How do I sharpen my blade?

Bzzzt

Bzzzt

Joined
Jun 28, 2001
Messages
127
Taking into account I'm not from a Bali-friendly area.
Something 'idiot'-proof would be nice, too. :)
 
you mean how to sharpen a bali, or how to sharpen any blade? sharpen a bali like a regular blade.
sharpen a regular blade by hand on a stone, or with a spyderco sharpmaker (comes with instructions, i believe).
on a stone:
oil the stone. a few drops of honing oil, unless it's a super fine stone like a hard arkansas. they don't need oil, and it can even have negative effects.
look at your blade. you'll notice that there is a small bevel that forms the edge. lay this thin bevel on the stone and look at it first to make sure you have the blade at the right angle. you don't want to scrape the whole side of the blade on the stone -- this won't sharpen your knife and will scratch it all up.
once you have determined the proper angle to hold your blade, hold the knife in one hand & put the stone on a hard, flat surface (table or something). drag the blade down the stone as if you were trying to shave a thin layer off the top of the stone. go slowly, to make sure you don't change the angle by accident. do this a couple times on each side, checking to make sure you're maintaining the correct angle. if you just want to sharpen, and not re-profile, make sure you're sharpening at the same angle that the edge is already ground to.
do 10-15 passes on each side before switching sides.
once you have done this a couple times, switch to a finer stone to polish the edge a little. use the same techniques.
you don't really need to press all that hard when sharpening, and remember to clean out your stones when you're done so that they don't become clogged.
good luck & happy sharpening!
peace.
aleX.
 
oh, yeah. lansky makes a little device called crock sticks. it consists of 2 ceramic rods fixed in a v-shape, so all you have to do is drag the blade through. (not for use on serrations)
these are idiot-proof, but they usually don't match the factory edge on a knife so it takes forever to get them to work (you'd be reprofiling your edge using super-fine ceramic rods. essentially like cutting a two by four with a cabinet scraper.)
and as for the stone method i posted above, avoid "sharpening" your serrations with such a method. it will just round them off.
peace.
aleX.
 
Sharpening is a whole huge subject area itself and rises almost to religious intensity and people debate "the best way" to sharpen a knife.

There are several very nice "systems" on the market that all sell in the $50 range that are all quite good. Get one and get familiar with it and you will get quite acceptible results.

I use a Gatco Edgemate system and I think I get great results. Other people report great results from Lansy and Spyderco's Sharpmaker. There are others too.

Pick one (for day-to-day utility sharpening, it really doesn't matter which one. Any of the name-brand systems will get your blade plenty sharp.). Buy it. And experiment with it on an older blade first before trying it on your good stuff. I probably sharpened ten cheapie blades before trying my Gatco on a good knife. With a good system, it takes only about five or ten experiments to get the hang of it. Now, every blade in this house will shave hair. Even my tape dispenser is frightening. And that's really the nice thing about buying a system, learning to use it, and becoming sharpening self-sufficent.

If you're really interested in sharpening, start by reading the bladeforums.com sharpening FAQ. I don't know where it's hiding these days, but look around and you'll find it. Then, do a search here at bladeforums.com on "sharpening". You probably won't be surprised to find that you're not the first to ask about this topic.
 
I prefer ceramics to just about anything once the edge geometry has been established. That's the catch, getting the type of edge to match the work you're going to do, i.e., a thin(16`-18`included angle), polished, edge for fine slicing; a 'toothy'(24`-26`included angle) edge, done up on a 220-320 grit stone, for heavier cutting, and then variations in included angles to hand axes, hatchets, mower blades, etc.....The more the included angle, the more bevel and less fragile the edge will be. The ceramics will easily touch-up or re-establish the cutting edge as long as you don't let it go too long without a touch-up. Something that does as good a job as ceramics in a pinch, and is usually near by, is the radiused edge on your car window. Roll it down a few inches, take long light strokes like you would on a ceramic rod and, if you've never tried it before, you'll be surprised at the razor edge you can bring up on a blade that hasn't been dulled too much (to the point you have to change the geometry by removing metal). This process realigns the cutting edge. Another real nice 'croc stick' is the quartz element out of a high pressure sodium light bulb of about 400w..........;)
 
from culinary school an working in various restaurants, I have grown to love my high quality sharpening steel. All of m kitchen knives are "scary sharp" I use an Arkansas stone my grandfather gave me on most of my "pocket knives" and I have a barbers strop for my straight razors. Once you learn how to use a strop, you'll be surprized at what you can do.

My friend sharpens...well touches up... all his knives up on a sharpening steel. Is this acceptable? None have custom edges on them. all are pretty much utility grinds.

Nate
 
Sweet mother of hasselhoff!!! Sorry... first time replying with the new setup... yikes...

Anyway...

Sharpening is under "knowledge base" last I checked on the main BF page...

Re: steels, what they said there is that a steel is good periodically just for " realinigning" an edge that's been well used, but isn't really dull.
I've actually used the back of an old united cutlery pocketknife to re-establish the edge on an old diving knife... Which really would only work on those, isnce the steel is very stainless, but soft, adn easily bent. My friends saw what I was doing, and thought I was an idiot. Then I let em check the edge for themselves. Suddenly I wasn't such an idiot anymore.

My own opinion on lansky and other systems is that they're good, but that learning to do it by hand, pain though it is, is fun, and becomes a point of honor. The systems are great to a point, but personally, I just get better results by hand. If I'm putting a different bevel on a blade, I'll use a lansky rig, but that's about it...

Ahhhh, phooey. Damn near started running off about sharpening. Take your pick. Idiot proof is nice. But for some folks, it's just another way to become intimately acquainted with their blades.

Another side point, for misc folks tuning in... Rare though it is, NEVER listen to anyone who tells you to use one of those dane electric can openers... they eat the blade, not sharpen, and NEVER EVER EVER use a damned bench grinder or anthing else electric or powered. Once the blade is heated up, you'll lose the temper, and it'll never hold an edge again.

That's my two bits. : )
 
NEVER EVER EVER use a damned bench grinder or anthing else electric or powered. Once the blade is heated up, you'll lose the temper, and it'll never hold an edge again.
Click to expand...

There's a great myth that anything that warms a blade up will destroy the temper.

The fact is that to affect the temper you have to raise the temperature above the final heat-treatment temperature. That is a minimum of about 300F and is considerably higher on most blades. Water boils a little over 200F. So, as long as you don't heat the blade up enough to boil water, you've got at least about a hundred degrees F of safety margin.

Most custom makers sharpen their blades with some sort of electric grinder. So, they can't be all wrong.

Now, if your grinder is going so fast that you can see sparks, then, yes, you have destroyed the temper of the very edge of the blade. Those sparks are burning steel and steel burns a lot hotter than 300F. So, the sparks are a clear sign that things got above 300F. But, only at the very edge. Even in this case, it is usually only necessary to remove a few hundredths of an inch of the blade to get back to well-tempered steel.

The typical electric "sharpeners" are pretty brutal on a knife. Furthermore, these devices are typically designed to sharpen knives made of soft steel since most kitchen knives are pretty soft. Most of the knives we typically have are made of much harder steel. These classic electric sharpener not only won't do a good job, but the knife will actually dammage the machine.

So, our friend Mr. Lothar.OTHP, is correct that the classic electric kitchen knife sharpener (often attached to a can opener), is not a good idea.
 
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