I can only get knives so sharp.

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Feb 9, 2008
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I have a diamond stone and use it to get the knife fairly sharp. Then I have a ceramic stick setup with two angles and a coarse and fine rods. I can get a knife sharp enough to shave hair off my arm but not close to the sharpness of a Kershaw Chive . I can give the knife a thousand licks with the fine rod and just cant get that next degree of sharpness. Sometimes I can feel a wire edge on the left side of the knife . Ill konock it off but cant get the edge I desire. Im almost there but cant quite finish it. Any ideas short of buying a naw sharpener?
 
What knife are you trying to sharpen? How "sharp" do you need to have the knife? What kind of steel is the knife made of?

I use a big butcher's steel on all of my knives, and I have no trouble getting a good edge and keeping it. If for some reason a knife won't sharpen in this way, then I put it to my belt grinder until I have the bevel angle the way I want it, then I go back to the steel.

If I want a nice polished edge, which is rare, I use a ceramic rod to finish, but usually the steel does all I want. If the blade will slice paper without catching and/or shave hair from my arm, that is sharp enough for me.

Andy
 
Heres a follow up.

Most of the knives I have are 440A. I can get them pretty sharp using the coarse rod. When I switch to the fine rod , using the same angle, they actually become duller.
 
How do you know they are duller? Do you test the edge by feeling it with your thumb?

A really toothy edge may not be so sharp as a smooth edge, but may seem like it to the finger.

Try using the coarse stone, then stropping the edge rather than using the finer rod.

Andy
 
I test the sharpnees by shaving hair off various parts of my body. Left arm is the easiest, right arm is much more difficult for some reason. Belly hair , chest hair , leg hair.
 
I agree that you should try using a Sharpie just to be sure that you are in fact sharpening the edge itself. But it sounds like you are doing a pretty good job sharpening.

I think the key is stropping, as also suggested above.

I've found that stropping correctly is an important step in obtaining a very sharp blade.

If you don't have a strop you can easily make one.
 
Have you tried the sharpie trick to see exactly where you are sharpening?

Yes . Ive done that. I get them sharp enough I suppose, but want to get them super sharp. I want to hear the hair cutting like the litle Kershaw Chive does.
 
"Sometimes I can feel a wire edge on the left side of the knife "
I've found that to get the sharpest edge possible, I ALWAYS need to obtain a burr/wire edge, and it must be even, and the whole length of the blade. (Many times only 1 part of the blade will develop a burr first.)
Also, I wonder if it's inherent in the steel? I can get my 440A Ka-Bar Maserin sharp, but not nearly as sharp as a VG-10 blade. I remember reading somewhere that fine carbide steels will get sharper than coarse carbide steels, but maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.
 
:thumbup:Thanks for the link rifon2.I bookmarked it.

I have the same problem as the OP with the super hard steels,like S90V & ZDP-189.

That's why I like AUS-8 so much.It's so easy to sharpen to a hair-whittling edge.
 
send me an email and i'll send you some pictures of a way you can use your dremel to get them that sharp. i used the paper wheels to get that knife sharp though but since you're close this method will work too.
 
:thumbup:Thanks for the link rifon2.I bookmarked it.

I have the same problem as the OP with the super hard steels,like S90V & ZDP-189.

That's why I like AUS-8 so much.It's so easy to sharpen to a hair-whittling edge.
Really? Man I have so much trouble with this Hissatsu folder in AUS8. It's one of those: course/medium/fine= sharp, strop/polish w/2000grit= dull. I believe it's the temper though as fellas such as yourself have better results from different models and makers.

Wanna trade :P haha.
 
Heres what I think happens. The coarse rod removes steel making it sharper. The fine rod bends the edge {I can sometimes feel it}, not removing enough steel. Does this sound feasible?
 
Really? Man I have so much trouble with this Hissatsu folder in AUS8. It's one of those: course/medium/fine= sharp, strop/polish w/2000grit= dull.

That particular knife has a very wide bevel; its geometry was not designed for fine slicing. Intentionally.
 
Heres what I think happens. The coarse rod removes steel making it sharper. The fine rod bends the edge {I can sometimes feel it}, not removing enough steel. Does this sound feasible?

You do not want an edge that "bends", of course.
You might be (correctly) creating a wire edge with the coarse rods - and then the wire edge must be removed.

There's a famous article about sharpening that I'll try to find for you.

I found that once I understood the process of sharpening i.e. what I was actually doing and attempting to achieve, sharpening became much easier. :)
 
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