned way with hard and soft Arkansas stones and spit , lol
Now I use oil but still use stones.
I have a couple of ceramic stick (toucher uppers) that I use to bring 'em back if they aren't too dull but otherwise I use a stone.
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As with many others here, my Grandad showed me how to sharpen my knives. I still use oil stones on all my knives, and a EZ lap out in the field for quick touch up. I also used sandpaper and a mouse pad for convex edges, and on certain knives I convex a secondary bevel using the same rig.

I don't have the sharpmaker, although I have been told it is great, I just don't see where it wold be worth the money for me. "Don't fix it if it ain't broke"
 
I'm far from an expert but a few things have stuck in my mind that have helped me on my way:

-The lower the grit the faster metal will be removed.
-Get the profile right and subsequent sharpenings will be MUCH easier.
-Only at the very edge is maintaining a consistent angle important. If you are just reprofiling it is not so essential. You are just thinning the metal, it's only the actual edge that cuts.
-The nearer you get to the edge, the slower the sharpening will get as more surface area is in contact with the abrasive ie. you are having to remove more metal.

The combo I have found quickest and easiest is a coarse stone to set the back bevel, then just use the sharpmaker for the very edge. I was very wary the first time I took an expensive knife (to me!) to a benchstone, but I found that confidence came fast and it wasn't as difficult as I'd imagined.
 
Kevin the grey said:
Lots of trial and error . No-one was sharpening that I knew so there was no-one to ask how to . I heard a couple of things here and there . A good pair of sharpening stones doesn,t hurt .

Buford give me an E-mail please .
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Cannot do, Kevin you will have to first go into your profile and turn on your internal emailer.
 
I guess i first became interested in sharpening when i bought my first benchmade, a model 520. Once i dulled the factory edge i was a little scared of using benchstones. My previous experience with them had only yielded marring of the finish on the knife. Well i wasnt about to do that to a $180 knife so i bought a sharpmaker. The sharpmaker worked well but after a couple months i realized i could achieve much better edges if i learned to freehand on a stone. I bought a DMT coarse, and a spyderco medium ceramic to start out. I knew my biggest problem would be keeping the angle consistent so i started reading online and trying different freehand methods.

These are some of the articles i read before starting:
http://gpvec.unl.edu/filesdatabase/files/feedlot/sharp1.htm

http://forums.egullet.com/index.php?showtopic=26036

http://www.sff.net/people/pff/sharp.txt

The last website is the most in depth and informative resource i found on sharpening, definitely read it all the way through.
 
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