Looking for video on simple way to freehand sharpening

[Obsessed with Edges]

Wow! I love this video.

That Cliff Stamp video is a pretty informative one. It highlights the basics very well, but also (subtly) illustrates the 'feel' aspect I mentioned before, in that over time and with much practice, Cliff has developed the touch to make it look that much easier, to the extent he's easily slicing newsprint afterward. He mentions that, from previous experience sharpening that knife, he knows approximately how much he needs to grind from the edge to get a sharp apex, without actually forming a burr. Without that previous experience and knowledge about that knife and with sharpening in general, one would need to take it a bit more slowly and watch for the beginnings of the burr's formation, to 'know' when the edge is likely fully apexed.

But it does show how simple it can become, after developing some of that 'feel' (physically and intuitively) for the process.

 

[bgentry]

He mentions that, from previous experience sharpening that knife, he knows approximately how much he needs to grind from the edge to get a sharp apex, without actually forming a burr. Without that previous experience and knowledge about that knife and with sharpening in general, one would need to take it a bit more slowly and watch for the beginnings of the burr's formation, to 'know' when the edge is likely fully apexed.

You are right that "feel" and experience play into this. For sure.

But I wanted to highlight that Stamp is advocating "no burr sharpening". The way to do this is to sharpen, on both sides, and periodically look at the edge to see reflected light. When the light has disappeared along the entire edge, then your edge is close to being apexed. It's not there, but it's close.

This is where you need to do some small amount of work to finish the apex, and then do what he did: Raise up the angle for 2 or 3 light strokes per side. This is to remove any burr that probably accidentally formed as you were finishing. Then go back to the original angle for 5 to 10 strokes per side for a final edge finish.

No burr sharpening (which really does form *some* burr) is a powerful technique. I think it's harder for beginners to understand, but... what do I know? I've been sharpening for too long.

Brian.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

You are right that "feel" and experience play into this. For sure.

But I wanted to highlight that Stamp is advocating "no burr sharpening". The way to do this is to sharpen, on both sides, and periodically look at the edge to see reflected light. When the light has disappeared along the entire edge, then your edge is close to being apexed. It's not there, but it's close.

This is where you need to do some small amount of work to finish the apex, and then do what he did: Raise up the angle for 2 or 3 light strokes per side. This is to remove any burr that probably accidentally formed as you were finishing. Then go back to the original angle for 5 to 10 strokes per side for a final edge finish.

No burr sharpening (which really does form *some* burr) is a powerful technique. I think it's harder for beginners to understand, but... what do I know? I've been sharpening for too long.

Brian.

I agree with that. 'No burr sharpening' (or, 'nearly no burr sharpening') is much easier after one figures out when an edge is actually 'there', in terms of it's thinnest, sharpest edge, or nearly so. When I touch up my own knives that I've used and sharpened many times, it gets much easier to see when it's 'done', in terms of the sharpness attained, whether I've created much of a burr or not. I also look for that reflected light along the apex, when deciding if it's 'there' (apexed) or not. There's always a smidgen of burr there, that I can detect in slicing paper to test the edge. But a quick swipe or two on my jeans or a bare leather belt, and it's cleaned up and ready to go.

Paper-slicing has become my de facto test for evaluating if it's 'done', and it's never let me down. It'll reveal whether a burr's there or not (erratic snagging or slipping, the behavior of which changes with each pass through the paper), and the ease by which the blade zips through the paper tells me everything else I need to know (is it fully apexed?), beyond that. If it does that well, I'll make a few cuts cross-grain into some wood and test the edge in paper again. If it still holds up and nothing changes, I then know the edge is strong as well as sharp. That's when it's officially 'done'.

Edited to add:
The paper-slicing test for sharpness is valuable for steels that don't produce much of a detectable burr in the first place, like uber-hard ZDP-189 and some other high-wear steels with a lot of carbide content. Sometimes it's difficult or impossible to detect any burr at all with these steels, as it just doesn't form at all, or it breaks/crumbles away too soon to be seen reliably. So, instead of grinding away forever and waiting to see a burr that never comes, some frequent checking of how it slices paper (effortless, no snagging or slipping) is a better indicator of whether the edge is apexed or not.

 

[SV-97]

Murray Carter has some good videos; I don't use his technique but I remember the videos as helpful. I think to learn freehand it's good to have a really high grit stone(like 10k) and just trying to polish out finished edges/factory edges. That way you'll have to match the angle 100% or won't sharpen but it's hard to screw up. A higher grit also is way smoother and thus has less of a systematic error compared to a low grit that really "pulls" on the blade etc.

 

[HeavyHanded]

You are right that "feel" and experience play into this. For sure.

But I wanted to highlight that Stamp is advocating "no burr sharpening". The way to do this is to sharpen, on both sides, and periodically look at the edge to see reflected light. When the light has disappeared along the entire edge, then your edge is close to being apexed. It's not there, but it's close.

This is where you need to do some small amount of work to finish the apex, and then do what he did: Raise up the angle for 2 or 3 light strokes per side. This is to remove any burr that probably accidentally formed as you were finishing. Then go back to the original angle for 5 to 10 strokes per side for a final edge finish.

No burr sharpening (which really does form *some* burr) is a powerful technique. I think it's harder for beginners to understand, but... what do I know? I've been sharpening for too long.

Brian.

I often use a variation on this a la Murray Carter. Instead of visual examination I rely mostly on when the blade feels sticky. If it feels sticky and I can't feel a burr, I simply apply a microbevel and keep checking for a burr, saving the close visual inspection for when I'm 96% there.

How many passes depends on how coarse my initial stone, or how many stones in the progression etc.

 

[JJ_Colt45]

I will again say there are alot of good posts here and I am not as experienced as some giving you advice ... but just some thoughts of my learning experience ...

I also learned to sharpen "by feel" ... and I still do ... but I do occasionally inspect the edge visually and I will say I had to start visually inspecting the edges when I stepped into these newer harder steels such as high vandium steels ... and I got a jewelers loupe to get a good look at what the edge is doing ... and found that once you learn what a sharp edge looks like ... that is just another tool for you to use that I found helpful ...

the type stones used have different feels you will learn ... but for me the new steels have a feel much different from say 1095 ... it's just a reminder that as you learn you will get that "feel" of feedback from the stones you use ... but also as you move into very different steel types you will find the feedback or "feel" a bit different ...

it isn't as difficult as all the technical terms and as it sometimes seems ... practice and building muscle memory and learning as you go ...

it's great to have the knowledge and guidance from all the forum members that are highly skilled at sharpening ... I've learned alot myself.

 

[J D Wijbenga]

This is one of my favorite. Joe Calton has a number of sharpening videos but this is a good start.