Knives curving when sharpening

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Sep 30, 2020
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Hello all!
I hope this isn’t a stupid question, but as I am hand sharpening some tools such as leather knives I find my straight edge of the knife starting to curve at the corners. Is there a way to rectify this? I assume it’s happening due to putting to much pressure on the sides? Any and all advice is helpful!
 
I also sharpen my leather knives but I'm not sure what type of knives you're working on. Are you sharpening swivel knives or straight edge cutting knives such as the Murphy leather knife? How is the blade curving? Is there an arc developing along the middle or is the tip developing a curve or for the swivel knife, are the ends curving up?
 
Most 'straight-edge' blades, such as sheepsfoot blades and others, will have some lateral warp or bend to them, straight from manufacture. If you hold the blade at eye level with the edge up and the tip pointing away, you can see the lateral curvature in one direction or the other, like you'd see the warp in a length of 2x4 lumber, looking along it's narrow edge. OR, if you lay the blade flat on the stone and look into the cutting edge from eye level, you can see the difference as you flip the blade to each side on the stone. When sharpening blades with this sort of warp on a FLAT stone, only the tip and rear of the cutting edge will be in contact on the stone when sharpening one side of the blade, and only the center portion of the cutting edge will be in contact when sharpening the other side. With only the tip and rear of the cutting edge in contact from the one side, those portions of the edge will be worn away more rapidly during sharpening, so the edge profile starts to curve, and the previously-sharp tip will begin to round somewhat. It only takes the tiniest bit of lateral curvature or warp in the blade to affect sharpening this way. If you do a lot of leather or fabric strop-sharpening of these blades with aggressive polishing compounds, the effect will likely be even more extreme, rounding off the tip especially, due to the strop material conforming around the tip.

If the blade is thin & flexible enough, sometimes finger pressure can be applied to 'flatten' the warp somewhat on the stone, so the full length of the cutting edge is in contact. But that's difficult and very fatiguing to do with full control and the results still won't likely be as perfectly straight as you want them to be.

You can also use a stone narrow enough to focus only on short segments of the cutting edge at a time, so you're not needlessly grinding away the tip and the rear of the edge when you're only wanting to tune up the central portion. Another way to do that is to round off or 'radius' one edge of your flat stone, so the tip & rear of the edge can be better isolated on the stone while sharpening. For me personally, isolating the tip for the work it actually needs is the best way to keep it in shape with a minimum of rounding off.

As a last resort, if the curvature of the edge profile gets too far out of hand, you can grind the edge profile completely flat again, with the blade vertical (spine straight UP) to the stone, as if trying to cut through the stone. Once straight again, new edge bevels would have to be reset & the edge sharpened again. But that's a LOT of work and the same dynamics caused by the blade's lateral warp would still be in play while trying to reset the edge.
 
Since leather craft uses the skiver, general cutting and swivel type knives it's impossible to give advise without knowing which we are talking about. All three have very different blade/bevel shapes and sharpening requirements. A lot of leather workers use utility and craft knives for general cutting and flat Japanese style skivers which also work well for general cutting. Since skivers have a single bevel they can be prone to the corner round up the OP described and swivel knives can also suffer rounded corners if stropped improperly.
 
See, I thought you were talking about an overgrind, while Obsessed with Edges sees warping as the issue.
So a picture is needed.
 
Most 'straight-edge' blades, such as sheepsfoot blades and others, will have some lateral warp or bend to them, straight from manufacture.

Interesting - is this less prone to happen in knives with bellies/curves, or are the effects just more pronounced in straight edged knives? I’ve sharpened my Tuff-Lite many times after using mostly on leather and I’ve also noticed some rounding of the tip... I figured it was just sloppy technique - applying more pressure to the tip, etc.
 
dateposted-public
See, I thought you were talking about an overgrind, while Obsessed with Edges sees warping as the issue.
So a picture is needed.


Interesting - is this less prone to happen in knives with bellies/curves, or are the effects just more pronounced in straight edged knives? I’ve sharpened my Tuff-Lite many times after using mostly on leather and I’ve also noticed some rounding of the tip... I figured it was just sloppy technique - applying more pressure to the tip, etc.

thank you all for the the response’s yes I should have attached a picture. Here it is with four blades I would prefer to have a straight edge on.
1


2jMXT6T
 
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Interesting - is this less prone to happen in knives with bellies/curves, or are the effects just more pronounced in straight edged knives? I’ve sharpened my Tuff-Lite many times after using mostly on leather and I’ve also noticed some rounding of the tip... I figured it was just sloppy technique - applying more pressure to the tip, etc.

