How sharp are your knives?

[Catmouth]

Mine are as sharp as I can make them. I am not getting hair shaving every time, but getting much better.

I have been working on my Beckers since I got my Norton's stone a few days ago. My 17, 9 and 2 are scary...especially the 2. My 14 is pretty dang sharp, and my 11 is way better then it was.

It's amazing how sharp the 2 will get, dont seem possible that 1/4'' crowbars can shave babies.

What Norton stone did you get? I was looking at those a couple of weeks ago

 

[thrillbilly]

Mine are as sharp as I can make them. I am not getting hair shaving every time, but getting much better.





What Norton stone did you get? I was looking at those a couple of weeks ago

the combo, coarse/fine. The fine is orange. the 8'' bench model, i think it was ~25 bucks

works wonders....much better edge then from the other dozen or so stones i have

 

[Tylerxp]

I try to keep them shaving sharp....speaking of shaving Tyler, your sig looks like an epic mustache...

Ha ha. Yup. Wasn't planned, but I saw that the first time I posted it. I was waiting for someone to notice.

 

[Ramil839]

Depends the size and purpose,axes are razor sharp,large knives arent hair popping,anything else i sharp enough shave with (not a comfy shave,but a shave nonetheless).Out of my beckers it seems the 9 is the sharpest and my most favourite...

 

[c10darren]

i just got my first stone. its a Norton 6in coarse/fine combo. I can't seem to get my bk2 (or any knives) very sharp yet. I have just been using water on the stone. I spent an hour and half looking for some sort of honing or lite mineral oil but couldnt find any. there must be a lot of dull knives in this town.

i think i'm gonna pickup a bottle of lansky's oil and keep practicing. i've never had a knife shaving sharp.

 

[Razorsharp-Travis]

[video=youtube;ffVesrQOk0Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffVesrQOk0Q&feature=plcp[/video] my fine and steeper angled knives are like this

 

[willworship]

i just got my first stone. its a Norton 6in coarse/fine combo. I can't seem to get my bk2 (or any knives) very sharp yet. I have just been using water on the stone. I spent an hour and half looking for some sort of honing or lite mineral oil but couldnt find any. there must be a lot of dull knives in this town.

i think i'm gonna pickup a bottle of lansky's oil and keep practicing. i've never had a knife shaving sharp.

You don't necessarily need oil. Just keep it clean between sharpening. There are a few ways to get a shaving sharp edge, but the most important things I can tell you are to keep a consistent angle (you can do coarse at a flatter angle and then go steeper for the fine stone), and to work up a good burr on each side of the edge (a good burr along the entire edge means that your actually making contact with the edge and the stone) before moving to the next step. Also, keep in mind how many passes you are taking, so you can keep things balanced and keep the grinds even.

A book that helped me understand how sharpening works is "The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening" by John Juranitch. I'm sure there are others, but this got me well on my way.

I get my edges to the point where they will whittle tiny curls off of paper. If they'll do that, they can handle any kind of cutting I'll need in the woods. I don't worry so much about shaving hair (they usually will do both easily), because certain edges' geometry can make that difficult.