Improving my Technique of Sharpening on a Wet Stone

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dzlvs8

Joined
Jun 13, 2013
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Ok, I've owned a tri-hone stone for two years and I have an unhealthy amount of fun sharpening on it. However, I find it next to impossible for me to be able to get my knives sharp enough to shave hair off my arm. I am however able to get my chisel ground Emerson hair shaving sharp with about a 30 angle on one side.

I get sharp edges on everything, but I wish I could get an impressive hair shaving edge, since that's what a lot of people check a fresh sharpening with. I've sharpened someone elses knife before and they weren't pleased because their sharpness test failed.

I've watched lots of videos on this and don't know where else to improve or what the key is...or if it is even possible to achieve what I am looking for with a set of stones. Since I can sharpen the chisel ground Emerson so easily, I assume that my problem comes from the bevel curling over??? I've looked into improving that aspect and have yet to see better results with the pointers I have gathered myself so far.

FYI - I have the Smith's Tri-hone Tri Stone that costs about $30. I would look into better / finer grit stones if that's my problem, but I don't think it is.
I know there are better systems out there for sharpening. Right now I'm trying to stick with the stones if possible. I really don't want to hear anyone tell me "dude just get my magic robot XKT-5000 knife sharpening system. It sharpens the knives for you." <---that's lame. I'm trying to develop/improve a skill. I also don't want to buy a fancy expensive system. I like the stones. It's just like the case where any city boy can walk into REI (<--- a place for city slickers) and spend a million dollars and camping gear and then tell me how he stayed outside for two straight days. Whoopdie freakin doo. I also don't care about how expensive your Kayak rack is that is on your car.
 
dzlvs8 said:
Ok, I've owned a tri-hone stone for two years and I have an unhealthy amount of fun sharpening on it. However, I find it next to impossible for me to be able to get my knives sharp enough to shave hair off my arm. I am however able to get my chisel ground Emerson hair shaving sharp with about a 30 angle on one side.

I get sharp edges on everything, but I wish I could get an impressive hair shaving edge, since that's what a lot of people check a fresh sharpening with. I've sharpened someone elses knife before and they weren't pleased because their sharpness test failed.

I've watched lots of videos on this and don't know where else to improve or what the key is...or if it is even possible to achieve what I am looking for with a set of stones. Since I can sharpen the chisel ground Emerson so easily, I assume that my problem comes from the bevel curling over??? I've looked into improving that aspect and have yet to see better results with the pointers I have gathered myself so far.

FYI - I have the Smith's Tri-hone Tri Stone that costs about $30. I would look into better / finer grit stones if that's my problem, but I don't think it is.
I know there are better systems out there for sharpening. Right now I'm trying to stick with the stones if possible. I really don't want to hear anyone tell me "dude just get my magic robot XKT-5000 knife sharpening system. It sharpens the knives for you." <---that's lame. I'm trying to develop/improve a skill. I also don't want to buy a fancy expensive system. I like the stones. It's just like the case where any city boy can walk into REI (<--- a place for city slickers) and spend a million dollars and camping gear and then tell me how he stayed outside for two straight days. Whoopdie freakin doo. I also don't care about how expensive your Kayak rack is that is on your car.
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Have you tried stropping after the finest stone you have?
This helps me remove most of the remaining burr and refine the edge.

If that doesn't work I would possibly had a higher grit stone to finish your progression. I am not sure what the highest grit rate is on your tri stone but I am sure you can find that online.

While I enjoy sharpening on stones, I find that I can get a much sharper knife on an Edge Pro. This system is expensive though but it uses stones to sharpen knives. There are a huge variety of stones made for this system which keeps it interesting.

I also have a Worksharp knife sharpener. It is basically a mini belt sander that puts a convex edge on your knives. Most of the time I can make a dull knife shave sharp by using this machine and then a final stropping on leather coated with chromium oxide in less than 10 minutes. From my understanding, even many custom knife makers use belt sanders to sharpen their knives. It does have a little learning curve and yes you can mess your knife but so if you did go this route, practice on cheap knives. I don't believe this sharpens my knives as sharp as my Edge Pro but with this machine, I can sharpen 4 knives in about 20-30 minutes (even faster if I didn't take my time) while it takes me probably 40 minutes for 1 knife on the Edge Pro.
 
I applaud your desire to sharpen manually!
FYI, its a "whet" stone. Whet means "to sharpen". :)
 
Derrrr...OH I thought it was wet because it was wet with water.

I've seen the bench grinder paper wheels. I don't see how those would sharpen better than a stone since it's powered and therefore would grind way too much at a time on one side. ...they again, machine shop ground HRS or whatever is some of the sharpest stuff I've ever felt...Maybe it's just because it catches me by surprise when I'm suddenly no longer working with a piece or bar stock and instead have a dangerous blade!

