- Joined
- Feb 3, 2001
- Messages
- 32,359
After reading MercuryHazes post on scarry sharp, I thought I'd add my$1.50 worth, so here it is.
The sharpening progression generally goes like this: You get a knife, it gets dull,(if you have no experience sharpening, you ask someone that does, to put an edge on it for you) you dig up granddads old carborundom coarse oil stone, and attempt to put an edge on it yourself, or you take it to the grinder
.
After completely destroying the blade and finish, you buy another knife,(this is where the collecting starts
) or you try to learn freehand sharpening, if your lucky, someone you know,(sportsman, hunter, outdoorsman), will teach you, or maybe your one of the 2 people who can read, and understand a sharpening procedure written on paper, than successfully apply that knowledge to developing a hairpoppin' edge.
More likely than not you've ruined another edge, and consequently bought another knife. (This is why cheap sharp blades like Opinel, and Frost Mora blades are so popular, use it till it's dull than throw it in the drawer)
Next step, buy a 3 sided Smiths hone set up,(why you buy three more stones when you can't freehand sharpen worth a s**t anyway is beyond me) Screw up a few more edges, get some more practice, than onto the next step.
V sharpening sticks, usually it's a cheap pair of round rods that don't seem to work very well anyway, so its back to the drawing board, and maybe you wind up with a Sharpmaker, this seems to be the ticket, but the angles on the blade don't always match the angle on the Sharpmaker, so you go looking for something better.
In the mean time you pull out the stone and try some more freehand, you notice that you can now maintain a reasonable primary bevel, but to get that paper slicin' edge you go back to the Sharpmaker.
Somewhere along the line someone mentions diamond hones, the ones for the Sharpmaker are $70 so you buy an Diafold, and immediately notice the difference, you can now ruin the edge in half the time
, so it's back to the Sharpmaker for now.
After some time, you realize that your problem is maintaining a consistent angle when sharpening, so now you either make the leap to a sharpening system with a jig/clamp for the blade, (or you stick to a rolled/Moran/covex edge like some people I know )
So you choose a system, Lansky, Gatco, or one of the many out there, and you go on a sharpening frenzy, (hell you got about a half a dozen dull blades in your knife drawer by now), and what do you find out? The damn stones are short, the bevel seems to get wider as you approach the belly of the knife , so it's back to the bench stones to try and straighten out the edge, here you notice that you seem to be maintaining a decent angle, so you go and buy a coarse diamond bench hone, only to notice that as you try to hone the deep scratches from the edge,(it kinda looks like a serrated edge now)you wind up rounding off that nice consistent bevel you achieved with the coarse diamond bench hone.
Finally someone shows you and Edgepro, or you send a knife into them for sharpening, at which point you realize that this is the ultimate system, the blade come back scarry, hair poppin' sharp
, and it looks easy
, than you see the price tag, $200+ .
You scrimp, you save, and finally you have enough to buy one, you anxiously await it's arrival, and when it shows up, you can't wait to fix all the edges on all your knives.
Alas, you try, and you try, but you can't seem to get the same scarry edge as the knife that was done on another Edgepro.
You go back to the bench hone, or the Sharpmaker and the edges seem to come alive after a few strokes.
Since you've started sharpening several years have passed, quite possibly a few hundred dollars in knives, and at least $400 in sharpeners, and what did you learn, if you learn and practice your freehand sharpening skills you can save a lot of aggravation and money.
I have an Edgepro, and I'll swear by it, but most of my touch ups are done on a bench stone, it's faster and easier to set up.
Now I use all the sharpeners I have, the Sharpmaker sits on my kitchen counter to dress up an edge while cooking, the freehand stones sit in a drawer next to where I sit to dress up the edge on my EDC's and the Edgepro is primarily used to reprofile and polish an edge.
BTW don't forget stropping and steeling.
The sharpening progression generally goes like this: You get a knife, it gets dull,(if you have no experience sharpening, you ask someone that does, to put an edge on it for you) you dig up granddads old carborundom coarse oil stone, and attempt to put an edge on it yourself, or you take it to the grinder
.After completely destroying the blade and finish, you buy another knife,(this is where the collecting starts
) or you try to learn freehand sharpening, if your lucky, someone you know,(sportsman, hunter, outdoorsman), will teach you, or maybe your one of the 2 people who can read, and understand a sharpening procedure written on paper, than successfully apply that knowledge to developing a hairpoppin' edge. More likely than not you've ruined another edge, and consequently bought another knife. (This is why cheap sharp blades like Opinel, and Frost Mora blades are so popular, use it till it's dull than throw it in the drawer)Next step, buy a 3 sided Smiths hone set up,(why you buy three more stones when you can't freehand sharpen worth a s**t anyway is beyond me) Screw up a few more edges, get some more practice, than onto the next step.
V sharpening sticks, usually it's a cheap pair of round rods that don't seem to work very well anyway, so its back to the drawing board, and maybe you wind up with a Sharpmaker, this seems to be the ticket, but the angles on the blade don't always match the angle on the Sharpmaker, so you go looking for something better.
In the mean time you pull out the stone and try some more freehand, you notice that you can now maintain a reasonable primary bevel, but to get that paper slicin' edge you go back to the Sharpmaker.
Somewhere along the line someone mentions diamond hones, the ones for the Sharpmaker are $70
so you buy an Diafold, and immediately notice the difference, you can now ruin the edge in half the time , so it's back to the Sharpmaker for now.After some time, you realize that your problem is maintaining a consistent angle when sharpening, so now you either make the leap to a sharpening system with a jig/clamp for the blade, (or you stick to a rolled/Moran/covex edge like some people I know
)So you choose a system, Lansky, Gatco, or one of the many out there, and you go on a sharpening frenzy, (hell you got about a half a dozen dull blades in your knife drawer by now), and what do you find out? The damn stones are short, the bevel seems to get wider as you approach the belly of the knife
, so it's back to the bench stones to try and straighten out the edge, here you notice that you seem to be maintaining a decent angle, so you go and buy a coarse diamond bench hone, only to notice that as you try to hone the deep scratches from the edge,(it kinda looks like a serrated edge now)you wind up rounding off that nice consistent bevel you achieved with the coarse diamond bench hone.Finally someone shows you and Edgepro, or you send a knife into them for sharpening, at which point you realize that this is the ultimate system, the blade come back scarry, hair poppin' sharp
, and it looks easy , than you see the price tag, $200+ .You scrimp, you save, and finally you have enough to buy one, you anxiously await it's arrival, and when it shows up, you can't wait to fix all the edges on all your knives.
Alas, you try, and you try, but you can't seem to get the same scarry edge as the knife that was done on another Edgepro.
You go back to the bench hone, or the Sharpmaker and the edges seem to come alive after a few strokes.
Since you've started sharpening several years have passed, quite possibly a few hundred dollars in knives, and at least $400 in sharpeners, and what did you learn, if you learn and practice your freehand sharpening skills you can save a lot of aggravation and money.
I have an Edgepro, and I'll swear by it, but most of my touch ups are done on a bench stone, it's faster and easier to set up.
Now I use all the sharpeners I have, the Sharpmaker sits on my kitchen counter to dress up an edge while cooking, the freehand stones sit in a drawer next to where I sit to dress up the edge on my EDC's and the Edgepro is primarily used to reprofile and polish an edge.
BTW don't forget stropping and steeling.
