I'm new to sharpening, and am currently seeking to improve my technique with useful methods that I'm sure many of you currently use. What I'm NOT interested in are ways to get my knife "so heinously sharp that it'll cut your eyes when you look at it". I'm sharpening my knife to use it, not display its push-cutting abilities in the Smithsonian.
With that said, I tend to use a knife for general tasks, and sometimes whittling when I go for walks in the desert. Sometimes I cut rope, or food, or maybe a tag from a T-shirt. So mostly it's slicing I want to improve, not push-cutting.
I have a Sharpmaker 204, and while it's very nice, it also seems to be a bit imprecise. What I need are ways to tell how well I'm doing as I go along. Here's what I do so far, taken from tonight's sharpening chores:
1. The knife in question is chisel ground, sheepsfoot blade, 1/8" think at the spine, but only 2.8" long. It's thick and fat.
It's double-beveled, with 20 degrees on the secondary bevel, put there by my Sharpmaker.
2. When I finish on the smooth stones, I wonder to myself if my knife is really sharp. It will drag on my fingernail at fairly acute angles, but it doesn't shave very well at all. Which isn't so bad. But how usefully sharp is it?
3. One test I use is to run my fingernail over the edge, like a hard little snail. What I found tonight is that after using the Sharpmaker, there is a series burr on the left side. After taking the burr away, I alternate sides, but then the burr is back! Also, the worn-off steel on the two ceramic sticks has very different patterns. On the right stick, the steel is evenly placed. But on the left stick, there is a band that never gets any steel on it, no matter what I do. I tried to see whether the stick was curved, but it didn't seem so. Hmmm. What could be causing that?
4. So I take the burr away again, and try different pressures, favoring the left side. That helps, but there's still a bit of a burr. It's a testy blade. But finally I get the burr to go away.
I can only assume at this point that the angles on the blade are equal; and since there is no burr, it should be soul of sharpness, right?
6. The next step is to shine a flashlight directly on the edge. On most of the blade, I cannot see any edge. As I turn the blade under the light, there is no division between the left and right sides, whatsoever. I just can't see it. I assume this is a good thing. There are two places that have very tiny nicks, and these shine. The nicks are not discernible when looking from the side, though.
7. I strop it a bit on some denim, just for good measure, in the hopes of straightening the micro-serrations. I don't want them to go away, I just want them aligned. I assume this won't hurt slicing performance too much, since it's not really a "polished" edge.
8. At this point, I'm still wondering, is my knife sharp? It will slice paper with no problem, but it certainly doesn't grab any hairs. It can't shave the hair on my thigh, but if I scrape, it will shave hair from my arm. Since I didn't polish the edge, that doesn't worry me greatly, but I did think it would be at least sharp enough to shave more easily.
My question is: What practical techniques can I use in this process to gauge my progress more accurately, such that I can apply the necessary adjustments to ensure a successful end? I probably abraded way more steel than I needed to, since it was sharp this morning, and all I did was whittle a desert stick to nothing. After that, it wouldn't drag on my nail anymore, and I forgot to try steeling before sharpening. But in the course of sharpening, I decided I wanted an edge that I could know was sharp -- yet now I'm wondering if this might not be a nebulous thing indeed!
I suppose in the very olden days, someone who was expert at sharpening would have watched over my shoulder, righted all my wrongs, and given me tips exactly when I needed them. But this is 21st century. No one I know is a master at very much, and when you want to learn something well, all you can depend on is a manual, your modem, and the friendly people from the Internet.
Any masters out there who can impart their wisdom-at-a-distance?
With that said, I tend to use a knife for general tasks, and sometimes whittling when I go for walks in the desert. Sometimes I cut rope, or food, or maybe a tag from a T-shirt. So mostly it's slicing I want to improve, not push-cutting.
I have a Sharpmaker 204, and while it's very nice, it also seems to be a bit imprecise. What I need are ways to tell how well I'm doing as I go along. Here's what I do so far, taken from tonight's sharpening chores:
1. The knife in question is chisel ground, sheepsfoot blade, 1/8" think at the spine, but only 2.8" long. It's thick and fat.
It's double-beveled, with 20 degrees on the secondary bevel, put there by my Sharpmaker.
2. When I finish on the smooth stones, I wonder to myself if my knife is really sharp. It will drag on my fingernail at fairly acute angles, but it doesn't shave very well at all. Which isn't so bad. But how usefully sharp is it?
3. One test I use is to run my fingernail over the edge, like a hard little snail. What I found tonight is that after using the Sharpmaker, there is a series burr on the left side. After taking the burr away, I alternate sides, but then the burr is back! Also, the worn-off steel on the two ceramic sticks has very different patterns. On the right stick, the steel is evenly placed. But on the left stick, there is a band that never gets any steel on it, no matter what I do. I tried to see whether the stick was curved, but it didn't seem so. Hmmm. What could be causing that?
4. So I take the burr away again, and try different pressures, favoring the left side. That helps, but there's still a bit of a burr. It's a testy blade. But finally I get the burr to go away.
I can only assume at this point that the angles on the blade are equal; and since there is no burr, it should be soul of sharpness, right?
6. The next step is to shine a flashlight directly on the edge. On most of the blade, I cannot see any edge. As I turn the blade under the light, there is no division between the left and right sides, whatsoever. I just can't see it. I assume this is a good thing. There are two places that have very tiny nicks, and these shine. The nicks are not discernible when looking from the side, though.
7. I strop it a bit on some denim, just for good measure, in the hopes of straightening the micro-serrations. I don't want them to go away, I just want them aligned. I assume this won't hurt slicing performance too much, since it's not really a "polished" edge.
8. At this point, I'm still wondering, is my knife sharp? It will slice paper with no problem, but it certainly doesn't grab any hairs. It can't shave the hair on my thigh, but if I scrape, it will shave hair from my arm. Since I didn't polish the edge, that doesn't worry me greatly, but I did think it would be at least sharp enough to shave more easily.
My question is: What practical techniques can I use in this process to gauge my progress more accurately, such that I can apply the necessary adjustments to ensure a successful end? I probably abraded way more steel than I needed to, since it was sharp this morning, and all I did was whittle a desert stick to nothing. After that, it wouldn't drag on my nail anymore, and I forgot to try steeling before sharpening. But in the course of sharpening, I decided I wanted an edge that I could know was sharp -- yet now I'm wondering if this might not be a nebulous thing indeed!
I suppose in the very olden days, someone who was expert at sharpening would have watched over my shoulder, righted all my wrongs, and given me tips exactly when I needed them. But this is 21st century. No one I know is a master at very much, and when you want to learn something well, all you can depend on is a manual, your modem, and the friendly people from the Internet.
Any masters out there who can impart their wisdom-at-a-distance?
