Interesting Video - Average User?

I'm a sloppy sharpener. My bevels are never perfect, my technique is terrible, but my knives can shave when I'm done. I'm more disgusted by how he used spray foam for auto body work. Now that's bad.
 
dirc said:
I cringed at that point also... lol
The only time I'd use a wire brush like that is to remove scale during forging : p
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I cringed when he said "I was doing some body work... and was using some spray foam."

You gotta love a guy that might "abuse" a knife by our standards, but then makes the effort to remedy the damage though. :thumbsup:
 
I like this video, it is simple and quite accurate way to sharpen a blade. Just enough information without bla bla about chemistry or hardness stuff.
 
T.L.E. Sharp said:
I cringed when he said "I was doing some body work... and was using some spray foam."

You gotta love a guy that might "abuse" a knife by our standards, but then makes the effort to remedy the damage though. :thumbsup:
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Knife abuse, you mean like this?:D The bottom pic is how the knife originally looked. lol. Still, Cliff has lots of knowledge in knives, I would never discount anything he says when it comes to knife geometry, edge geometry or steel. He has tested more knives than 99.99% of the knife population.

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brownshoe said:
That video is by Cliff Stamp; he was banned from here for good reason. Be careful taking his advice, even if it sounds logical, it may be incorrect. He wraps up a lot of crap in psuedo science but it's still crap.
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He was banned for being blunt and argumentative. Hi banning had more to do with arguing with knifemaker mods, who banned him. I remember the thread and do not remember any insults by him to any individual. His banishment was one of the few that I disagree with. While I did not agree with everything Cliff said, he made lots of good points and he was a positive contributing member as well as having saved many people money from buying crap knifes. He did abuse knives and that has never been popular with most knife makers, lol. Regardless, what he did to the knife above is criminal, lol.
 
Growing up I saw the nuts cut out of hundreds of calves by my two Great Uncles who sharpened various small pocket knives on "puck" type stone with some good old spit for lubricant. Pretty ? No ! Very functional, absolutely. It does not mean there are not better ways to do it, but many of the edge freaks here (myself included) would be deemed a time wasting wanker by many who work with knives every day. Hell growing up many of my friends worked in the local abattoir, all their working knives were sharpened on simple "two sided" stones.
 
I switched the first guy off when I saw the wire brush! lol What a great way to ruin the finish on your blade. The second guy I didn't watch fully either. I don't know tons about sharpening, but I was always taught never to go back and forth on a stone as all you are doing is rolling the edge when you go backwards. If there's a reason for this I would like to hear it.
 
cbrstar said:
I switched the first guy off when I saw the wire brush! lol What a great way to ruin the finish on your blade. The second guy I didn't watch fully either. I don't know tons about sharpening, but I was always taught never to go back and forth on a stone as all you are doing is rolling the edge when you go backwards. If there's a reason for this I would like to hear it.
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Well, then make sure you never watch a master Japanese sharpener.
 
I have no idea why anyone would use a wire brush on a knife.
 
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Eek he was hitting the corners of that stone with his edge pretty hard. Made me cringe, lmao. I really do appreciate a good Norton economy stone myself. Works great up to and including VG10.

While we're at it... I've also stopped spending time and energy getting all of my blades to be pocket laser sharp.

I like to get close to hair whittling but that's about it. I find when I get stuff too sharp I end up cutting the crap out of myself by accident. Lol.
 
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Eli Chaps said:
Well, then make sure you never watch a master Japanese sharpener.
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Japanese knives have a single edge there's a big difference. But I suppose if you are trying to sand the knife down to make a new bevel going back and forth might be faster.
 
cbrstar said:
Japanese knives have a single edge there's a big difference. But I suppose if you are trying to sand the knife down to make a new bevel going back and forth might be faster.
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That's only true sometimes. Many Japanese blades have double bevels.

Find Big Brown bear ( @DeadboxHero ) on YouTube. Watch him sharpen, then watch what his edges can do.

Be it edge leading or edge trailing, you can screw up the apex. You just have to ensure you maintain a consistent angle no matter what direction you're going.

Stone type can play a role in the sharpening approach but basically, if you can hold the angle in eacg direction, then you're doubling your sharpening efforts.

