knife sharpeners & sharpening

A

ayz

Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Messages
685
basically, i have no idea how to properly sharpen a knife. the ones in question are:

Benchmade 42, CUDA Maxx stiletto, cold steel OSS

i'm somewhat reluctant to drop $50 on the spyderco sharpmaker, so i was looking at some of these (the minis)

http://www.knifeworks.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=358

but i have no idea how to properly sharpen these knives, so i'm not sure as to what techniques and subsequently what grits are needed.

suggestions or help would be appreciated.
 
Welcome! Sounds like you've dropped some serious cash on your collection. Trust me, you don't want to skimp now on a sharpener. I wasted well over $100 before I decided to buy quality equipment. Next to the retail price of a BM 42 or a CUDA, $50 for a sharpmaker is small potatoes. It will pay for itself many times over in the pleasure you'll derive from getting a hair-splitting edge on those nice blades.

Before you do that though, check out this site: http://www.ameritech.net/users/knives/knives.htm I found it very informative and helpful. Another good resource is The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening by John Juranitch. You may be able to find it at your local library, I looked it up in the card catalog and had my library borrow it from a neighboring town. It's a little dated but the principles taught are sound. Knowledge and practice are more important than equipment. A search here or on google for "sharpening" will give you more material than you could read in a month. Best of luck. :)
 
thanks.

also, does the same sharpener (ie spyderdo sharpmaker) function for both knives and swords, or do i need to get blocks and learn different techniques to sharpen a sword? (i have a paul chen tokugawa katana)

i do kendo and iaido, so the technique is fine. This is just the first time i've owned a live blade, and have no idea how to sharpen it since they don't exactly teach you :D
 
ayzianboy said:
thanks.

also, does the same sharpener (ie spyderdo sharpmaker) function for both knives and swords, or do i need to get blocks and learn different techniques to sharpen a sword? (i have a paul chen tokugawa katana)

i do kendo and iaido, so the technique is fine. This is just the first time i've owned a live blade, and have no idea how to sharpen it since they don't exactly teach you :D
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Well, theoretically the Sharpmaker could sharpen your sword but you'd run into two problems.

1. Either you'd need VERY long arms or another person to hold the Sharpmaker or bolt it to a bench.

2. What angle is the edge ground to? Sharpmaker can do 30 and 40. I wouldn't like to try and reprofile a sword on it.
 
Forget short sharpeners, you will probably do more harm than good. In order to avoid scratching your blade surface you need to avoid running off the end (or beginning) of your hone. This means that you mostly want to avoid using the first and last one inch of blade length of the hone. A 4-inch long hone only has about 2-inches of useable honing length. If you want a nice smooth blending of strokes along your edge it help to have a long hone. I like to have a hone that is at least 4-inches long for touching up a short knife and a hone that is at least as long as the blade up to about a blade length of 12-inches. If I was sharpening a sword I would want a hone about a foot long. If you want to go cheap just go to Sears or a Home Depot and look for an aluminum oxide bench hone that is 8 to 12 inches long and has medium grit on one side and fine (or extra fine) grit on the other side. Expect to pay around 8 to 12 dollars for it. Silicon carbide will cut a little faster, but it won't leave as fine an edge. You will need to practice before you work on your good knives. Go down to some charity thrift store (Salvation Army, Goodwill, ARC etc) and buy some old dull kitchen knives. Practice on those until you can get them sharp without scratching up the sides of the blades.
 
i have prolly over a 1000$ in knives and i use the 20 gerber diamond dust sharperner -- works like a charm

or an arkansas stone -- just know what your doing
 
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