Sharpening...how high do you rank motor memory...?

cchu518

cchu518

Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Messages
8,331
I have started amassing a very small arsenal or sharpening equipment from arkansas stones, crock sticks, dmt, and silcor. stones.

I can get edges as sharp and as polished as the particular grit stone that im finishing with will allow. But no matter what happens i always feel like im flying in the dark.

I try to test and use different techniques to sharpen knices following the detail greatly. More often than not i end up failing and the knife doesnt get sharp. I do this and get frustrated. Then at the end of each miserable attempt....i just let go after yelling out a few cuss words...

Then its like a switch turns on and i let instinct and muscle mitor memory kick in...all of a sudden i can feel the knifes edge under the light pressure if my swipes and where the edge needs work. A little time passes some more and there it is...a very nicely sharpened edge.

I only wish that i could erase everything that goes on in my mind that keeps me from getting to my end goal of a very nicely sharpened edge quicker. I think thats why im just still a novice at sharpening.
 
Muscle memory is HUGE.

The things that my hands have 'learned', seemingly independent of my brain, still surprise me at times. I'm sure it came about sheerly by repetition. I've frequently struggled with a given method or tool at times, to the point of just putting it away for weeks or months. Then, out of the blue, upon just randomly picking it up again at some later time, it just seems to 'work' all of a sudden.

I'm pretty sure this is why I'm always fiddling with a stone or strop, blade in hand, while I'm watching TV or just thinking about something completely unrelated, it doesn't matter. Just the constant handling and repetition seems enough to keep me tuned up, whether my brain thinks I'm learning anything or not.

So, I've gotten a little better at reminding myself to 'Never mind my mind'. It seems my hands have had my back longer than I was aware, as if saying "it's OK, buddy, I'll take care of it..." :)


David
 
It's big but I don't think it's huge. It takes about a year when learning a new technique when doing it once a week. Less if you do it more per week. Still, I find getting in a quite room (no distractions)when sharpening helps a lot too. Just listening to the sound the steel makes when grinding at the proper angle on the stone. Eye site, watching the movement and using a thumb gap. All these items really brought the package together for me. Giving me multiple feedback when connecting the dots. DM
 
Why I offer to sharpen kitchen knives for free at restaurants. It helped greatly.
 
Muscle memory is key. And i tend to agree with OwE and how he goes about these things. Nothing against David, just different strokes. (pun intended) What's the most coarse stone you have? How sharp can you get a knife with it? What can you get it to basically. Cutting newsprint, loose leaf, shaving. Those kinds of things. How do you test to know if you are done on a given stone and move to the next? While i agree with OwE, there are things you can systematically check to make sure yo are on the right path.
 
I too sharpen Meat Cutters knives for free at meat markets. Using Norton's IB-8 stone, a coarse--fine India. These knives are of lower hardness and work up quickly on the coarse side. Yes, agreed you want it to be able to cleanly slice newspaper coming off the coarse. Then on to the fine and work the burr off. Plus, wipe the slurry off with paper and strop on this or card board. It should then really cut paper. Thus, leaving a good edge. DM
 
The reason i was asking those questions was to get an understanding of the OP's process. Seeing what he/she has down so far. Making sure it's not just the lather, rinse, repeat process of counting strokes that is being taught on youtube.
 
David Martin said:
I find getting in a quite room (no distractions)when sharpening helps a lot too. Just listening to the sound the steel makes when grinding at the proper angle on the stone. Eye site, watching the movement and using a thumb gap. All these items really brought the package together for me.
Click to expand...

I think muscle memory plays a big part in learning how to hold an angle, form a burr and refine it off without screwing up your work, but I feel like learning to read feedback is what will take you to the next level. You need muscle memory to reprofile a knife free hand and get good results, but you can make most knives insanely sharp just by responding to feedback and holding the angles the knife wants you to.
 
When I first started I couldn't get a decent edge to save my life. Didn't know what I was doing wrong, now I don't do it that much differently aside from pressure I guess. Yet now my edges are just poor not abysmal.

It seems that it came down to a whole bunch of practice.
 
I went to nice stones before learning how to sharpen and was always disappointed.

