Knife Repair and Sharpening with My Field Kit

[Magnaminous_G]

I got a new camcorder this week and decided to make a video of sharpening a badly damaged 10” knife using only my field kit: DMT C/F cards and a small strop loaded with BR green compound. My field kit weighs 5.5 ounces and fits in a pocket. I am not a pro, but I enjoy “paying it forward” and sharing what I know (much of which was learned from members here). I made this video with the goal of illustrating a few points that I think new sharpeners sometimes overlook:

1.*** It’s not the size, fineness, grit, or cost of a stone that makes a shaving sharp edge; it’s the skill of the sharpener (so get that $5 Norton stone everyone keeps recommending and start practicing )
2.*** Spending the time with your coarse stone to fully correct problems and establish a clean bevel pays dividends
3.*** After the coarse stone, the refining stones don’t take long since you’re only imparting the new stone’s characteristics to the edge (not re-profiling or correcting)
4.*** The magic of stropping really shines through when you already have a clean, fully burr-free edge coming off of your fine stone, and it only takes a few careful passes

The knife in the video is a coworker’s knife--a Henckels 4-Star 10” Chef’s Knife. It was dull and chipped with a factory edge that had been further damaged by a carbide “V” sharpener. There were uneven bevels at the tip and heel, chunks of metal hanging off the apex from the carbide damage, and very deep chips at the chopping points. I purposefully chose to do the entire sharpening--from damage repair to bevel reestablishing to refining—with only this field kit.

Hope you enjoy!

Mag


[youtube]-WprY9nAks4[/youtube]

 

[GarnetandBlack]

Thanks for sharing; great idea for the field kit, simple and effective.

Many of your posts have helped me with my sharpening techniques over the months. :thumbup:

 

[HeavyHanded]

Nice work!

I had cause to think about your sharpening of coworkers knives a few weeks back. Finally got around to sharpening up the mother in laws kitchen knives. Two Sabatier-style knives and one large Calphalon chef's knife. The Sabatiers were vintage and rather soft carbon steel, I was astonished at how fast the Crystalon completely ground a new bevel on these sorely abused edges - they might as well have been aluminum for how much time/effort it took. Even the German stainless used by Calphalon went pretty fast. Still quite a difference in how the steel behaved. The silicon carbide stone was overkill, but it did make short work of thinning both sides to maintain geometry. Some black compound on newspaper and the sides had a smooth satin finish - turned out looking and cutting great.

You must be seeing a lot of variation in how the different steels react to your efforts, I get the feeling few are marked. Almost makes me want to put up a notice on the company fridge for free sharpening...

HH

 

[Magnaminous_G]

You're welcome, Garnet. That's why I make vids and posts.

Thanks, HH. I learned a lot about angles and the importance of burr removal from your great posts and vids. About sharpening knives for coworkers, the greatest benefit for me is seeing a lot of different knives and steels I would never encounter otherwise... and getting lots of correction and reprofiling practice since these knives tend to be beat to hell.

You'd be surprised how many stones and gear I haven't tried yet. I don't own a SC stone, for example, and I don't have any black compound. And I only have three water stones. When I read about some people's vast experience with dozens of different kinds of stones and how they seem to know what characteristics each stone will produce... and even know what effect it will have to follow up a certain stone with another stone (guys like knifenut or the guys on the CKtG forums), well it just boggles my mind...

 

[awestib]

Great video M, thanks for sharing!

 

[Magnaminous_G]

Great video M, thanks for sharing!

Thank you for watching, Andy! As HH--and everyone else who has made videos--knows, it takes time to set things up, process the video, and upload it to the internet. So it's very rewarding to get feedback.