I´m a long time visitor to this forums and finally decided to join.
When I was a kid living in a small town in Mexico knives were common in school, used daily to sharpen pencils, cut paper or string, etc. (I was 8 when I got my first) everybody (boys and girls) carried at least a razor blade wrapped in paper, small pen knives with bright plastic scales were easily found, ... but 40 years have past and times have changed .
Anyway, I wanted to comment on sharpening the knives, we used small and irregularly shaped black natural stones that were very cheap, the typical proces wolud be:
1.- spit on the stone.
2.- hold the stone with your left hand at an angle at about waist level.
3.- hold the knife with your right hand.
4.- draw the knife against the stone keeping the blade horizontal.
5.- work both sides until sharp.
The idea of course is that it is intuitively easy to keep the blade
horizontal, just as with crock sticks it is easy to keep it vertical, but horizontally you get a better view and the belly is easier to do IMHO.
The stone can also be put on a table or any flat surface and lifted a little on one end, using whatever is available to keep it at an angle, like a piece of wood, or holding it between index and thumb and putting the middle finger underneath.
When I was in junior high school in carpentry shop we had some large stones and I would set one in a vise at an angle between two pieces of wood to sharpen my schrade stockman.
I find it surprising that this is not more common and that I can´t find comercialy available jigs for holding the stones, of course they can be easily made.
As I said just my 2 c.
When I was a kid living in a small town in Mexico knives were common in school, used daily to sharpen pencils, cut paper or string, etc. (I was 8 when I got my first) everybody (boys and girls) carried at least a razor blade wrapped in paper, small pen knives with bright plastic scales were easily found, ... but 40 years have past and times have changed .
Anyway, I wanted to comment on sharpening the knives, we used small and irregularly shaped black natural stones that were very cheap, the typical proces wolud be:
1.- spit on the stone.
2.- hold the stone with your left hand at an angle at about waist level.
3.- hold the knife with your right hand.
4.- draw the knife against the stone keeping the blade horizontal.
5.- work both sides until sharp.
The idea of course is that it is intuitively easy to keep the blade
horizontal, just as with crock sticks it is easy to keep it vertical, but horizontally you get a better view and the belly is easier to do IMHO.
The stone can also be put on a table or any flat surface and lifted a little on one end, using whatever is available to keep it at an angle, like a piece of wood, or holding it between index and thumb and putting the middle finger underneath.
When I was in junior high school in carpentry shop we had some large stones and I would set one in a vise at an angle between two pieces of wood to sharpen my schrade stockman.
I find it surprising that this is not more common and that I can´t find comercialy available jigs for holding the stones, of course they can be easily made.
As I said just my 2 c.
) on the fixed-angle systems like the Sharpmaker 204.
