how many stokes do you take?

V

=Voodoo=

Joined
Sep 6, 2003
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522
with a sharpmaker on each side and also with each type of stone to get your knife sharp?

I tried 20 strokes on each side with brown then 20 with white stones but didnt do it for me...

is there a number of stokes to guarantee success? I am not talking about touching up a knife...I am talking about getting a knife that gets used for a couple of days of work out in the woods...and then getting it back to the sharpness it left in :)

what are your sharpmaker rituals to get your knives razor sharp?

what indicators do you need before you move on to next stone?
 
that IS touching up a knife. sounds like you may not have the right bevel to begin with. I only need to touch up most of my stuff once in a while even with constant use - mostly 154cm and s30v steel. to see if the edge is OK to begin with - use black magic marker on the edge befreo you touch up and see if you are getting good contact or "sharpening" higher up than the real edge.
 
I guess my problem is dealing with 154cm steel

just cant get it to work I guess.

used the marker and the bevel does not seem to be the problem
 
also - to answer your original question - after the edge is done right - i only use the flats of the white rods to touch up usually. I will go back to the edges of the whites sometimes but almost never the red ones.
 
i guess I am not much of a photographer either...cause my pics that I tried to take of bevel just do not come out right...
 
I have no experience with 154cm, but I have found with carbon steel that the white stones do not help. I found that with both my Opinel and my old Western W49, they actually gut duller, not sharper when I went to the white stones. My Opinel was very dramatic, it was sharpened at 30 degrees, and was extremely sharp, shaving with ease when I was done on the grey stones, but it ripped, not cut, paper when I finished on the whites, and was not even scraping sharp. With all the stainless steels I have sharpened the white stones help, but see if it gets sharp on the gray stones, it may be a long shot, but it's worth a shot.
 
just a little background info...used a Cutter Knife and Tool Brend DA to open about 35 postal packages and also used it to cut a lot of nylon cord... after I cleaned it up (glue and what not on blade)...I noticed it was like a butter knife...

I am now having a real hard time getting it back to sharp...let alone razor or scary sharp...

I don't ever remember having this much trouble with my sebbies(BG42 or s30v)

I got it to remove dead skin now.... :eek: (after about 2 hours of on/off again sharpening)

why me...

blade.jpg


how often do you clean your stones?
 
I find that I can use one side and/or corner for one shapening session. Essentially, I get three knives out of the stones before I have to clean them.
154CM should be the same as ATS-34. I have used the Sharpmaker on ATS-34 with absolutely no problem. I am willing to bet your problem is one of bevel angle. Or you are sloppy with your technique, meaning you don't keep the part of the edge that is touching the stones parallel to the surface the sharpmaker is sitting on (requires quite a bit of wrist action on a recurved blade). If the bevel is set correctly 20 strokes each side corner to flats on grey and then corner to flats on white should be plenty. Are you using the 15 or 20 degree setting?

Good luck!

sting7777: Gray stones are part of the current Sharpmaker....but red stones? Except you are referring to the ultra fine stones which have the triangular shaped side (the very small one that you don't use) painted red to distinguish them from the regular fines (white). Otherwise you could distinguish them by feel only.
 
re: colors - my eyes must be "special" :) my grey rods look reddish brown to me - but I do have the latest iteration of the sharpmaker. :D

Voodoo - it looks to me like you arent getting the very edge on at least part of the blade - it looks to me like I can still see some marker on the very edge a couple inches in.

to give you an idea of what a 17 degree bevel with a 20 degree sharpmaker finish looks like on my TSEK in 154cm (and its scary sharp)
edge.jpg
 
I have read a dozen posts similar to this one in the last few months.
I do not own a Sharpmaker but do sharpen knives and fully understand the principles. On any blade, the felt tip trick should be applied to make sure that the actual edge is being sharpened.

It seems that many of us are in effect re profiling when all we wish to do is 'touch up'...

I use a sharpening system that has adjustable angle control and touch ups
take just a couple of swipes with the hone.
Its all about repeatability.
 
you said it. the ease of the sharpmaker is why i re-profile any blade that isnt already in the 15-20 degree range.
 
well, I finally got it hair poppin sharp...after bout 4 hours of screwing it up...it got sharp in bout 30 strokes :eek:

don't know what exactly happened but I pulled out my da socom which is 154 also, and got that sharp in seconds, so I think the recurve blade and the fact I hadn't used the grey/red stones on it before caused me some grief.

thanks for the help

btw: nice pic of your edge...looks like I will be practicing taking pictures next cause it took me 100 times to get that 1 above on my sony dsc T1(I know, little point &shoot) but it takes great pics outside and goes everywhere with me :)
 
It probably has nothing to do with the recurve. Either you got the blade awfully dull and therefore needed to remove a lot of material to get down to the edge at your normal angle or this knife was previously sharpened at a much more obtuse angle than your sharpmaker was set up for. In either of these cases it can take a very long time to sharpen on a sharpmaker. Was this the first time you used the sharpmaker on this knife?

I use a belt sander, water stone, or diamond hone and reprofile my blades to under 15 degrees per side before I start with a sharpmaker. I use the sharpmaker for touch up and to refine my edges. If I had diamond rods I would only use them in the field since they are so expensive for their size.
 
Was this the first time you used the sharpmaker on this knife?
Click to expand...

I had used the white stones on it before for regular touchups...

I really made this knife dull the other day, and it truly was a butter knife after I got done. I bet I spent over 1500 strokes getting it sharp again (750+ each side)

I don't want to go thru that again :grumpy:
 
The first time you use the sharpmaker on a knife, you must first sharpen only one side of the blade and raise a burr. Then and only then go to the other side and raise a burr. After this you start alternating sides on your strokes.
From then on, don't let it get dull. The sharpmaker is great at maintaining the edge. It was not designed for reprofiling the bevel. It will do it, just takes a long time.
 
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