I went primitive for a while, using everything I could find to put an edge on blades. Polished concrete floors, ceramic mugs, belts, etc. Once i could get good edges doing that... Edges on good stones became much easier to get.
 
fervens said:
Muscle memory is key. And i tend to agree with OwE and how he goes about these things. Nothing against David, just different strokes. (pun intended) What's the most coarse stone you have? How sharp can you get a knife with it? What can you get it to basically. Cutting newsprint, loose leaf, shaving. Those kinds of things. How do you test to know if you are done on a given stone and move to the next? While i agree with OwE, there are things you can systematically check to make sure yo are on the right path.
Click to expand...

Part of what I meant to imply in my post was that all the aspects of motion, held angle, feeling for flush contact and adjusting to feedback is what makes up the 'automatic' nature in the hands, and is all-inclusive in what I think of as 'muscle memory'. Even pausing periodically to feel the edge for burrs & such is a part of that; I tend to do that habitually, rather than consciously reminding myself to do it. Test-cutting of paper & such is a given, as one works. This is why I characterize muscle memory as 'huge', because once the hands get there, it makes the whole process so much easier.


David
 
Last edited:
I tend to think of the sensations of accurate freehand sharpening more of a familiar feel, combined with a level of concentration that is both acute and semi-detached, firm yet relaxed, and can be quite meditative under the right circumstances. While I believe muscle memory from repetition is involved, I think there is a "Goldilocks Level" of balance bewteen material, focus, intent, and sensory awareness that becomes a learned process of both mind and muscle. The hand feels the angle and sweep, and the mind knows it is correct (or not, and corrects). For me, both the abrasion sound pitch and felt vibration resistance give important feedback also. I'd wager the ergo/kinetic science folks could work up factors for all this stuff and find each person's levels different.
 
I'm not sure I rank it that highly anymore, but is very difficult for me to tell what role it plays now. Is possible it sometimes hampers one's results. IMHO, tactile feedback is numero uno for holding angle control. A current thread touches on this:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1158635-Tips-for-keeping-angle-steady

I have found myself working a lot of different tools at different heights, angles, different blade shapes, some with rather extreme patterns (Panga machete for example) where muscle memory just can't factor in well. That said, since breaking the edge into overlapping sections I find my mechanics have a very similar/consistent feel no matter what tool I'm working on and at what height, or how my hands are arranged to grip the workpiece. A lot of this might just be that I have an overall strategy or plan every time I sharpen something, so my thinking is very clear when I approach a job.

Have made videos recently sharpening a plane blade, hatchet, machete, all using very different grips, angles, and arrangements of grinding surface to tool. Some of the continuity can be attributed to the Washboard, but it holds even when working on a stone, and in fact most of the methods I show on video and discuss in the manual were adopted from stone to WB, not the other way around - the WB just makes it easier.

I do not believe there is any more accurate corrective input one can rely on for freehand sharpening than tactile feedback. I do a far amount of tool sharpening at my bench at work, while the machines are running. There is zero audible feedback available, so have come to rely on felt feedback and my results have become rock steady in the last few years. Once you get a solid feel for the "feel", it doesn't matter what abrasive methods you use (freehand), they all share common attributes that do not change from one to the next. As these get tied in to your motor control loop a lot of the X factor disappears.

Martin
 
HH, that was good in bringing up the hatchet sharpening exercise. Since the handles on these are so different from a knife and off setting weight of the blade that muscle memory is negated. Guys who depend , mostly on this would have a difficult time sharpening one. I can sharpen to a good edge in a noisy room but I'd rather do it in a quite room. I'm going to do some using ear plugs and see how the edges turn out. DM
 
Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts. I believe that it is helping me greatly synthesize my own trial and error with sharpening. For myself I believe there is a 100% need for muscle memory to lock in the proper angles especially when having to reprofile an edge using free hand.

I've tried all different styles of sharpening from the various videos that people have linked to on youtube and I can get most any blade that I have in my home sharp now. It's the last final moments though where the muscle memory needs to shut off and I have to turn on a different part of my sense to allow the tactile feel of the edge and on the stone tell me if it is a clean edge or not. It is definitely like a dance and almost jedi yodaish in its motion. Do or don't do there is not in between. Sometimes I try to rely on the mechanical motion of getting a blade sharp and it just doesn't work out. There is at the end a fine tuning that needs to be done on the fly for certain. Going to keep on practicing at it though, focusing at the same time not focusing at the task at hand.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top