Sharpening issues

L

luisdent

Joined
May 29, 2012
Messages
57
I'm having problems getting my knives sharp using dry stones. I have a crkt ripple 2 with acuto+ steel and a gerber bear grylls compact scout knife which i assume is 440 stainless.

They are both easy to get feeling rough when i rub my thumb on them. I'm not sure if that is a burr or me just mangling the steel. Either way, no amount of sharpening gets them cutting hair off my arm or slicing cleanly through paper.

I'm using the two stone kit from razor edge systems, which a well known knife/tool guy said should easily be capable of that sharpness with a pocket knife.

I start with the coarse stone and have tried moving the knife like I'm slicing off a layer of the stone until the blade feels like it has a burr. Then i switch sides till a burr forms again on the other side. Then i move to the fine stone and repeat the process. Finally, slowly lowering the number of slices, alternating each side until i do one slice per side a few times. i've tried slicing forward, rotating the blade, back and forth motions, each time using that method the entire time. I've marked the blade with a sharpie and worn it down seeing that i am removing the sharpie well. But no matter what i do I can't seem to get it sharp.

I have briefly had it shave hair one time a few strokes but it dulled almost immediately, so i assume i shaved with a burr and the burr was bent back. But i can't easily get that each time. Not sure. I used a blade guide that came with the set also, but similar results.

I've tried different angles, and i really do believe I'm pretty consistent. But am i doing something wrong? Pushing too hard? Not hard enough? I've watched countless videos and read articles and i have no idea what I'm missing. I can only guess my angle is wrong or inconsistent, but i have no idea how to know or fix it. If an attached guide isn't working how can i get more consistent than that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can probablt post a video of my sharpening attempt...
 
The video would help us see what is going on. Personally I suspect unseen gremlins.
Sounds like you have a really good handle on the basics.
Once you get the bur with the fine stone keep going lighter and lighter until you are hardly putting any pressure down against the stone.

Maybe the bur you are getting at first is just too large. Try to get the smallest bur on the rough stone possible.
Another way to sharpen is once you get the bur start going back and forth like you are stabbing and sometimes with stainless you can get the burr to come off on the stone that way. Then a few strokes as you originally were doing, just on the fine stone, very lightly, to finish the edge. This isn't the best technique for edge strength but could get you some results that pleas you and then aim to just go down the stones as you originally were in the future.

I know . . . it can be frustrating.
 
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Another thought :
Once you get the bur take shorter strokes per side rather than use the whole length of the stone . . . not sure you are using the full length of the stone but you see what I mean.

On the fine stone once you get very close to finishing up use very short strokes and very light. One stroke per side.
 
Have you tried stropping? It can make a huge difference on some blade. Just tonight I sharpened my s30v pm2 on my standard lansky and couldn't get the burr off to save my life. Wouldn't cut phone book paper or shave hair. Spent about 5 minutes on my leather belt, first with moderate pressure and worked my way to light pressure (just weight of the blade pretty much) and it's now crazy sharp, push cutting phone book paper.

My name is George, and I approve this message.
 
Wowbagger said:
Another thought :
Once you get the bur take shorter strokes per side rather than use the whole length of the stone . . . not sure you are using the full length of the stone but you see what I mean.

On the fine stone once you get very close to finishing up use very short strokes and very light. One stroke per side.
Click to expand...

I think that is very good advice. We often say that the last strokes should be very light, alternating. But doing very light, very short strokes that eliminate the burr but are so short that no new burr is being formed is a solid way.
 
Here we go so far... Am i doing anything blatantly wrong? It's tough to photo a blade with an phone...
Video in folder
http://www.salvasean.com/other/blade/
Photos
IMG_8971.JPG

IMG_8972.JPG
 
Hi,
luisdent said:
Here we go so far... Am i doing anything blatantly wrong? It's tough to photo a blade with an phone...
Video in folder
http://www.salvasean.com/other/blade/
Photos
http://www.salvasean.com/other/blade/IMG_8971.JPG
http://www.salvasean.com/other/blade/IMG_8972.JPG
Click to expand...
Hi,
I dont see a burr in those pictures (i didnt watch video),
Can you slice newspaper with that edge?
What happens if you do 1-2 alternating edge leading passes at double the sharpening angle,
like 40 degrees per side?
Does the slicing improve?
Then do 5 alternating edge leading passes per side at the sharpening angle ,
and try slicing again, does it improve (noise is less)?
 