I think it's actually rare for smaller, thinner blades to NOT have any warp in them, regardless of edge profile. It's more noticeable in straight-edge blades, because most of us would expect them to be perfectly straight from the beginning. Then we run into issues like this when sharpening them, and it becomes impossible to ignore at that point.

My favorite traditional pocketknife pattern is a stockman. And I use the sheepsfoot blade more often than any other, in that pattern. So I've been noticing the effects of the blade warp for quite a while. Once it's seen there, then it becomes more obvious when examining other small, thin blades. But the 'bellied' edge profile of most other blades means the effects of the warp aren't necessarily a big deal in those blades.
 
dateposted-public

thank you all for the the response’s yes I should have attached a picture. Here it is with four blades I would prefer to have a straight edge on.
1

2jMXT6T
Hi,
Whats your email password? :P (joking)

What you do is click the link icon or dot dot dot , Click share links, then bbcode , copy
Code:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2jMXT6T][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50403259753_202a329014_k.jpg[/img]IMG-1363[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/190459549@N06/]al vb[/url], on Flickr
then you paste it to get
IMG-1363 by al vb, on Flickr
 
The top three look like Vergez Blanchard skiving knives, that bottom blade is interesting, almost looks like it came from a bench mount skiving machine, I don't think it's a Blanchard. The topmost is called a skiving/paring blade knife. They would have a single bevel and the two in the middle would have a curved edge, the lower one a straight edge and the top an angled straight edge. The bevels would have to be sharpened to shaving sharpness to be effective skivers, the edges being curved is not that big a deal for skiving knives but you would want the angle blade to have a straight edge. They need a flat bevel and a flat bottom, similar to an acute angle straight wood chisel. If you do a search on Vergez Blanchard knives you will get some good images to follow.
 
Another possibility for a cause is a sharpening stone that isn't truly flat. The rounded chisel-grind edges seen in the pics posted above bring that to mind. If the stone is 'dished' (concave) on it's surface, that will cause issues with corners rounding and the (what should be) straight-edge profile starting to curve or 'belly'. That can also happen on a somewhat soft stropping surface, for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. And if the blades are indeed thin enough to flex under too-heavy pressure, that will also cause the same issues.
 
Another possibility for a cause is a sharpening stone that isn't truly flat. The rounded chisel-grind edges seen in the pics posted above bring that to mind. If the stone is 'dished' (concave) on it's surface, that will cause issues with corners rounding and the (what should be) straight-edge profile starting to curve or 'belly'. That can also happen on a somewhat soft stropping surface, for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. And if the blades are indeed thin enough to flex under too-heavy pressure, that will also cause the same issues.
If you can bend those skiving blades while sharpening you're superman. The Blanchard #1 & 2, the two middle blades are supposed to have curved blades but over time faulty sharpening has ruined their intended shape as it has on the angled blade which is supposed to be straight. The lower blade probably had a straight edge but without knowing more about it it's a guess, looks like a machine mount rather than a haft blade. The bevel is supposed to be flat, improper sharpening has rounded them. These blades will take a lot of work to fix but they might be worth the effort to a leather worker.

Edit to add it took years of faulty hand sharpening to cause that much damage.
 
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Another possibility for a cause is a sharpening stone that isn't truly flat. The rounded chisel-grind edges seen in the pics posted above bring that to mind. If the stone is 'dished' (concave) on it's surface, that will cause issues with corners rounding and the (what should be) straight-edge profile starting to curve or 'belly'. That can also happen on a somewhat soft stropping surface, for the same reasons I mentioned earlier. And if the blades are indeed thin enough to flex under too-heavy pressure, that will also cause the same issues.
Stone is answer I also believe ( also very nice written tips earlier!)
 
I don’t know how these blades are used so I could be off base. Are the corners being worn during use? Then each time you sharpen they get worse.
 
I don’t know how these blades are used so I could be off base. Are the corners being worn during use? Then each time you sharpen they get worse.
the corners are worn if you sharpen them incorrectly not in use (technique, or the stone flatness / stropping incorrectly)
 
It's pretty obvious you guys have no idea what a skiving knife is or how it's used, hopefully the OP will pay attention and check out the Blanchard knife images on-line.
 
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