How long does it take you to sharpen on a benchstone?

It really depends on the stones you use, condition of the edge, type of metal, and method you use.

If I want too touch-up my S30V millie (EDC) I usually make 3-5 passes per side on my diamond finishing hone. Time spent, 2 minutes?

When I reprofile its a completely different story and many more factors come into play. If speed is needed and the steel is not too difficult to work with I'd say 15-30 minutes and you should be able to finish while still maintaining control and not being too sloppy. If perfection is the goal time is no longer a factor and working to the best of your abilities is the only concern.

Its really a hard thing too put a number on because of all the different factors, experience being a big one. I could tell you how long it would take me to sharpen a edge but that number might be useless to you simply because we use different tools.

 

If my blade is pretty dull, I start with my XC stone, move to F, and then finish with EF. The process takes me about a half hour.

 

what kind of knife, and what kind of 'shaving sharp' (arm hair, hair splitting) for the 3 hour times?

 

When I get a new knife I pretty much immediately do a full reprofiling, and that initial sharpening can take anywhere from an hour to a few hours with diamond stones, depending on the length of the blade and thickness of the bevel, and on how nice of a job I want to do (on the longer side of the range for mirror polish, shorter for a quick and dirty job). For touchups after the reprofiling is done though, I usually just use microbevels about 3-5 degrees per side more obtuse than the main bevel, so a touchup is measured in minutes...usually no more than 15 minutes unless there is major damage. All freehand on diamond and Shapton water stones.

 

As long as several hours, and as quick as a few seconds.

 

Don't aim for a particular speed.
Sharpening should be done in a natural motion, not forced in a any way.

 

Raised and removed a burr and OCD-polished the edge on a 9.4" kitchen knife blade using two stones and a strop in barely less than 10 minutes last night. Stone one was 180 grit, stone two was 2,500 grit, the strop was 1µ polishing paper glu-sticked to a piece of float glass. Probably had a much faster time because above the edge is probably a lot thinner than your Izula.

 

Raise your price slightly and keep doing so until your workload is more to your comfort.

 

The faster of the two hand speeds Murray uses is not for sharpening but profile, you can move faster because there is no worry of edge contact. In the second step of what that clip shows when he raises the angle for bevel contact and slows down is about the speed you should work, but only if you feel comfortable with it.

When your setting edge profile (unless there is a major miss-grind) you shouldn't need to work much past the point of raising a equal burr. I actually just sharpened a izula and starting with a Coarse DMT I don't remember it taking more than a half hour to work through to EF before heading to water stones. My use of diamonds makes very little difference with this steel and actually your norton should cut faster. I'd blame the guide on this one, sometimes they can actually make it a longer process.


I wish you luck with any CPM stainless and water stones....... and CPM-M4 too.


I don't think you should worry yourself with the time it takes and keep your focus on how well you are doing. Make corrections to your technique and continually improve your skills at creating a bevel, with time speed will follow and before you know it setting a profile and basic sharpening will be the easy part. If you feel comfortable with freehand I'd say try it more, water stones have great feedback and feel, you would be surprised how straight of a angle you can hold just from feel.

 

Well I can't say much other than; go faster and harder and see what results you get.

At one time I was acquainted with this 'butcher'. He basically gave me knives to sharpen in return for meat. It was good meat too, stuff you couldn't find anywhere else. Equine mainly.

One of those knives was a WWII era Elwell cleaver. 1/4" spine, with a 12" long 7" wide blade. And a two foot long handle made from a piece of galvanized pipe.

The edge of this thing was thicker than the spine of an old Hickory. No wonder he needed a 2" handle to swing it.
So there I am trying to work this thing down with a 10" file. Before I knew it 6 hours had gone by and I was far from finished.

I figured it wasn't worth it. So I grabbed an angle grinder and went back to work. 5 minutes later I'd set the bevel and was cleaning up with the file.

Moral of the story is some knives aren't worth the trouble of a good sharpening job. Return On Investment kind of thing.
Don't hesitate to run knives over a grinder, or turn them away altogether.

 

From a reprofile to the best I can do might take two hours or more - I seldom do th ewhole thing in one sitting. If its already at the angle I want and I need to redo the primary and secondary bevel (assuming it has two bevels) it might take a little over half an hour. If the secondary bevel is good and I'm doing a job on just the primary, or if its a single bevel and I'm just touching up, maybe ten minutes. I'm mostly using Arkansas stones and they're pretty slow compared to other stuff, but not as slow as one might think. Lots of variables, but in general it takes about ten to twenty minutes per stone.

 

Carter does a zero grind then microbevels it.

ETA-others may disagree, but I also find the Norton 220 waterstone to be pitifully slow. The sheer amount of mud it generates does not help in sharpening speed.

 

I have spent hours on some knives, and spent 10-20 minutes on others. For me it has depended on what level of sharpness I am trying to achieve and what angle it will be at.

For an EDC work knife, I won't necessarily spend long enough on each stone because I am not trying for an ultimate edge, so it won't matter if there are a couple scratches when I am done. It also won't matter if I throw a microbevel on it towards the end, as heavy cutting will destroy the edge in short order anyway.

For play, it may take hours to make sure that each stone has done its job, and perhaps stepping back up a grit or two to fix tiny mistakes. I will also play with ultrafine abrasives to see what happens.

It seems like each additional level of sharpness comes at an increased cost in time over the previous one. It doesn't take long to get a nice, sharp knife, but getting one that is truly hair whittling will take considerably longer, and you will spend even more time trying to get past that.

Also, don't forget that it is the internet. Every person on it uses cinder blocks and an old belt to get hair whittling sharpness in minutes...

 

[youtube]KZuGEloEpT0[/youtube]
need to break out the belt

 

I was waiting for someone to post one of those...

I guess it goes back to the 80/20 rule, where 80% of the results can be accomplished in 20% of the time.

I think in many cases here it is the 99/1 ratio, where we spend 99% of our time trying to get the last 1% of performance.

It really isn't surprising though, to get widely varying results. I have spent huge amounts of time reprofiling 3V on a bigger knife, and have used a pull through sharpener and an economy stone to get a sticky edge in a couple minutes on a Buck 110.

IMO, it takes what it takes to get your particular knife to your satisfaction on your equipment, regardless of what anyone else is doing. Knowledge and experience would help,(at least I assume it will when I get some..), but there are an awful lot of variables that come into play when people talk about how long it takes them to sharpen a knife.

 

That last 1% eats up all the time. I've spent hours with one folder and 20 minutes total with two chef knives and all three ended up as sharp as each other (hair-whittling). Spent tons of hours with a Busse Sar-3 on the stones and its belly still isn't sharp (the point and rest of the blade are).