How to take good care of your blade & DIY sharpening?

[blade4sell]

Hey fellow blade members...I'm new to the blade world with limited knowledge. So far I have 6 blades in my edc rotation...my final (I hope) will be 7 total so I can rotate one for everyday of the week. I have two question and appreciate if anyone can help.

1. DIY sharpening, how do you do it? Best way to save money? I have a Benchmade also, so I will try to sharpen that last. I want to start sharpening my cheapest one which is the Kershaw Asset I got for $13. When I get better in skill, I'll try work my way up to the now most expensive one BM. Worst case, I can send to Benchmade to sharpen. I see a lot of self DIY sharpening tools on eBay, are those relatively easy to use? Any comment and suggestions is appeciated. I used to work in the Kitchen so when a fillet knife is dull, I just use the sharpening stone, wet it, start angle grinding the blade on the coarse side then work my way to the fine side. But for EDC folders? Should not be the same method? I am looking for the easiest & latest tech...so I can keep my knives sharp 24/7

2. For my Kershaw blackout coated blade. Today I slice an orange. For some reason, maybe acid from the peel made the blade flaky. I try using water to clean it but no use. I do not have any gun oil. My question is, is there an alternative household oil I can use to clean the blades? Is olive oil ok? Or even vasaline...any tricks up your sleeve you can tip a brother? There gotta be a easier way than ordering a $10 bottle of gun oil.

Thanks a bunch in advance!!!

 

[Ernie1980]

To start with, I recommend the sharpmaker. It holds constant angles (15 and 20 only) and can be bought for a little over $50. It has limitations (limited angle selections and very slow to reprofile) but it is great for a quick touch up. There are lots of good videos on YouTube and reviews here if you want more info.

 

[theHobbyist]

I would say go with a Lansky for sharpening...

Don't use food oils, some here did a side by side and it didn't hold up very well... I use WD-40... there's better stuff out there I'm just cheap..

 

[Cadillac J]

If you can freehand on japanese stones and have in the past, I would recommend getting some new stones and do it that way. In my opinion, with skill built over time, you can get the best edges this way and it is the most flexible system out there.

Something like a Bester 1200 and a Suehiro Rika 5K if you looking at a low/mid budget (you can add Beston 500 when you need to reprofile or remove more metal).

If you want the cheapest but still a quality entry, I would go with a King(s).

 

[Curtis_Lowe]

Depending on the type of steels you wanna sharpen, I'd stick with the stone you use in the kitchen. I sharpen all my knives on a Norton Crystolon stone and I couldn't be happier with the edges I get sharpening by hand.

 

[NjHart]

I've just been recently teaching myself to freehand with moderate results. I can tell you definitively that a cheap set of Arkansas stones (and I mean super super cheap) has been moderately effective for me, but I can't seem to get my knives to the next level of sharpness. I can get them to where where the slice paper pretty freely and can push cut on the sharpest areas, but definitely nothing razor like. I have a fairly limited budget at the moment and a healthy compulsion to research any of my purchases for way too long and its sort of come down to the spyderco sharpmaker and a set of water stones for me. Being fairly new to higher end knives, I never really anticipated the costs associated with maintaining them, but it goes with the territory I believe. For whatever its worth from someone else who is sort of in the same boat, I'm learning towards the spyderco for the added benefit of working very nicely (so youtube informs me) with recurve blades.


Edit: Sorry and I certainly don't mean to hijack your thread, but I was just checking amazon and ran across the smith 3 in 1 field sharpener. I feel pretty confident its not as nice as the sharpmaker, but if anyone has used it- is it a decent cheaper alternative? I read the reviews and the seem largely favorable, but I'd rather put my trust a community that is more likely to be accurate.