Anyway, I will take a look at a leather strop I was using another method for deburring I found online where a guy uses just a a whet stone to lightly go over the blade at the end and then remove the burrs after a few passes with a 2x4. He seemed like he really new what he was doing and wasn't BS'ing. ....but I think that's part of the problem. His technique was really honed in.

Are there any key areas of technique that I should be paying attention to? I push (tip first) down the stone and I don't drag the knife cross ways on the stone much. Also, if I am having trouble with a knife belly, I will do the belly separately. ??!
 
The paper wheels are good, there's a guy on this forum who many Speak very highly of his sharpening service and he uses paper wheels. It's a two wheel set and one is for buffing which is sometimes all you need, just like some knives just need a good strop. I'd say keep up the practice and like anything you'll get better, just keep your angles good and equal and work that burr back and forth going with a lighter touch on the finer stone, then strop.
 
I am a rank amateur when it comes to sharpening, but am getting better all the time. The advice I have been given is to pay attention to technique. You want every single pass on the stone to be exactly the same, or as close to that as you can get by hand.

Are you raising a burr on each stone as you progress up through the levels? Even on the finer stones, you can and will raise a burr, it just won't be as obvious as it is on the coarser stones. You can check for the burr by running your fingernail up the other side of the knife blade toward the edge. Basically, put your fingernail flat against the bevel and slide it up toward the edge. If you've raised a burr, you'll feel it with your fingernail, it'll catch a little on the burr. Once you've got a burr the entire length of the blade, you want to switch to sharpening the other side of the blade. Do that until you've got a burr going the other direction. I will then switch back to the original side and do a few light passes to remove the burr. Repeat with the next finest stone, until you get to the level you want to get to.

Are you stropping your knives when you're done sharpening them? I was messing mine up when I was first starting out, simply because I was applying way too much pressure when I was stropping my knives. I have found that it works a lot better to use a very, very light stroke on the strop when finishing the edge. I use barely the weight of the blade on the strop and I strop a *lot*. I'll start with 25-30 strokes on each side of the blade, then alternate for 20 on each side, 10-15 on each side, 5 or so on each side, then one final strop on each side. I use a homemade strop I made with scrap wood and a piece of leather I bought from a popular woodworking store. I load it with chromium oxide. I have heard that the strop block from another company might work even better. Google is your friend on this one. Make sure that you do not flip the blade while maintaining contact with the strop. Make a full stroke, drawing from the belly to the tip with the edge trailing and when you reach the end, lift the knife completely off the strop and start again.

I am very far from being an expert, but I hope this helps. Please feel free to private message me if you have any questions. Good luck!

Kristopher
 
Pay attention to your sharpening angle and yes, you might want to go to an ultra fine grit as a final. Also if you find that you just are going nowhere, reduce the number of passes on each side. My problem problem probably comes from tending to use a little more weight when sharpening one side. Go easy.
 
Hmmmm, well one guy says sharpen one side until you get a burr. Then other guy says keep alternating back and forth. Doing only one side until there is a burr makes sense, but I haven't heard that anywhere else. Although it kinda sounds similar to the 8 on each side 4 on each side 2 on each side 1 on each side aproach.

Today I just started only making one pass per side. I'm not sure if my strokes are at a consistent enough of an angle to be doing that. I am not a robot. ...At least I don't think I am.

These two methods sound wildly different. I'm curious of which can provide the better for providing a sharper edge and which is easier.

I tried checking the grit on the stones that I have but cannot find any. What I have are real stones, not diamond stones.
This is mine:
http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Smiths-3-Stone-Sharpening-System&i=614634&str=knife+sharpening+stone&merchID=4005
I did notice that this diamond tri-hone from the same company is a ton more:
http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?pdesc=Smiths-8-Diamond-Tri-Hone-Sharpening-System&i=413275&str=knife+sharpening+stone&merchID=4005

Is there an actual bonus to using diamond stones or is it just a convenience thing of not needing oil or water? Is it faster (less strokes, less room for error)? Are my stones prone to becoming uneven (no longer flat) easily due to sometimes not always using the entire stone to sharpen on??

Sorry with all the questions, but like I said in my first post, I want to make sure that what I am actually trying to do can actually be done with my equipment (afer buying a strop).
 
