Pocket sharpeners.

J

jackknife

Joined
Oct 2, 2004
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Okay, who's carrying some sort of small pocket or wallet hone for those touch-ups away from home? You know, those awkward moments when you realize your knife is less than real sharp and there's no coffee cup or car window around.
 
jackknife said:
Okay, who's carrying some sort of small pocket or wallet hone for those touch-ups away from home? You know, those awkward moments when you realize your knife is less than real sharp and there's no coffee cup or car window around.
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I don't carry one, but I'm curious about the car window or coffee cup part of the post. I'll bet something interesting is forthcoming here.
 
I got a 4" ceramic rod, that I keep handy in a pants / coat pocket or in my lunch box at work. It works great for a fast touch up. Joe
 
thawk said:
I don't carry one, but I'm curious about the car window or coffee cup part of the post. I'll bet something interesting is forthcoming here.
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Well, in a pinch you can roll down your car window halfway and strop the knife on the top edge of the car window where the glass is a bit rougher. it will act like a ceramic hone.

Same thing with the ridge around the bottom of a ceramic coffee cup or mug. Even better if the bottom of the ridge is not glazed like the rest of the cup because it was sitting on that ridge when in the kiln. I saw my dad do this with his peanut in a little diner when we were out in the middle of the sticks comming back from a camping trip. His peanut had got a workout, and as we were finishing lunch, dad used the bottom of the coffee cup to strop and hone his knife. He was one for the make do stuff.
 
A lot of ceramic plates and bowls are also not glazed along that bottom ring. I think it is worth running your finger along the unglazed portion you plan to sharpen on and make sure that there are no noticeable chips or pointy lumps that may damage an edge. Most of the time I have found that this trick produces a razor sharp, and toothy edge. Joe
 
I knew about the coffee cup trick, but the car window was a new one to me.

I have a couple of scraps of wet/dry sandpaper in various fine grits stashed around here and there for impromptu touch-ups.
 
I carry a small stone for just those times :)
But I usually don't tell people cuz they look at me funny:rolleyes:
 
I have a DMT fine diamond plate in my wallet. I got it at knifeworks for $10. It works great.
 
Hawkings said:
I carry a small stone for just those times :)
But I usually don't tell people cuz they look at me funny:rolleyes:
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Hey, we're knife knuts, we should be used to being looked at funny!:D

I learned at an early age there are two kinds of people in the world- knife knuts and the rest of humanity. The rest of humanity always looks at somebody with two or more knives on them, or owns more knives than days of the week let alone days of the month, funny. Now I think if they knew some of us not only get a little carried away with the carrying of knives, but even carry a sharpener to keep them actually sharp, we'd be hunted down like the witches of old Salem.:eek:
 
I have two DMT credit card size sharpeners: one fine and one course . I keep them in my wallet most days and use them when I need to.

Brett
 
I keep a small triangle sharpener in my pants/coat/lunchbox depending on the situation. I think it's usually called a dogbone sharpener. It feels to be a bit smoother than the grey sharpmaker 'stones'. I also wear a ultra-fine shapening hone everyday that i picked up from ragweedforge. It's a viking whetstone. This works really well if your edge is already sharp. It is as fine if not finer than the white sharpmaker 'stone'.

Ragweed photo.
viking-whetstone.jpg
 
I carry a couple of dollar bill sized pieces of wet or dry sandpaper in my wallet. 600 and 800 grit.

todd
 
I usually carry a Spyderco 303MF "Double-Stuff" pocket stone my wifey got me for Valentine's Day a few years ago. If I predict edge damage, I carry a DMT Duo-Fold (coarse/fine) instead, otherwise, the Double-Stuff tunes up everything (its corners work with most serrations, too).
 
I carry a pair of DMT Diafolds in my back pocket, X-Coarse/Coarse and Fine/X-Fine. For me, edge damage is a given, so I like to have the means to do more than a minor touch-up handy all the time.
 
i carry half of a soft arkansas stone in my back pocket with the "pocket cake" made of various papers and spare dollar bills i collect.

it used to be a soft arkansas bench stone, but then one day when i was sharpening a drawknife, with the stone balanced on my leg, it slipped off and hit the concrete floor pretty hard, breaking clean in two. now i just need to get a new arkansas bench stone.
 
I use the credit-card sized DMT stones. I carry a fine in my wallet as EDC, and a medium in my Doug Ritter Pocket Survival Pak (goes with me everytime I leave pavement). They work well.

The best use I've found for the car window trick is fixing a rolled edge. Works really well for that.

With the bottom of a ceramic dish, I've found I need to scrub it out, or the white ceramic gets rusty from the imbedded ferrus.
 
You can get a bunch of ceramic rods at Smoky Mountain Knife Works for almost nothing. In a real crunch, you can use a very fine creek stone to sharpen your knife and a fine ceramic rod for finer work. The pocket sharpeners do okay if the rods are crisscrossed and removable; however, if the sharpener is one of those carbide thingies, I wouldn't use it on a good knife if I could help it.

What really gets me are the ceramic rods built into a sharpener where you can't remove them. Even a toothbrush doesn't reach those rods. So cleaning them is problematic. Or do they need cleaning? How important is it that those rods are cleaned?

0c60dafd-11ca-42d0-880d-93ccd8d8a730_4.jpg
. .
Sharpener_2.jpg


This carbide and ceramic sharpener (left) will do in a pinch.
I used this particular model to put an edge on my machetes,
but be careful. Carbide cuts quickly and is slippery. The ceramic
rod sharpener (right) is great. Maintains a consistent angle
and is easy to clean. And they come in different colors!

LCDOG.jpg
MO1337.jpg


This medium ceramic rod (left) in some ways is the best.
Very quick, easy to clean. And this sharpener is designed to
sharpen vice just touching up. Actually, it does both. So
does this diamond sharpener (right), which can come in
a rod or stone configuration.
 
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