I'll teach sharpening.

J

jackknife

Joined
Oct 2, 2004
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Okay, I've seen enough of these posts where some guy want to learn sharpening and its over complicated, or they just have never had someone sit down with them for as many hours as it takes. Too many fathers, uncles, older brothers, and grandfathers have not done their job.

I'm willing to teach all I know about sharpening a knife free hand with just a pocket stone. I'll sit down one on one for as many hours as it takes to teach you how to get a very sharp knife very easy and very quick. I'm in Georgetown Texas, but I travel to Mission Viejo California a couple times a year by car, and pass through west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and Southern California on the 5 from San Diego to Mission Viejo.

Or we can get some people here to form a symposium on sharpening and I'll give sharpening lessons right there. I'm not getting any younger, and maybe this is a way I can give something back to this forum and the people in it. Or anyone in the greater Austin Texas area with the ability to make a detailed video, I'll do it.

Knife sharpening should not be over complicated. People have been doing it since biblical times with bronze blades to nowadays. Roman legionaries to King Richards Crusaders to WW2 commando's. And they all used a hand held stone. I'm willing to teach anyone wanting to learn.
 
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I've offered to teach people I've worked with, even those who have asked me to sharpen a knife for them. I said "If you buy a twenty dollar stone I will teach you how to sharpen". They didn't take me up on it.
One guy was in his early twenties and he asked me to sharpen a kind of SD fixed blade knife so I wanted him to work a little to get that / make an investment rather than just take it to his friends and wave it around and act like a big shot . . .

no one has taken me up on it. People . . . these days, in my opinion, are too A.D.D. to actually focus long enough to do what you are suggesting. At least around here.

It's a nice thought though . . . a real nice thing you are trying to do.
I sure wish I had had someone do that for me.
 
Alberta Ed said:
Take steel off both sides until they meet. Done.
Click to expand...

Instructions unclear. Customer angry.

time-warns-out-things-44.jpg
 
If anyone is in Rapid City during the school year I can can teach them basic technique.
 
I once taught a class of about 8 people how to sharpen. It was not terribly successful. But my students were pretty receptive. I was surprised how many signed up and showed up for the class. It probably helps that I advertised this at my martial arts school. Young guys that like martial arts apparently like knives too. Who knew? :)

If I were to do it again, I would change my lesson plan to make it much more simple. I've learned a good bit since I taught that 3 hour class more than 10 years ago. I hope I would be a better teacher now.

Brian.
 
Patience is a lost art.

It is noble to try to help others. I hope you find some receptive people.
 
Problem is we have long been in the disposable age. 50 years ago a man knew how to fix basic stuff. He could fix things around the house, fix his car, build stuff. Soon as a man moved out he bought tools if he did not already have them. Now a days people just buy cheap stuff and replace it. Soon as young boys move out of their parents house they buy big screen TV’s and xBoxes.

A few days ago a young man I work with was stunned to find a Torx bolt on his car. He had no idea what he was looking at!!! It’s a whole new generation. Ya lots of young people learn the skills we where taught as young men but so many just don’t have a clue!!!!

I hope you have many takers and wish I could find some time with a pro to help me take my sharpening to a whole new level. I get knives acceptably sharp free hand.
 
i tried to demo knife sharpening at a friend's place. i brought stone and strop and let him choose kitchen knives. he owned tons and chose the two worst specimen! microchipped along the entire bevel, and bent blade (righty's abuse), cheap knife, cheap metal. Even budgeteer me admitting now that it wouldn't be worth my efforts, sweat, time!

anyway, i tried to do a fast demo .. and failed. hated to give up. if you show something to others, you run out of patience too! you get nervous because everyone's patience is running out including your own.

my advice: do the demo and teaching with great quality knives only in very good condition, knives which just stopped slicing copy paper nicely. they must be free of chips and microchips. the blade stock must(!) be straight. and the blade must be stiff, non-flexible. and void of recurves. you can't teach sharpening on a 5$ WALMART knife, such a knife will ruin your lesson, impossible to get encouraging results for a beginner. cheap blade steels are soft, ductile, and too challenging to deburr cleanly by a beginner.
 
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Wish there were someone in this area that would do that. I'm terrible at stones and the guys I know that are really good with them make it seem like using them is a mystical art. From my point of view (knowing nothing) means purchasing the wrong stones and making knives worse than they were before you started. I finally gave up and bought a Ken Onion WS (a cheater according to one of my stone gurus) but now I can get my knives servicable sharp. I would love to have someone sit down with me and take the simply and direct route to learning with stones. Sure wish I were close to the OP.
 
Unfortunately, even a master instructor cannot teach the one most important thing necessary to good sharpening. Patience.

Even with an Edge-Pro or Wicked Edge, it takes a bit of time and patience to get an excellent, refined edge. If I could be satisfied with a so-called "utility" edge, I'd just buy a Work Sharp and be done with it. But I have come to love a near perfect edge. And that requires patience.
 
That would be the one area that I would have to work on. But I think that if I got the very basics right that would encourage me to go further.
 
I always tell people that it can be either stupid-simple or extremely complicated, and it all depends on how closely you want to look at it or how deep you want to dive into it. At the end of the day it's all about holding a consistent angle against an abrasive surface until brought to the point of suitable sharpness. Edges should generally be as thin as is consistent with requisite strength.

For common knives I typically tell people to just imagine that they're trying to take thin slices off the surface of the stone, and to keep doing that evenly on both sides until there aren't any reflective spots on the edge when you look at the knife edge-up under bright light. That'll get most folks an edge that's MUCH better than what they started with.

If they want to get more complicated from there, there are some simple diagnostic methods like the fingernail wobble test and test-cutting paper that can help with troubleshooting edges, and things like toothy vs. polished edges and their applications, dynamics of managing different bevel shapes, different kinds of abrasives and their best uses, and so on, but that's if they want to keep on learning. :thumbsup:
 
People are afraid of looks of their knives,and not how sharp they are,because most are not using it at all....thin out that blade and grind untill you get burr,that is the key,then minimize it...
 
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