- Joined
- May 28, 2012
- Messages
- 3,189
When I finish my morning coffee I just flip the cup over and give the knife a couple of spins around the bottom of the coffee cup.
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New to knife sharpening !!
- Thread starter Donpie
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2003
- Messages
- 1,797
I don't have the grinder attachment. It works fine and fast for kitchen knives. It doesn't HAVE to remove a lot of material, as some people suggest it must. But it can be MADE to, to reprofile a bad factory grind.
Yes, start with coarser, then when the angle is the way you like it, go to finer. It takes too long to remove material with the medium and fine grits on the super hard steels. Fortunately, knives with the super hard steels are so expensive, I don't find myself correcting factory edge profiles.
I don't understand it either. I read The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening which teaches that a strop is just to remove the wire edge after the knife is sharpened. I guess the idea of a rouge is to make the strop abrasive enough that the wear to the edge is considered to be like a wire edge from sharpening, but since it is actually bent down and not just a tiny wire edge, the strop needs to have some abrasive added to it.
FWIW, I don't use a strop. When I'm at that point, a few swipes on the fine Sharpmaker stones is preferable.
What I think is interesting about it is that if I have a coffee cup, I'm not in some survival scenario. I can get off my butt or wait 'til I get home and just go to my Sharpmaker. and really, how many of us are EVER caught with a dull knife? I mean dull, not just: "it won't shave my arm any more". I don't even think it's good for training for a survival scenario, as in that case, it might be hard to find a stone that's flat and with uniform grit like the bottom of a coffee cup.
- Joined
- May 17, 2013
- Messages
- 1,155
I have a few sharpening "systems", wicked edge, sharpmaker, Ken Onion worksharp with attachment and some stones. I think what kind of system one would prefer will largely based on your habit and how much money/time you want to invest in this. Some view 'sharpening' an art form or hobby in itself, some see it as an annoying chore...
Ken Onion worksharp is alright, but like anything sharpening gear, it too has some learning curve. And depending how often and how much practice you get with it, it sure is one of the fastest way to ruin any blade since it is motorized. I personally don't use it enough to use it with an expensive knife, so I would use it to sharpen anything that is not valuable but requires labor, like a meat cleaver, axe or machete.
Ken Onion worksharp is alright, but like anything sharpening gear, it too has some learning curve. And depending how often and how much practice you get with it, it sure is one of the fastest way to ruin any blade since it is motorized. I personally don't use it enough to use it with an expensive knife, so I would use it to sharpen anything that is not valuable but requires labor, like a meat cleaver, axe or machete.
I only experience such burrs with stainless steels, plain carbon, 52100, 3V and even D2 never gave me such issues. That's just me tho.
I don't mind a powered sharpener for severely damaged edges as long as it doesn't heat up the blade or leave deep gouges. They are used in every production knife factory, so a good powered sharpener used correctly is just fine. I will ALWAYS finish by hand though.
When it comes to finishing and removing burrs, I do most of my work on a really fine stone with super light pressure and then strop on cardboard or paper. Crazy stropping compounds are great but I've never found that I had to have them.
I don't know... I didn't exactly practice sharpening on a coffee cup but I took my co worker's knife from round at the edge to shaving in a few minutes on the bottom of a cup. We weren't in a survival scenario, we were doing a massive amount of unboxing and his knife wasn't working anymore. Knowing the basics and having some practice makes it possible to sharpen on a lot of different surfaces. It won't do as good as a sharpmaker or a benchstone but it does work fine in a pinch if you need an edge.
When it comes to finishing and removing burrs, I do most of my work on a really fine stone with super light pressure and then strop on cardboard or paper. Crazy stropping compounds are great but I've never found that I had to have them.
evilgreg
Why so serious?
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2012
- Messages
- 4,092
I have at least a half dozen guided systems, including an Edge Pro Apex, and a pile of whetstones of various types (different materials, different levels of abrasiveness, different formats like bench stone/DMT Diafold portable/etc.) and I still find coffee cup sharpening more convenient and often useful in real life.
When I'm in someone else's kitchen I invariably find their kitchen knives dull when I check, and after briefly looking for a suitable mug I can quickly make their knives sharp for them. Nobody has seemed anything but pleased to have their knives randomly sharpened for them, incidentally. I've done this with my mom's knives, my aunt's, a friend's, etc. I don't carry even a compact option like the SharpMaker or Diafold or whatever, what's the point? Coffee mugs are generally pretty available everywhere unless I'm in the woods, and I carry the tiny, lightweight Diafold (the 325/600 one) in my pack then.
The thing about using household items to me is that, once you get the trick of it, almost anything can be used to sharpen a knife. As far as stropping being some magical burr removal tool, that's silly. Abrasives are abrasives, some more abrasive than others, some more flexible than others, but it's all just abrasives. If you load a leather strop with compound, you've got a flexible abrasive at work, fine for knocking off the tiny burr you've created but also nice for polishing an edge (and works great on a convex edge for bonus points). If you're not a complete klutz you can take the burr off an edge with even a very coarse stone with a light stroke. Cardboard can fill the same role as a nice strop would, though abrasiveness varies and it works running perpendicular to the corrugation pattern. For greater levels of abrasion, you can add a bit of toothpaste, incidentally--in addition to being sharp, the resulting edge will be minty fresh.
The magic is that it's just abrasives you're using to shape a piece of metal; the more coarse and the more pressure the greater the effect. An almost sharp edge that has a tiny burr can be finished with forceful strokes on a strop or feather-light strokes on a coarse bench stone. There is no mysterious process, number of strokes, progression of stones and strops, or system that is required to make something sharp; it's just basic sculpture. You're creating a ridgeline that comes to a fine point, nothing more, nothing less.
I've used the side of a coarse cardboard box to sharpen a coworker's knife from dull to quite sharp, fairly quickly. This had the benefit of sharpening their knife and also proving them wrong at the same time (they were sure it wouldn't work).
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2018
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- 219
I have a Danver Foss for coarse grinding, a dmt coarse, a chosera 800 and a king 1000/6000.
the majority of my work is on the chosera and the king. I occasionally use the foss for very beat up edges and the dmt if I want to adjust the angle of the bevel. I’ve also used a bog standard belt grinder for thinning blades with good results
the majority of my work is on the chosera and the king. I occasionally use the foss for very beat up edges and the dmt if I want to adjust the angle of the bevel. I’ve also used a bog standard belt grinder for thinning blades with good results
Each compound is a.different grit! Black ,white, green, red. Rough to fine! Every knife bevel is different so I can feel it when I'm on the bevel and not! It just takes time to get the feel down. Unless I'm cutting rocks, which I tried to stop years ago, all I need is the BillyStrop to maintain my.knives n their edge!!
