Sharpening - Anyone else get frustrated?

I use a Speedy sharp carbide sharpener.makes short work of any sharpening job.3-5 strokes a side and your good.Mind you I have 150+ knives in my collection so I've had a lot of practice.As it was stated by jbrew2007 Practice is the key.If your not comfortable with trial and error with your good knives go out and buy some cheap pos and use that.I had a buck 110 knock-off that gets abused and then re sharpened using different stones and angles just to see how things work.
 
as far as my sharpening goes i have alway truelly sucked at it, to the point that i would give my father my knives to sharpen once i had dulled them. i went to a smith and then a lansky, but while searching on another forum while i was bored i found the edge pro. now while i will admit that it was expensive like to buy only the best tools i can afford and after a little research i bought a ep apex. now when i buy a new knife i sharpen it to much sharper than the factory edge. just my opinion and i know there are alot of other setups out there, but my 2 rc3s and my izula are much sharper than when i got them and i used to only dull blades.i hope you find what works for you.
matt
 
I started with a smith system that holds the blade in a clamp and has guides to retain a consistant angle. Got it at lowes home improvement for 30 bucks or so. It is quite easy to get a knife shaving sharp using this system as well as keep it that way with regular touch ups. While this system is good for general use it does not require much technique. They did help me understand the basic ideas about angles and the like. I will say that for a blade any longer than 6 inches or so the smith system gets a little tough to use safely. After all why carry a knife if its not sharp?
 
Don't let failure get you down. Keep at it.

I STILL have a knife I can't get sharp, mostly because of all the damage I did learning to sharpen in the first place. But I have managed to sharpen and even reprofile one of my knives with good results. Most of my knives are sharving sharp though most are also convex which is MUCH easier to learn to sharpen IHMO.
 
Sharpening knives is something that takes time and practice for sure. Growing up my parents owned a large flower shop and all the ladies used these specialty ss swiss army knives for cutting all day and you can take one guess who got to sharpen all those knives?! I had to learn through a lot of trial and error using not the best stones in the world either. I'm awfully thankful now for having learned that skill as a very young kid. Get yourself a good sharpening system and make life easy on yourself at first (Sharpmaker, Lansky), take your time, and practice. This is a skill that will diminish over time if you don't keep up on it. One big mistake I see people make is using WAY TOO MUCH pressure when sharpening, let the stone work for you not the other way around.
 
fattymcfatfatfatty said:
Hey guys,

So, first off, I'll just start off by saying I have little to no experience sharpening knives. I got my DMT Dualfold C/F sharpening stone, and I started practicing my sharpening on a old beater I have. After thinking that I had gotten some sort of edge on that blade (which apparently I didn't) I decided I'd try it out on my 6 that I recently got a small chip in.

I spent the better half of 2 hours trying to sharpen out that darn chip (mind you, its a verrrry small chip), and I got absolutely nowhere, I think the only thing I accomplished doing was making it duller :mad:. So I guess that I have no idea how to sharpen a knife at all. I was using the coarse side of the sharpener to try and put a new edge on it, and I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong :(.

/endrant

Anyway, I guess the whole point of this thread is to ask if anyone has any tippers for beginners trying to learn to sharpen... or if anyone else gets as frustrated as me while trying to sharpen.

Have a good day,
~fatty
Click to expand...

I get frustrated all the time trying to get that perfect edge. Most times I settle for a good edge. I am thinking about getting the edge pro system as I have read it is amazing.

I learn a lot from the bladeforums daily and try to use those techniques when I can.

Does take a lot of practice though, keep at and good luck!
 
Literature helped me. I am very hands on when I learn something, but someone pointed me at a book called "Sharpening Made Easy" By Steve Botorff. Lots of pics and good eloquation made this a must have for anyone that wants to sharpen metal, all metal. Check it out, and remember, have fun. Moose
 
I'm new to this sharpening business myself, teaching myself how to use japanese wet stones has proven very therapeutic and as mentioned very rewarding when you get it right.

Still practicing on the kitchen knives and a few of them are lovely and sharp :)
 
I find that sharpening my knives is actually quite therapeutic. It gives me quiet time to reflect on stuff. Something about running my extra fine Lansky over my blade, then inspecting the edge, and repeating the process. Zen kind of stuff if you ask me.
Plus, once you learn how to sharpen by hand you have learned a new skill. One that a great many people don't know how to do -- and even fewer know how to do well.

Keep at it and follow Don Rearic's advice, which is top notch.
 
There are many excellent suggestions in this thread. The most important thing is muscle memory (built by THOUSANDS of repetitions, yes thousands, for anything). Practice here is irreplaceable. I've heard you have to do a movement over a thousand times to BEGIN to develop muscle memory for it, that's a lot of sharpening.

I've used Sharpie on the edge to see how consistent i am, this can give you a lot of insight.Bright light and magnification are also important. The better you can see what you are doing, the more opportunities you have to make corrections/improvements in your technique.

I learned to freehand from my father when i was around 8ish. That gives me about 20 years of muscle memory to fall back on. I use a 2 sets of DMT Duosharp bench stones (8" EC/C + F/EF) and a spyderco UF (8"x3") ceramic stone, then a loaded leather strop. Yes, i do get hair____'ing edges, whatever your ____ test is.

I do not follow the "sharpen one side until you raise a burr" method, instead i prefer to pick an arbitrary number of strokes (between 6 and 20 inclusive), and i will alternate sides, keeping the number of strokes on each side even. I repeat this until i get down to the actual edge (you can rely on a burr here as in indicator if you like), then move to the next finer grit.

Pressure is a huge issue, less is more here, and you want to use progressively reducing pressure as you increase your grit (increase == higher grit == finer stone). I also tend to very lightly run my edge along a wooden block (the handle of my strop) every few flips to pull the burr off as i'm working.

Also, make sure you are using an appropriately sized stone. Trying to learn to sharpen a 6" fixed blade on a 4" hone is going to make your learning curve much steeper. I like 6" stones as a minimum, this is of course without a guide like the DMT (which i also own).

Don't let yourself get discouraged, putting a wicked edge on a dull knife freehand is a great feeling, but it takes a long time to get to that point. You will get close then dull the s*#&t out of your blade with a wrong stroke, or something else stupid, many times. If you keep with it though, you will get awesome results that you can always replicate without a fancy jig or special equipment. You can even freehand on concrete if SHTF.

Hope this helps a little.

-- Adam
 
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