How to sharpen the heel/choil area of a knife

Bladenoobie1

Bladenoobie1

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Jul 20, 2012
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I recently received a gayle bradley in the mail and put a thinner and more even edge on it. In doing so I introduced a very slight recurve forming from the very heel of the edge. I put a very small sharpening choil with the aid of a diamond file to alleviate this issue in future sharpening sessions.

I want to be able to remove metal from the heel to make it flush with the rest of the bevel, but at the same time I don't want to make the slight recurve larger. How should I go about removing metal from this area and making the bevel even?


Thanks,
BN
 
I use a very short scrubbing motion, moving the edge perpendicular to the grind path. Just a straight back and forth. Once I get it worked down I default back to moving at about a 45 degree angle to the grind path. This leaves a small triangular shaped area on the backbevel, just behind the heel that doesn't get hit much, so when doing a real truing of the edge I bite the bullet and move straight on. Also helps to keep your fingers right on top of the area you're grinding. Inducing a recurve means you're lowering the handle to hit it better, but more often than not this will only reinforce the broadening of the apex angle unless you go a lot lower with the spine than you anticipate. It can feel like a long time to see good results, but stick to the basics and it'll come around.

Martin
 
HeavyHanded said:
I use a very short scrubbing motion, moving the edge perpendicular to the grind path. Just a straight back and forth. Once I get it worked down I default back to moving at about a 45 degree angle to the grind path. This leaves a small triangular shaped area on the backbevel, just behind the heel that doesn't get hit much, so when doing a real truing of the edge I bite the bullet and move straight on. Also helps to keep your fingers right on top of the area you're grinding. Inducing a recurve means you're lowering the handle to hit it better, but more often than not this will only reinforce the broadening of the apex angle unless you go a lot lower with the spine than you anticipate. It can feel like a long time to see good results, but stick to the basics and it'll come around.

Martin
Click to expand...
By moving the edge perpendicular to the grind path so you mean moving the edge side to side? Or do you mean that the blade is just perpendicular to the stone and you're just moving the edge back and forth.
I understand inducing the small triangle shaped area right at the heel which is the reason why I filed a small sharpening choil.

So to summarize what you said, should I just focus on removing metal from that slightly elevated area (this isn't a recurve where the edge dips down than back up, the edge just sweeps up near the heel) then proceed to use regular sharpening techniques and sharpen the entire bevel?
 
Bladenoobie1 said:
By moving the edge perpendicular to the grind path so you mean moving the edge side to side? Or do you mean that the blade is just perpendicular to the stone and you're just moving the edge back and forth.
I understand inducing the small triangle shaped area right at the heel which is the reason why I filed a small sharpening choil.

So to summarize what you said, should I just focus on removing metal from that slightly elevated area (this isn't a recurve where the edge dips down than back up, the edge just sweeps up near the heel) then proceed to use regular sharpening techniques and sharpen the entire bevel?
Click to expand...

You had it right, just snug right up to the edge of the stone and use a straight fore and aft scrub. Murray Carter displays this pretty well when he's working this area on his 1k. By the time he gets to the 6k you won't see much of that, but on the 1k he uses a real methodical scrub, spare fingertips right on top of the spot he's working. It won't be easy to make that transition really crisp to the ricasso without using a diamond plate or a stone that's been flattened on its thin side so the long edge is really defined - most waterstones or vitreous stones will have a slight easing on the corner that makes it tough to use for this operation. If its really pronounced (the recurve) you might have to "float" the rest of the edge a bit so you're only making solid contact at the curve.

Martin
 
Thanks for the response. I hope the choil I introduced is enough to help me reduce this slight upward sweep by the heel. The edges of my waterstones are round so that also makes sense why its hard for me to get a crisp transition. This really doesn't bother me too much and its only very small portion of the heel that isn't sharp--fortunately that is the part of the knife I almost never use. The recurve isn't too pronounced, but I will like to remove it sometime in the future.

My plan to remove it is to probably "float" the rest of the edge and remove as much as the recurve as possible, then do heel to tip sharpening. Until then I just plan to use the knife until I get a chip or roll and just fix the entire edge in one run.
 
Sorry I didn't get back to you Bladenoobie...

I think that HeavyHanded is much better advice anyways. So I think it worked out :)
 
kwazyjuice said:
Sorry I didn't get back to you Bladenoobie...

I think that HeavyHanded is much better advice anyways. So I think it worked out :)
Click to expand...
Its all good, I did close the last thread as I didn't want to have 2 threads hanging around with the same question.
 
I just do this. Makes the heel much more accessible.

Bradley1sharpeningnotch_zps44bc2cf5.jpg
 
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