knife nuts that dont sharpen

DShiflet said:
I despise sharpening. I'll do it if necessary, but I'd prefer to just pay someone else to do the job.
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And there we go guys, it's just preference.
Not every car lover out there knows how or cares to fine tune it themselves.
 
Personally I used to HATE sharpening. For a long time I had a smiths sharpener, one of those yellow ones that looks like a self defense weapon. I never had good luck so it made me fear sharpening. Then finally after youtube videos and moving from $30-$40 knives to $80-$110 I decided to spring for a sharpmaker, and when I first got it i HATED sharpening. I was putting too much pressure on it and I didn't really understand why to use the flat sides of the stone and the corner and why to have a 30 and 40 degree angle. Now I LOVE to sharpen knives, I spent 30min the other day taking my great grandpa's old fixed blade from barely cuts to RAZOR edge. I also seem to find it relaxing now.

On a side note, after I had a better handle on the sharpmaker I tried to sharpen a BM 755 MPR and for some reason couldn't get the M390 razor sharp, It could cut paper but my ZT 0560 cut better and so did my 154cm Grip, Now I have a TSF beast in M390 and first thing i did is put a razor sharp almost complete mirror edge on it with no problem.
 
PiercedBill said:
Well, I find sharpening to be very calming, almost meditative. And for me there is much satisfaction in knowing exactly how sharp I can get a blade to be.
I do find it surprising that some don't know how, and even more surprising that some don't even care to. I was taught, and continue to think, it is a skillset that everyone who owns knives should have.
A dull knife is just sad..
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Me too.
 
when I get stressed .. I sharpen
theres been a lot happen in my life this last few years .. so my house is actually a pretty dangerous place to be at times .. everything in the kitchen drawer , all my knives , machetes , hatchets , axes everything .. gets a shaving sharp edge put on it ..
I used a hand held stone and " strop" on a glossy magazine cover ..

The most expensive knife I own tho is an IzualII ... so yeah take it for what its worth ..
 
Shareping is mental and I didn't learn until I was an adult. Tell yourself it's not rocket science and find a method that works for you. You don't need high end equipment to keep em sharp, improvise.
 
GUILTY!
If I'm carrying a knife that I really like, I have this thought in the back of my mind that the more I sharpen it, the sooner it will be used up. Now I don't keep mine dull, but I don't sharpen it all the time either. I like to keep mine just sharp enough to be useful. Current knife I have been carrying everyday since Christmas 2013 is a Buck 110 paperstone. I have used it for anything you would typically use a knife for in a year which for me is mostly opening stuff. I haven't sharpened it yet, but It is sharp enough that I could skin out a deer with it if I need to. So I don't feel I need to sharpen it. That is usually my criteria for sharpening since I do a lot of deer hunting. If at anytime I don't feel like I could use it for skinning, then I sharpen it. This has been a slow deer season And I haven't used it on a deer yet so that is the main reason I haven't sharpened it or needed to yet.
Usually I'll touch mine up a little at the beginning of deer season . Depending on how good a my deer season goes probably dictates how often I sharpen it throughout the season. So it's going to be duller during the summer and probably just sharp enough to open boxes and packages and cutting stuff out of the garden.
My brother in law is on the other extreme. He carries a sharpener in his pocket and anytime he cuts anything, he then takes out a pocket sharpener and sharpens. Then when he gets home, he sharpens it again on a lansky. He goes through at least a knife a year.
 
jec88 said:
GUILTY!
If I'm carrying a knife that I really like, I have this thought in the back of my mind that the more I sharpen it, the sooner it will be used up. Now I don't keep mine dull, but I don't sharpen it all the time either. I like to keep mine just sharp enough to be useful. Current knife I have been carrying everyday since Christmas 2013 is a Buck 110 paperstone. I have used it for anything you would typically use a knife for in a year which for me is mostly opening stuff. I haven't sharpened it yet, but It is sharp enough that I could skin out a deer with it if I need to. So I don't feel I need to sharpen it. That is usually my criteria for sharpening since I do a lot of deer hunting. If at anytime I don't feel like I could use it for skinning, then I sharpen it. This has been a slow deer season And I haven't used it on a deer yet so that is the main reason I haven't sharpened it or needed to yet.
Usually I'll touch mine up a little at the beginning of deer season . Depending on how good a my deer season goes probably dictates how often I sharpen it throughout the season. So it's going to be duller during the summer and probably just sharp enough to open boxes and packages and cutting stuff out of the garden.
My brother in law is on the other extreme. He carries a sharpener in his pocket and anytime he cuts anything, he then takes out a pocket sharpener and sharpens. Then when he gets home, he sharpens it again on a lansky. He goes through at least a knife a year.
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Your brother in law is extreme. Many of my knives need touched up after skinning something such as a hog. A lot of the super steels don't lose a lot of material unless you are super aggressive with them even on diamonds.
 