The stone you have is more than enough for a shaving sharp edge. The "AH HA!" moment for me was figuring out the pressure control. Very light strokes for the finale. Can you walk us through your process and if/how you check your progress during? With my technique, i will start off with scrubbing one side at a time and alternate to keep the amount of steel ground even on each side till i can form a consistent burr on both sides. Then i will switch to light, alternating passes to clean the grind lines and to help reduce burr formation. Shaving sharp is very dependent on that light pressure. You are barely using the weight of the knife on the stone. BTW: I use a soft arkansas stone dry for most of this, so the soft and hard stones on your set should work just fine with water or oil.

for more details
http://www.smithsproducts.com/product/tri6/

http://www.smithsproducts.com/product/50008/

Diamonds cut very fast for stones and leave a very toothy edge. Very little to no polishing. They can really chew through softer steels so you need to be careful. The quicker it cuts, the quicker you can mess up. Especially before they break in. Still use them with water or soapy water. They make a lot of metal dust. They do stay flat, but so will your arkansas. I haven't flattened mine after 5 years of use, yet. The AlumOx stone may need it sooner, but barely.

Going from diamond to arkansas, it can be a while before you see the arkansas making progress on the diamond scratches unless you overlap grits a bit. Having said that, going from diamond to arkansas can give you the tooth from the diamond with a cleaner cut. Just play with how much time you spend on the arkansas stone to find a good ratio.
 
Well, thanks for the links and the help.. Before I made this post I looked for a sharpening section and couldn't find one. I am happy that i was able to see the link of all the videos and everything. ...but I'd be lying to say that it helped me. Even after all of that information, I didn't see anyone show a true step by step approach to how they used a tri-hone stone set.

Coincidentally, my buddy brought me his S30V Kershaw Leek with an edge that was completely gone from cutting a tire and running into the steel cords. I offered to sharpen it for him tonight and he said, great. - CRAP.

So I was excited to try but didn't expect any good results. I was able to get the first inch near the tip hair shaving sharp. I kept trying to ge tthe back half of the knife like that by going over and over the blade some more on the fine stone and even back to the medium on a few tries, but the back was so dull that it wouldn't cut wimpy string. Finally after an embarrassing amount of time, I decided to go back to the coarse stone and start from scratch. 10 minutes later the front was still razor sharp and the back was sharp enough but no where near as sharp as hair cutting sharp. :/

I think the key that I am missing is developing that good burr. With my old crappy knives I used to sharpen, I think a burr came up so quickly it didn't matter that I never checked for one.

So here's my process. I will highlight my areas where I am not 100% sure that I am doing it right.

1. Coarse Stone: Sharpen tons of times back on forth on one side until I develop a burr. Then switch to the other side. This blade visibly lost its edge. So lots of this went on.

2. Coarse Stone: Repeat above step but burr should develop with less and less strokes. Is this right???

3. Coarse Stone: Get to a point where I just barely get the burr off the edge.

4. Coarse Stone: Go back and forth, once on each side for a while until I get bored? Is this right or should I skip the alternating strokes on the coarse stone?

5. Medium Stone (600 grit): Keep Strokes even on each side (for example 10 on one side then 10 on the other, then 8 on one side then 8 on the other, then 5, then 3, then lots of 1's. (Listen for the squeal!) (Not even sure if I ever need to use the medium stone unless the resharpening process didn't require the coarse stone)

6 Fine Stone (1000 grit): Keep Strokes even on each side (for example 10 on one side then 10 on the other, then 8 on one side then 8 on the other, then 5, then 3, then lots and lots and lots of 1's. (Listen for the squeal!) When alternating after each pass reduce pressure on blade until there is almost no pressure on the blade.

7. Shave your arm.

8. Get online and order a strop Use blue jeans for the time being.


NOTE: I was never ever ever able to develop a burr with the medium stone. Is this the S30V? Should I expect this? It's a 600 grit stone. If I should expect this, how do I go about touching up or resharpening something like this S30V blade sometime down the road when it needs not such a heavy duty sharpening? I mean, should I still always be trying to develop a burr.
 
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Try refining your technique on kitchen knives first. 1) Clean your stones. 2)Grinding the blade at a consistent angle on One side until you obtain a burr. Then flip it over and do the same on the other side. Try using water on your coarse diamond stone. Enough so it pools. Do not use much pressure. Mark the edge bevel with a black marker, to see your grinding at the edge. Do not advance to another stone until you can get a shaving edge on that one stone. It's technique not your equipment. DM
 
DM makes some good points. So try what he says. A couple points to add.

Once a burr forms on one side, it'll form quickly on the opposite side.
Make sure to spend the same amount of time on that side anyway so the bevels are even.
Burrs form when the two planes of the edge meet. So once they form on both sides, it's going to keep forming whenever you grind a side.
Light pressure will help remove the burr from one side and not form one on the other side.

Using the medium stone is good when you want to really refine the edge. Going from c>f can leave a toothier edge than c>m>f. It really depends on how much you want to polish your edge. This sort of talk can get very in depth and is really based on preference and your end goal. You honestly don't even need the fine.

As far as the S30V goes, you will need diamonds or silicon carbide for that. It will laugh at arkansas stones. And from what i understand, it performs better with a coarser finish anyway. Dunno really, don't own a knife in it.
 
