Sharpening assist

[akadave2]

I pretty much know how to sharpen a knife. Ive used Smith sticks for years and I now primarily use a Spyderco Sharpmaker. I have had a couple of oilstones ( that I cant seem to find), and I have a couple of strops. I still think Im missing something.

Sometimes I get a knife that is stubborn as hell and I cant get the edge I want with the equipment I have. My primary interest is getting my trad folders hair splitting sharp...all of them...all of the blades. Some are stubborn and Ive been known to take that knife to my local knife shop and a friend of mine runs it over the belt grinder a bit and gets me started. I dont want to do that anymore....so long question short, what equipment should I get to augment what I have to sharpend my knives to hair whittling edges? Also...should go to a 15 degree bevel or stay about 20 degree?

Thanks

Dave

 

[lutejones]

I'd recommend you to take a deep look on the maintenance forum, there is read for days there.
your question have been asked plenty of times.

When that happends to me (the stubborn blade), I take a diamond coarse stone and start from the begining, reprofiling to create the most uniform bevel I can, then you go up the grits to the finishing you want.

regards
Mateo

 

[Peregrin]

Moved to Maintenance...

 

[Jason B.]

For traditional knives I like to use a mix of diamond and waterstones. Typically I start with a Coarse DMT and follow with my 1k & 6k Arashiyama stones leaving one blade at the 1k grit and the others taken to 6k.

I find the nice and flat DMT hone to be easier to correct the often uneven bevels ground into the short blades. Unless they are queen brand with D2 tool steel traditional knives are usually not very hard so it shouldn't take a long time or need excessive polishing. Hair splitting is fun but not practical on a blade with lower hardness.

 

[bonzodog]

I only have traditional knives, the dmt aligner works well for me,I finish with diamond tape stuck on a home made blank.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Which steels are you wanting to sharpen, in your traditional knives?

For me personally, these are combinations that seem to work well:
420HC (Buck, Case 'Tru-Sharp' stainless, some Canal Street, some Schatt & Morgan) --> Medium or finer diamond hones to re-bevel, wet/dry sandpaper to refine edges, diamond/SiC/green compound to strop. Very light passes on the Sharpmaker's medium rods will also add some quick 'bite' to the edges.

1095 (older Schrade OT models, GEC, Moore Maker), Case CV --> Fine diamond hones to re-bevel, wet/dry sandpaper to refine & maintain edges, green compound and/or bare leather to strop.

D2 (Queen, some Canal Street by Queen) --> Diamond is a MUST for re-bevelling, and also will suit the steel well for maintenance. Touch-ups on the Sharpmaker can also make it sing. Stropping with diamond compound (I use 1 micron) works very well.

440A/440C (Camillus, older Camillus-made Bucks, Schrade Uncle Henry, older versions of Buck 110/112) --> My favorite edges with these steels were created with wet/dry sandpaper to convex the edges. GREAT slicing, and very easy maintenance by the same means. These steels also take an excellent polish with the sandpaper up through 2000+ grit, plus stropping with Simichrome/Flitz, or finer diamond compound.

Edited to add:
Regarding your question of bevel angle, my preference is ~ 15° per side; some of mine are a little below that. If you really want shaving/hair-whittling edges, that'll be tougher to do at a higher angle. A big part of the reason I prefer shallower angles is, the wider bevels make it much easier to maintain on a strop or sandpaper. That's worth a ton to me, in terms of making edges that are very simple to maintain. On the Sharpmaker in particular, a 15° (per side) bevel gives you the option of maintaining on either of it's settings (30° 'back bevel' or 40° secondary/micro bevel).