Questions on knife sharpening

[arbiter]

Greetings all-As a general point of interest,and with the recent questions on how to properly sharpen knives(or swords),may I suggest going to youtube and typing in the name murray carter.He is a Japanese bladesmith and has some of the finest sharpening tutorials you'll find anywhere.Although it takes some practice to learn to sharpen properly, it's really not that difficult and you don't need expensive equipment to do it effectively.

 

[Steely_Gunz]

Yep, part of the fun of knife collecting (for me) is getting to know each one of my blades through the act of sharpening. I have a different method for every style, and every time it is done by hand with no power tools. Don't get me wrong, I know some of you guys can put a ridiculous edge on a knife with a belt sander. That is a SKILL, lemme tell you. I never had the hand for that. But give me a couple of stones, a loaded strop, maybe a butcher's steel, and I'll get it to pop hair after a couple hours

 

[richard j]

jake, if you ever get time to go on a road trip and come over here i would be glad to teach you how to sharpen on a belt sander.

 

[C.S. Graves]

Yep, part of the fun of knife collecting (for me) is getting to know each one of my blades through the act of sharpening. I have a different method for every style, and every time it is done by hand with no power tools. Don't get me wrong, I know some of you guys can put a ridiculous edge on a knife with a belt sander. That is a SKILL, lemme tell you. I never had the hand for that. But give me a couple of stones, a loaded strop, maybe a butcher's steel, and I'll get it to pop hair after a couple hours

I have great respect for the patience (and SKILL) it takes to sharpen without a belt grinder or similar power tools. My time is less plentiful than I would like, so almost all my blades touch the belts at some point or other.

 

[arbiter]

There are of course several methods that may be employed to effectively sharpen a blade-I found the tutorials mentioned helpful in teaching some basic principals.In a survival or primitive camping situation power tools will not be available,so the ability to manually sharpen is an important skill,and one that goes hand in hand with knife ownership.It may be worth noting that you can sharpen your knife on the sidewalk and strop on cardboard,but personally, I prefer the looks,performance, and safety to the blade, of a hand dressed,refined cutting edge.

 

[pormogo]

Murray carters stuff is all really awesome. I have actually considered sending out a khuk to him to have him re profile it. I may still do it but I would ideally like to get do a custom sheath for my actual use knife before I mess around with anything like that.

I've normally sharpened my Khukuris with a Lansky Puck. I feel like using a traditional Japanese water stone on a khukri might be sort of a pain. However I am also pretty horrid at sharpening.

 

[fearn]

One thing I'm learning this summer is how to hone, as opposed to sharpening. Yes, using the chakma, or a butcher's steel. The thing I'm learning is that knives tend to stay really sharp when you touch them up frequently, as opposed to using them until they get dinged and dull, and then resharpening them. Honing isn't sharpening, and it does seem to help.

 

[Howard Wallace]

One thing I'm learning this summer is how to hone, as opposed to sharpening. Yes, using the chakma, or a butcher's steel. The thing I'm learning is that knives tend to stay really sharp when you touch them up frequently, as opposed to using them until they get dinged and dull, and then resharpening them. Honing isn't sharpening, and it does seem to help.

This is the idea behind a traditional chakma. It helps to align the edge but does not really sharpen. Something like a ceramic stick or a diamond rod can both sharpen and align.