I have found that diamond will cause deep gauges on softer steel such as found on Victorinox SAK. I became more careful when doing my Spyderco Resilience 8Cr13MoV and result is ok. Perhaps for softer steel, a different media (waterstone?) is more suitable, but I don't have any, so I'd try again the SAK with natural stones found in the hardware shop.

I don't have S30V, so I can't comment on that.
 
I like waterstones personally and find them to apply some of the best edges. Hers is a video I made sharpening a SAK, I have some other videos that might interest you too. Arkansas stones are what I learned on but they are very slow and with todays steel alloys they can make sharpening very hard.

[video=youtube;BSEKkuB59kU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSEKkuB59kU&list=UUfsHYm19KjjnUlpG8WVMZOA[/video]
 
dzlvs8 said:
1. Coarse Stone: Sharpen tons of times back on forth on one side until I develop a burr. Then switch to the other side. This blade visibly lost its edge. So lots of this went on.
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Yes. Make sure you get a burr on the *entire length* of the edge on one side. When you flip the blade over on the other side, your goal is the same: Get a burr on the entire length of the other side. Only after getting a burr on BOTH sides will you know you have completely apexed the edge.

4. Coarse Stone: Go back and forth, once on each side for a while until I get bored?
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I deleted a few points in between that seemed a little confused. We come to this one which is important. The back and forth, one stroke per side, is a finishing technique to try to remove the last tiny bits of burr. But we're not there yet. At this point you should have developed a burr on one side, and then the other and right now you have a burr on that second side, full length.

So you want to remove that burr by doing a few light strokes on the stone, on the side with the burr. After every two or three strokes, feel for the burr and see if it's gone. Once it's gone it *might* form again on the other side. So check the other side too.

Once it's gone from one side maybe you feel a little on the other side, or maybe a lot. Either way, try to remove it from the other side too. But it might form on the original side again!! This is called "chasing the burr". Pulling the blade lightly through soft wood, cork, or cardboard can help strip some of this off. Once you've gotten the burr substantially reduced, it's time to do alternating strokes, one on each side, until you either feel ZERO burr on both sides, or it's as burr free as you can make it.

At this point, off of the coarse stone, it should feel very sharp, shave hair, and cut paper. If it doesn't, you probably have some burr left. Try lightly cutting soft wood, or stropping a bit. This was a revelation for me when I realized that I could shave hair with a blade straight from a coarse stone!! I've spent many, many years doing it wrong. Only when I got this did I make a leap in my sharpening. If it's not sharp, full length, off of the coarse, you're not done with that stone yet.

5. Medium Stone (600 grit): Keep Strokes even on each side (for example 10 on one side then 10 on the other, then 8 on one side then 8 on the other, then 5, then 3, then lots of 1's. (Listen for the squeal!)
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This isn't the right approach IMHO. I think you need to form a burr, again, on both sides with the medium stone. Only then will you know that you have apexed the edge with this new stone. Otherwise, when do you stop? You could do it visually and see the scratch pattern change to a finer pattern. But how do you know you actually hit the *edge*? You don't unless you form a burr or gain a lot of experience.

There's something else to consider here with your S30V knife. Most of the "trihone" sets have synthetic stone for the coarse, which will cut S30V. But the medium and fine are usually Arkansas stones, which pretty much *won't* cut S30V. If that's what you've got, there's almost no point in using them. Either use a different sharpening medium to get a finer edge, or just strop and be done with it. You list your stones at 600 and 1000 which sounds about like soft Arkansas and hard Arkansas. That will work (slowly) on basic stainless, but not on S30V.

6 Fine Stone (1000 grit): Keep Strokes even on each side (for example 10 on one side then 10 on the other, then 8 on one side then 8 on the other, then 5, then 3, then lots and lots and lots of 1's. (Listen for the squeal!) When alternating after each pass reduce pressure on blade until there is almost no pressure on the blade.
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Same story here as with the medium stone. Form a burr on both sides, then reduce and remove it.

I mean, should I still always be trying to develop a burr.
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Yes. :)

Strictly speaking, you don't have to remove the burr at each stage. But you *do* have to form a burr, on both sides, with each stone. You can leave the removal of the burr until the last stone if you want. I prefer to remove it at each stone and then test the edge with paper, hair, or both, just so I can feel the differences and so I am dead certain I've made a difference with each stone.

I hope this helped.

Brian.
 
Very good advice indeed.

I'd like to add, removing burr on each stone will also help to ensure the burr on the next stone is new, meaning it's from that new stone which in turn indicates you have reached apex.

When experience is accumulated, some are able to not forming burr at each stage and still getting it full apexed. Takes a while to reach this stage though.

Have a safe and pleasant sharpening journey ;)
 
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