How do all you guys sharpen your scandi knives?

dbltap45acp

dbltap45acp

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Dec 19, 2008
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I have a a couple scandi knives that need to be sharpened and polished up. I already have a sharp maker but was thinking of buying some wet stones. Just curious what everyone was using.
 
Mostly waterstones (King and Norton), but have had good luck with silicon carbide and India stones. You can't go wrong with a combo Norton Crystalon (silicon carbide) or India (Aluminum Oxide) stone. The waterstones have a longer learning curve but make a very nice edge in very short time.
 
I have a standard set of bench stones: washika, soft arkansas and hard arkansas. I just lay the bevel flat on the stones and go to work. Usually just need a touch up with the hard arkansas. When something really get messed up I use a bench diamond hone of about 600 grit then work down to the finer stones. Ragnar at Ragweed Forge

http://www.ragweedforge.com

has a good tutorial on sharpening Scandi knives.
Like it was said, you don't need a lot of fancy stones; a good Norton combo will do nicely also.
Rich
 
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Well this is one of my favorite subjects. The scandi grind is considered easy to sharpen, in reality, for three reasons (two of which are traditional, the third technological). You can lay the bevel flat on any type of stone and remove enough metal to get back to the zero edge...meaning a flat bevel from the shoulder to the edge. This is a little time consuming but will get you a good result. The second method is to lay the wide scandi bevel flat on the stone and then raise the spine just a tiny amount, use just as few strokes as possible to get a good edge on there again...a microbevel. You probably only want to do this a couple of times before you go the whole route of flattening the bevel out again. This is what the people of the far north will do in the field.

The third method is one that I like to use and that is to set the Sharpmaker (or similar tool) to 30 degrees inclusive and strike a very quick microbevel on the edge...either before use or after or both. I do mean micro here. You should have to hold the thing up to the light just right to even see that microbevel. I did this with my Roselli Hunter and WOW...scary sharp. Works great on Moras too.

The key to the "scandi philosophy" is not to let that microbevel go very far. You want to preserve that flat bevel surface so you can always index the bevel flat on the stone and get back that zero flat scandi bevel.

If you are going to put your scandi knife to rough service other than wood carving, you may well want to put such a microbevel on first. For woodcarving leave it full zero as nothing carves wood like a scandi...or any other wide flat bevel like you see on a plane or a chisel.
 
HoosierQ and I have similar affection for this topic. Provided the scandi knife is not too expensive there is no better way to train yourself on a whetstone. The scandi is like having training wheels on a bicycle. It helps you to feel the sweep of the blade and trains untrained hands. It can be hard to feel an edge, but it's easy to know when your flat on the blade. I encourage you to start learning to freehand sharpen. The Sharpmaker was an excellent first step in the progression. It's where I started. I still use it for my serrated knives. This would be a good next step in the meditative art and science of sharpening. OK, maybe I'm going a little overboarrd. There's is someting to be learned by different grinds and blade shapes. I, however, personally honed my earliest fundamentals on a scandi.
 
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I've convexed a couple using sandpaper on a strop. One I've kept as scandi and sharpen it on water stones.
 
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