For my mediums and goals, I typically don't go back and forth. Unless, I'm reprofiling, especially if it is a stubborn steel or needs lots of work. Then yeah, it's back and forth to save time. But when I get down to the final apexing, then yeah, it's all edge leading for me. But that's because I know the I personally struggle to maintain a good angle on the back stroke. For many it is no issue.

There is a camp out there that believes you can actually change the cutting performance of your edge depending on if you do edge leading or edge trailing strokes. I'm not sure I'm convinced of that but a lot of folks are.
 
marcinek said:
His technique is a bit sloppy, but, beyond that, it's a perfectly normal way to sharpen a knife, and it has been done that way forever.

If one wants to sit around all day being anal retentive edge snobs, whittling hair, and looking at themselves in their mirror polished edges...nothing wrong with that. It's what we do.

But we are the vast, vast, vast minority of knife users. This guy, using a decent oilstone is probably just in the vast minority of knife users.
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marcinek said:
It's funny, and says something about all us us, including me, that we are running around with our hundreds spent on diamond plates and Japanese water stones claiming we can hand hold a consistent 17.5 degree angle...and here's this guy spending 20-30 bucks on a historically-proven Norton India Oilstone, getting a nice edge with a burr...and he's the goofball. :D
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HappyDaddy said:
Exactly. Not sharp knife is now sharp. Mission accomplished.
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Yes. Yes. And Yes.

Would I have used a wire brush? Hell know. But it works for this guy. Some people don't care about scratching up the primary bevels, just get them free of debris.

I use a double sided Norton stone on all my knives from $5 no name kitchen knives all the way up to $400 plus crk and busse. Works fine. I finish off with a ceramic rod. The whole system cost me like $30 and has been keeping me going for years and years. I've even done some significant reprofiling of s35vn.

As long as your sharpening system gets your knives acceptably sharp for your use, you aren't doing anything wrong.

Mo2 said:
LOL yea okay. If you know much about sharpening, you'd know the vid is just fine among many of the other topics.

Here's why he was banned. http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/forum/read.php?4,4489,21762

He was a bit of a trouble maker but being banned from bladeforums like he was doesn't mean he's factually wrong at all.
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Please don't link to other forums run by banned members. It is poor form. Cross forum drama and politics is highly frowned upon.
 
craytab said:
I use a double sided Norton stone on all my knives from $5 no name kitchen knives all the way up to $400 plus crk and busse. Works fine. I finish off with a ceramic rod. The whole system cost me like $30 and has been keeping me going for years and years. I've even done some significant reprofiling of s35vn.
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Thats what I use for most of my sharpening needs as well - a double sided stone. One side is ceramic.
I dont use the 'back and forth' motion shown in the video though but to each his own.
 
BladeScout said:
Thats what I use for most of my sharpening needs as well - a double sided stone. One side is ceramic.
I dont use the 'back and forth' motion shown in the video though but to each his own.
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I do use back and forth initially. For the finishing touches at each level, only forward.

Two sided stones are a great value and learning to put your own edge on any knife is invaluable.
 
brownshoe said:
That video is by Cliff Stamp; he was banned from here for good reason. Be careful taking his advice, even if it sounds logical, it may be incorrect. He wraps up a lot of crap in psuedo science but it's still crap.
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Vid you'd recommend the "right" way to sharpen, and or link to bestest thread on the topic? I have the same stone as the OP vid, but try to use a smoother longer stroke when sharpening, but always happy to improve my approach/techniques too.
 
craytab said:
I do use back and forth initially. For the finishing touches at each level, only forward.

Two sided stones are a great value and learning to put your own edge on any knife is invaluable.
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I tend to just go forward in smooth strokes along the blade. Is that just slower approach or incorrect for sharpening?
 
WillB said:
I tend to just go forward in smooth strokes along the blade. Is that just slower approach or incorrect for sharpening?
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I'm not sure. I've seen people I respect do it both ways so I tried it myself and came to my on conclusion that a hybrid method worked best for me. When using the coarse side to reprofile, back and forth does remove more material quickly. You've got to keep a consistentish angle both was though. Experiment on a cheap knife. Find what works best for your needs.
 
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