Ruined my knife

Forget the frustration. The 14 is an awesome knife and it can take any hard use/abuse including learning how to sharpen. It's not an expensive knife but the steel is high quality and lends itself nicely to learning and gaining experience on sharpening technique.
Be patient and pay attention to what you are doing and how it affects the edge.
 
Post a video of yourself sharpening. Maybe you are doing it wrong and someone can correct you.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
This 'I ruined my knife' affliction is only temporary, so long as you're willing to just put it down and take a break for a bit.
David
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Best advice ever... sometimes you just have to swear at it put it away drink a few beers and come back to it in a fresh state of mind. It's not brain science or rocket surgery it's a learned skill that is thousands of years old. The worst thing you can do is peruse this sub forum and look at the mirror polished blades and think "How hard can that be?" Don't try to run a marathon before you can walk from the kitchen to the living room. Sharpening is supposed to be soothing and Zen like, not stressful and annoying, just keep after it you will learn it.
 
If you think you are removing too much metal, STOP using diamond stones! You should have just bought a Sharpmaker instead of more bling bling hones. It's damn near foolproof.

If the 14 is the only solitary knife you have to practice on, you could always go to a gas station close by and buy a $5 pos to practice on.
 
Great time to convex it. Way easier than sharpening a V edge and the materials are probably on your work bench already. Look it up on YouTube
 
AntDog said:
If you think you are removing too much metal, STOP using diamond stones! You should have just bought a Sharpmaker instead of more bling bling hones. It's damn near foolproof.

If the 14 is the only solitary knife you have to practice on, you could always go to a gas station close by and buy a $5 pos to practice on.
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^^^ glad someone agrees.

I searched for comparisons between the two and ran into an older BF thread. Give it a once over.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/589933-Sharpening-stone-vs-Diamond-sharpener

I use something like this myself
http://www.amazon.com/Whetstone-Cutlery-Two-Sided-Stone/dp/B0055B2RGO

I'm pretty novice also but this kind of stone is the only sharpening tool I've ever used; my parents use them on the kitchen cutlery all the time so I just grabbed one. The 750 DMT I have cuts as aggressively as the rough side of my generic.
 
Whoa whoa, Shop around a bit. I don't have that one specifically. Mine's some no name thing picked up in asian supermarkets. It's good enough for putting a new angle on a blade but it lacks a bit in refinement. I can get shaving sharp if I reaally take my time. Otherwise it's a rough shave, no paper push-cuts, no polished finish.
You can find good stones for cheap; Maybe someone here knows a decent one.
I'm looking at this one for my next purchase.
http://www.japaneseknifesharpeningstore.com/Suehiro-Rika-5000x-5k-sharpening-stone-p/suerika5k.htm

There's a few sites like this one that sells high reviewed stones.
http://www.japaneseknifesharpenings...htm?searching=Y&sort=1&cat=22&show=100&page=1
 
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n7titan said:
Whoa whoa, Shop around a bit. I don't have that one specifically. Mine's some no name thing picked up in asian supermarkets. You can find good stones for cheap. Maybe someone here knows a decent one.
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Haha No, actually i've been eyeballing that same stone in your link for a few weeks, I've also been thinking about getting a 1000 grit King stone as i've heard alot of good about them.
 
If you send it to a professional sharpener, you can then study what they did. I tried this once, and learned that the person used more than one bevel, to achieve a fine edge. Now I can add that knowledge to my own knife sharpening strategy.
 
stonesell said:
If you send it to a professional sharpener, you can then study what they did. I tried this once, and learned that the person used more than one bevel, to achieve a fine edge. Now I can add that knowledge to my own knife sharpening strategy.
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I second the professional approach.

Zieg
 
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Have you tried the sharpie trick to make sure you are removing material all along the blade edge?
 
Kind of a strange thread. The OP is in the army but people are suggesting that he send his knife to someone else to have it sharpened. What happens if he is on deployment and he dulls his knife? Who will sharpen it then?

I've never been in the military, but I know that soldiers are required to be able to do a lot of things themselves, like field-strip, clean, and re-assemble their rifles. My understanding is that self-sufficiency is a big part of being a soldier.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here. I just think the OP should stick with it until he gets it right. And I don't think that any fancy equipment is necessary to get a knife sharp (I sure don't have any). Soldiers have been using simple GI issued sharpening stones for a long time with effective results (I've used several myself).

Kershaws, if you don't have any family or friends who can instruct you in knife sharpening perhaps you can find someone in your unit/platoon/etc who can teach you. Clearly you have an interest in being able to sharpen your own knife, and props to you for that. No one is born with great knife-sharpening skills, like anything else, such skills have to be developed with time and practice. I'm sure that when you do eventually master knife-sharpening that you will be very glad you stuck with it. Good luck to you, and stay safe over there.
 
Hard H2O said:
Have you tried the sharpie trick to make sure you are removing material all along the blade edge?
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Yes i've done it many times and I am hitting all along the edge evenly, the entire bevel is even. That's what's confusing me
 
I just remembered that I have a Buck Omni Hunter, the blade has an even deeper belly than the BK14, yet I still maintain very sharp evenly across the entire edge, i'm stumped
 
Actual sharpening doesn't take much time and removes very little metal. The hardest part isn't actually sharpening, it's shaping the edge. Often the edge will be thick, uneven, or simply in need of metal removed.

This video shows the basic technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPGGo3W15HQ

If you're using hand tools, stones, ceramics, diamonds, silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper, etc. it might take a while to shape (thin down) the edge to where you reach the apex on both sides at the same (or close to the same) angle.

Most likely the BK14 you purchased wasn't ground evenly so the tip/belly portion of the blade is thicker or at a higher angle than the rear portion. That means you have to keep at it and remove more metal until you thin it down enough to where you are hitting the apex.

You can do this free hand, on a jig system, or you can simply send it off to someone to thin down the edge. Once you are able to reach the apex at, say, 15 degrees per side, maintenance is a breeze and will only take a few swipes at an angle higher than 15 dps to actually sharpen the knife.

I hope this makes sense. Even a "lowly" carbon steel can take a while to shape if you have to remove a good bit of metal.
 
When you get your new diamond stones use a soft touch, very soft.
Let the weight of the blade do the work.
They will cut more aggressive till you break them in also, this is normal.
If you feel like you wore your first stone out I am thinking you are using too much pressure, it is possible to tear the diamonds out of the substrate.
Go slow, light and use a sharpie and you will get it sharp.
Good luck with it.
 
I hope this video helps you get the concepts involved in sharpening a knife - especially one with belly. The technique is universal - whether you are using a belt grinder or a sharpening stone.

[video=youtube_share;JFhUXgYS0Os]http://youtu.be/JFhUXgYS0Os[/video]

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Ken
 
Return your stones, just invest into a ken onion worksharp.

It will save you a lot of time if you just can't get em' sharp. Eventually if you get good at it, you can take the guards off and freehand on it, them maybe you can step up to paperwheels if you're confident with high RPM tools.
 
Blues Bender said:
Return your stones, just invest into a ken onion worksharp.

It will save you a lot of time if you just can't get em' sharp. Eventually if you get good at it, you can take the guards off and freehand on it, them maybe you can step up to paperwheels if you're confident with high RPM tools.
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This can be a viable route if you are completely at lost with freehand sharpening. Also from your other photo I highly recommend NOT to only work on one part of the bevel. Doing so can create and uneven bevel that will be difficult to repair later down the road.
 
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