Knife Sharpening Health Risks?

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Dawn Walker

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Hi all, I'm fairly new to knife collecting and bushcraft, and I had a question that I was hoping someone could answer for me. I've recently bought a Fallkniven DC4 knife sharpening stone with the intent of sharpening up my Mora. Something that occurred to me is that when sharpening the blade, I'll be essentially filing/grinding it, which will generate metal filings/dust. My (slightly daft) question is, should I be wearing a respirator when I sharpen my knife?
 
No, while metal dust is often dangerous to inhale sharpening a knife on a stone isn't going to make a cloud, perhaps if you have a job standing around all day every day sharpening knives on a belt/paper wheel them maybe.
 
Nah, you are fine. But you should spend some time hanging around the maintenance sub forum. There is a wealth of information about sharpening to be had there. Enjoy the journey.
 
While we're on the topic, can anyone talk about the potential toxicity of strop compound?
 
What ones? They're very different compounds.

But again stroping by hand isn't going to create a dust cloud.
 
I'm not talking about dust. I'm asking if there are any health concerns related to absorbing them through the skin. I use the Bark River black white and green, which I understand are mostly chromium oxide, aluminum oxide.
 
While we're discussing strop, I'm a total newbie to this method of sharpening/honing. Is there a certain kind of leather to use? Will any genuine leather work, i.e. belt? And, is there a local (national) retailer that sells them, such as gander mountain or academy?
 
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Yes I recommend wearing a respirator when sharpening a knife. Further you should also wear latex gloves as the hands are in close proximity to the filings, oils, etc. and could potentially be a health hazard.
Oh and do not ever lick the strop clean...just not healthy...and you get green specks on your teeth...ugh...
 
Cheesemaster - no problem there .The real problem in getting chemicals through the skin is the ever increasing use of ' carriers' in the environment. For the most part they became used in the printing industry in 1995 when many printing inks included them. You no longer needed to breath the ink fumes because the ink was absorbed through the skin with the carrier !!!
Today the carriers are used increasingly in supermarkets in the pesticides that they all use . They penetrate through everything except glass or metal. Paper , plastic, cardboard, and of course anything unpackaged like fruit and veggies are all big sources !! Are you surprized that the cancer and allergy rate has increased 20% in the last 10 years ??
 
Thanks, Mete. I have people in my life who hound me about the chemicals in shampoos, cleaning materials, etc, and there really is a lot of nasty stuff we come into contact with on a daily basis. I wear rubber gloves when I clean and load my strop just cause I don't really know what the stuff is.
 
Oil and metal dust stay in the grooves of my fingers for days. Soap doesn't stay a chance. Who is to say it doesn't absorb into even deeper layers and from there into the blood stream.
Had some army guys reacting badly to weapon oil on their skin. Add metal dust with Chromium (maybe even hexavalent) and epoxy and Teflon from some blade coating and who knows what can happen. Might have even gotten some knife from a rare batch of radioactive Indian steel.
Short term I've not seen anything bad on me personally but long term, no idea. Even if I get cancer later I might think it due to many other reasons than sharpening knifes but could be wrong without proper double blind experiments you can't be sure it's safe or not, no matter what we tell you here.
 
Rubber gloves... don't you loose a bit of dexterity with them? Nitrile disposable gloves would be a lot easier to use and you maintain your dexterity.

I don't believe absorption of metals of the size that result from sharpening a knife through the skin is a huge deal. Inhalation might be and would be. But I suspect that very few metal particles become airborne and you're typically not placing you face down close to the working surface. If you are worried about that, you might try a oil stone and the oil will capture most of the metal filings.

If I were grinding many knife blades as in a manufacturing setting, I would wear a respirator or at a minimum an N-95 mask that fits pretty snug to my face. It is one of the reasons I would never be a welder.

Biggest health risk is cutting yourself if you want to get technical.
 
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It all depends. Being on day +71 of a stem cell transplant I still have few platelets and a high risk of infection. There is no one size fits all answer.


JWH
 
learned my lesson this morning sharpening up a Kershaw folder for my son in law,one of them little portable yellow double sided sharpeners with carbide on one side /ceramic on the other,let my pinkie hang out to far,yeow,split my knuckle,liked to never got it to stop bleeding.i have used that thing over a year never a problem,keep your fingers back..
 
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