I had a Lansky sharpening system which was left in South Africa when moving to the USA. Now I have a Smith's which is similar. Before sharpening my carry blades I would get old kitchen knives at the thrift stores to practice on. Once I am confident at the "art" I would apply that to my more expensive blades.
 
Yes, I think my brother in law being extreme is the main reason I don't sharpen mine much. It's always in the back of my mind that I don't want to wear down my blades like he does, even though I know that normal sharpening wouldn't do that.
 
The people who don't or won't sharpen their knives are secretly building a collection - buy a knife and use it until blunt then put it in a drawer and buy another, repeat until you have a large collection. :D Of Blunt knives. :(
 
I regularly use my Sharpmaker (particularly the ultra fine rods) and my Stropman strop, but I think my sharpness standards are lower than many here. My kinves are good enough for me but certainly not hair-popping sharp and I'm OK with that.
 
Tasmaniac said:
I regularly use my Sharpmaker (particularly the ultra fine rods) and my Stropman strop, but I think my sharpness standards are lower than many here. My kinves are good enough for me but certainly not hair-popping sharp and I'm OK with that.
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Hey, if your knife isn't popping at least leg hair after the fine rods you should spend so me extra time on the lower grits...my knives are all popping hair and I don't have ultra fine or strops. A little more time on those low grits and you'll be surprising yourself. With your set up your stuff will be insanely sharp!
 
BenchCo Spydermade said:
Hey, if your knife isn't popping at least leg hair after the fine rods you should spend so me extra time on the lower grits...my knives are all popping hair and I don't have ultra fine or strops. A little more time on those low grits and you'll be surprising yourself. With your set up your stuff will be insanely sharp!
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Yep, it's all about properly apexing the edge at the lower grits before moving onward. It's entirely possible to have a mirror polished bevel that doesn't cut that well because the very apex of the edge wasn't polished as well as the rest of it was.
 
calc said:
Yep, it's all about properly apexing the edge at the lower grits before moving onward. It's entirely possible to have a mirror polished bevel that doesn't cut that well because the very apex of the edge wasn't polished as well as the rest of it was.
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It also makes the strop seem like a godsend. A properly formed edge can go for months with only touch-ups on a strop before ever needing to go to any stone. Even then, you'd be using your ultra-fine stones for a few minutes to re-apex. It could be several months before ever needing to reprofile.

My knives are all between "working sharp" and "Rough shaving sharp", just a dozen or so passes on a strop though and they're all "hair popping sharp" for a good while.
(of course this is all based on my own usage habits, results may vary)
 
BenchCo Spydermade said:
Hey, if your knife isn't popping at least leg hair after the fine rods you should spend so me extra time on the lower grits...my knives are all popping hair and I don't have ultra fine or strops. A little more time on those low grits and you'll be surprising yourself. With your set up your stuff will be insanely sharp!
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Thanks for the advice! I'm going to get into the zen of sharpening this weekend!
 
I learned to free hand on a water stone when I was younger. I really enjoy doing it, and I can reach some insane levels of sharpness if I take my time with it. I discovered paper wheels a couple years ago, and I use them often. I think it's mainly the quickness and ease of it. I can bring a dull blade back to shaving sharp with a mirror polished edge in about 90 seconds or less.

I can't reach the same level of sharpness with paper wheels compared to a stone, but once you're at shaving sharp, you're just splitting hairs. Since the paper wheels are round, it gives the edge a slight convex, and I think that's a factor in the level achieved. In my experiences though, the slight convex(paper wheel) will hold a working edge slightly longer.
 
I'm that guy. I've had knives for a long time and was always "into" them but I only recently started to turn this into sort of a hobby..... meaning I am actually spending more time and money on them and am trying to learn more. I have a cheap stone and I now enjoy sharpening. I have a long way to go but I can get a good servicable edge back after I've dulled one.
 
Ever since I was a little kid and got my first knife , it just made sense to me that I had to learn how to sharpen them. I had no instruction from anyone and learned from trial and error. Even back then I was reasonable successful , and my sharpening skills have increased tremendously over the next 40+ years. Owning a dull knife never made sense to me , then or now.

No matter what the steel or grind , eventually they will dull on you if you use them , so best to learn how to maintain them ! :)
 
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