Sharpening along the edge rather than toward?

H

HoosierQ

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Feb 9, 2010
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Is pushing and pulling a blade across a stone in a motion parallel to the spine rather than perpendicular a viable method of sharpening? Please read on.

So my mom has a pretty nice ham slicer she bought I think at Goodwill. She paid about a buck. Not a full tang but a good handle, fit is good and very tight. I am sure the thing has never been sharpened and the edge was a mess...many deep nicks and what I would call gouges. Hollow ground. The blade on this is about 12" long and flexible.

I read, in the context of scandinavian grind sharpening about pushing and pulling the knive along the edge...moving the knive on the stone parallel to the spine rather than perpendicular. Well this worked great! I used a DMT X-Course Dia-Sharp and I was able to maintain really strict control over the bevel (didn't measure but it is acute). Raised one heck of a burr. Did both sides like that then moved down to Fine and did a little work there.

Then I switched over to the traditional method of making a slicing motion on the stone on both Fine and X-Fine. Finished up on a bench strop with green compound and then plain leather.

I am pretty sure I could shave with this thing.

Now I understand that kind of motion is going to be very hard on stones. But my diamond plates have a tool section that I won't use much and I think they held up fine. Clearly one would choose their stone carefully here...Japanese waterstones need not apply I should think.

Comment if you care to.

Thanks.
 
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It will work with any stone, even sandpaper! works even better if you slowly move down the stone as you work the edge :thumbup:
 
Well, coming from you Knifenut1013...I feel pretty good. This worked well because the edge is absolutely straight. Curved would be more of a challenge but I am keeping this method in my bag of tricks.
 
I would think it would weaken the edge over time, I would like my scratch pattern to be perpendicular to the edge. But, there are a LOT of pull through sharpeners that people like...
 
sodak said:
I would think it would weaken the edge over time, I would like my scratch pattern to be perpendicular to the edge. But, there are a LOT of pull through sharpeners that people like...
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Why? your just removing metal in a different direction.
 
When you sharpen a blade this way - which I've often done - you can sharpen a very long blade with a very small stone.
 
Shemp said:
When you sharpen a blade this way - which I've often done - you can sharpen a very long blade with a very small stone.
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This was going to be one of my remarks this morning, but while typing my reply I spotted a giant hobo spider crawing along my wall and had to kill it. My Kulgera got its 4th spider; might as well call it Spider Ace.

Anyway, the other thing I like about this stroke for myself personally is that I find it a lot easier to maintain a very light, consistent pressure. Along with maintaining an angle, maintaining pressure becomes very crucial in later parts of sharpening such as stropping, and that's usually where I use this.

However, I think it also works really well very burr removal. Again I'm just speaking from personal experience, but I think it also helps in holding the angle more consistently. So with more consistent pressure and angle-holding, it really helps to do the final touches in refinement.

One thing I've found is that if you add a slight edge-trailing stroke in the conventional stroke-direction then you can remove more material than you would just dragging it along its edge. Something that might be a little useful to remember when having to sharpen long blades on small surfaces. After all, I first realized you could make this kind of stroke while sharpening a machete.
 
knifenut1013 said:
Why? your just removing metal in a different direction.
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This is going to be hard to do without drawings, which I'm not good at. If you can picture a scratch pattern parallel to the edge, then I would be concerned with what would look like serrations if you looked at the edge with the tip pointed at your eye. These serrations could potentially cause stress risers longitudinally. I'm probably saying this wrong, but I would think that might be a problem.
 
sodak said:
This is going to be hard to do without drawings, which I'm not good at. If you can picture a scratch pattern parallel to the edge, then I would be concerned with what would look like serrations if you looked at the edge with the tip pointed at your eye. These serrations could potentially cause stress risers longitudinally. I'm probably saying this wrong, but I would think that might be a problem.
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I don't know about stress risers, unless you are talking about the potential for longitudinal scratches weakining the edge, but any fool can see that the serrations caused through sharpening would best be 90* to the edge.

I know I just read a scientific dissertation on this very subject recently, and this was proven to be fact.

If you are using a polishing stone, I can't see that it would matter, but that's a different ballgame.
 
A lot of straight razor shavers prefer the serrations to be at ~45°. Don't know if it cuts better or is smoother for them.
 
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