New to sharpening

LMNOP said:
In my experience, you don't need a bevel guide when you are using stone but it may provide some confidence if you are a beginner. To set up the correct angle, you can feel with your finger if the bevel is flat on the stone or not. Stop, check, adjust and carry on with your strokes. Practice on your cheap kitchen knives.
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I never was able to feel angle with my finger if bevel is flat. I tested on brand new knives, on small and extra large. I asked to test my wife and good number of friends. Nobody feels the angle. :(
With angle guides it is a no brainer to hold knife at stable angle. The best of all, angle repeatability is a no brainer too. You can easy sharpen knife at the same angle every time. $11. :cool:
 
A very old trick for an angle reference is to lay a stack of coins on the stone. Enter the edge angle (per side) you want as angle A in the calculator HERE, and the blade width as c. The resulting height, a, is how high you should make your stack or block. This is technically even better as an angle guide because preset angle blocks don't take the blade's primary grind into account. A blade with a full flat grind that's 5° per side laid on a 15° block will actually be producing an edge that's 20° per side.
 
Primary grind angle calculator
http://angleguide.com/a-angle-calculator.aspx
drawing_calculator_grind.png

For most kitchen knives like Henkels the grind angle is 2°.
For very thin kitchen blades like Japanese the angle is 1°.
 
No need to calculate the primary if you just use a wooden block or stack of coins the right height for the blade width and angle you want. Even works for full height convexes then. The grind becomes irrelevant if you just run the calculations from the centerline of the blade. :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
No need to calculate the primary if you just use a wooden block or stack of coins the right height for the blade width and angle you want. Even works for full height convexes then. The grind becomes irrelevant if you just run the calculations from the centerline of the blade. :)
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My thinking cap doesn't work today. Could you explain on real life example? Which coins should I use? What kind if wooden block? How to use it on every stroke? How in real life sharpening to reference central line? Thanks. Sorry for many questions...
 
When Dad taught me how to sharpen, he said to act like there's a kitchen match (wooden) under the heel of the knife as your sharpening.
That was 52 years ago and I can still remember sitting there at the kitchen table when he taught me.
But hey, whatever works for you. Listen to these guys here. They've refined the process.
 
SunnyRidge said:
I am testing waters first time here. Still many questions how to use the forum. Thanks for calling me shill.
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5 of the 6 posts you had here were pictures of sharpening systems of one form or another. 3-4 of them were the same system.
Understand that BF gets alot of this. People who want to sell a product or get eyes on a product without any intention of discussing knives or supporting the Bladeforums community.
 
SunnyRidge said:
My thinking cap doesn't work today. Could you explain on real life example? Which coins should I use? What kind if wooden block? How to use it on every stroke? How in real life sharpening to reference central line? Thanks. Sorry for many questions...
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Just hold the spine at the height dictated by the calculator by making a stack of coins (or other thin things) or a wooden block the same height as the calculator tells you. Because all you're using are the blade width at a chosen reference point and the desired angle of approach, you don't need to worry about the angle of the primary grind.
 
bhyde said:
5 of the 6 posts you had here were pictures of sharpening systems of one form or another. 3-4 of them were the same system.
Understand that BF gets alot of this. People who want to sell a product or get eyes on a product without any intention of discussing knives or supporting the Bladeforums community.
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I will be happy to support BF. You are doing great job on this forum. A lot of useful information and friendly helpful people. :) Question about membership: This page https://www.bladeforums.com/pember/membership-new in box "Dealer Membership" has text "Allows Dealers to sell on BladeForums.com in the Dealers For Sale Area. A Dealer Membership is required to advertise or mention your website in any fashion.". Could you clarify if "a dealer can advertise or mention his website in any fashion" is limited to a "For Sale by Dealers" area or it applies to all forums and all areas? Thanks!
 
SunnyRidge said:
I will be happy to support BF. You are doing great job on this forum. A lot of useful information and friendly helpful people. :) Question about membership: This page https://www.bladeforums.com/pember/membership-new in box "Dealer Membership" has text "Allows Dealers to sell on BladeForums.com in the Dealers For Sale Area. A Dealer Membership is required to advertise or mention your website in any fashion.". Could you clarify if "a dealer can advertise or mention his website in any fashion" is limited to a "For Sale by Dealers" area or it applies to all forums and all areas? Thanks!
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It applies to all areas of the forum.
 
SunnyRidge said:
I will be happy to support BF. You are doing great job on this forum. A lot of useful information and friendly helpful people. :) Question about membership: This page https://www.bladeforums.com/pember/membership-new in box "Dealer Membership" has text "Allows Dealers to sell on BladeForums.com in the Dealers For Sale Area. A Dealer Membership is required to advertise or mention your website in any fashion.". Could you clarify if "a dealer can advertise or mention his website in any fashion" is limited to a "For Sale by Dealers" area or it applies to all forums and all areas? Thanks!
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Anywhere on the forum. The exchange is a bit different.. For example, if you are a dealer, you obviously wouldn't advertise in the "For sale by Individual" subforums unless what you were selling was a personal item.

Keeping this on topic, let's keep these types of questions to the Service and Support subforum :)
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
A very old trick for an angle reference is to lay a stack of coins on the stone. Enter the edge angle (per side) you want as angle A in the calculator HERE, and the blade width as c. The resulting height, a, is how high you should make your stack or block. This is technically even better as an angle guide because preset angle blocks don't take the blade's primary grind into account. A blade with a full flat grind that's 5° per side laid on a 15° block will actually be producing an edge that's 20° per side.
Click to expand...

This approach is handy and for the reasons indicated, seems better than making or buying a pre-cut angle guide such as a 20 degree triangle, or even using a digital angle gauge. Those tools can tell you what angle you're currently holding your blade at relative to the stone. And they get you in the right ballpark, if your main concern is just consistency and repeatability. But they do not give you the exact spine height and angle you need to hold the blade at, to create the desired angle on your edge bevel.

Going with this calculator, I improvised a "spine height guide" to use during sharpening. It's a bit more accurate, and a bit easier to use on a stone, than a stack of quarters. Took index cards and cut them up into a stack of 1" square cards, till I had good sized stack. Calculated required spine height to get desired edge angle on a specific knife. Measured with a caliper to get the required height of my card stack for the spine height guide. Because the cards are thicker than paper but thinner than coins, you can get fairly accurate. Wrapped a piece of scotch tape around the measured stack to hold it together without changing height much, and put it on my stone. Works great.
 
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