It's a little hard to tell what's going on, but I have some guesses, based on the video.

When you switch sides to sharpen with the blade edge towards you, your stokes seem less consistent. They seem to be at a higher angle. You seem to be taking a much shorter stroke. You also seem to miss parts of the blade (mainly the heel) on these. Finally, you're using two hands for the away stroke, but only one hand on the towards you stroke.

Because the video can only show so much in 40 seconds, I'm not sure this is the problem. As mentioned before, you might not be deburring completely or correctly. The poster above has some good suggestions and trying to improve your deburring. The double angle technique is very helpful.

When you form a burr, do you feel it along the entire length of the blade? Then, when you switch sides, do you form a burr on the opposite side, full length? The full length part is very important.

Brian.
 
My two cents:

If you're going to use one hand, hold the stone with the other and try to feel for the contact points.

Recommendation - work one side only at first, choose the side with the thinner cutting bevel. Grind that until you have a full length burr. Flip and repeat. Flip back, elevate the spine a few degrees and lightly grind of the burr - you should feel and hear a difference from working the bevel, a scratchy sensation/sound. Check every pass or two, it might flip back over. Inspect for the burr and continue grinding at higher angle till its gone or very nearly so. Make a few passes at the original angle.

Pretty much what bucketstove recommended above. Also, your stone might be plugged or becoming plugged. Give it a good dunk in some water or use some mineral oil on it to prevent the removed steel and stone dust from harming the stone surface.

Last tip - do not learn to sharpen or debug your sharpening on knives you care about. Get some kitchen knives or similar and learn on them.
 
From your pictures, (especially the top one), it doesn't look like you made it all the way to the edge. Your testing indicates you raised a burr on one side... but maybe not both? You might have flipped a raised burr over, even though you didn't properly apex the edge.

Do you by chance have the guide that comes with the Razor Edge System? If so, consider using it... its great for helping to develop a proper technique.
 
I did notice not making contacton the return motion with one hand. I have tried many different hand positions, and primarily that was because i was holding my phone between my knees. Haha. But i think for sure i feel less confident in my "towards" me accuracy. However, i can say it feels sharp to the touch. And it is cutting a lot better today than it has been. But I'm starting to think maybe what i think is a 25 degree angle is actually me making a 15 degree or something? So I'm not really apexing the edge?

Not sure, but when i have time to setup a tripod i can do a better full sharpening video if that would help? I've been pressed for time the past few days.
 
And i will try those suggestions. I haven't botched my knife have i? It is my main "nice" knife that i like, but i also have a new mini griptilian arriving soon which I'm excited about, and I don't want to ever sharpen that until I'm good enough. Although, i dont want to ruin my ripple 2 either. But all my other current knives have full ir partial serrations.

Is the acuto+ steel possibly making my ripple 2 harder for me to sharpen?

Also, can dry stones be soaked/washed with water?
 
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Hard to say, but I suspect your sharpening motion induces a bit of rocking, which rounds off the edge sides, and will kill sharpness regardless of what they say about convexing...

Another cause of "roundness" may be that your stones are out of flat.

The way to avoid rocking is to use a more longitudinal stroking motion, more parallel to the edge, if still in a very slight diagonal.

Stroking lengthwise removes a lot of the tendency for a rocking motion.

I prefer to use slightly worn Extra-Coarse Dia-Sharp diamond hones for the main work, which are aggressive and stay flat. I then finish straight with Extra-Fine Dia-Sharp, as this actualy works well...

The Extra-Fine is great in that it is still aggressive, and still tends to eat a significant amount of metal, so it has very little tendency to create a burr/wire-edge, and it just refines the coarse striations, while also maintaining the flatness of the edge side.

The flatness of the edge sides is the key to performance. Rounded edges only perform similarly if they are much thinner than a comparable performance flat sided edge.

If that is not enough, the edge angle may be simply too open to perform.

Gaston
 
luisdent said:
I'm having problems getting my knives sharp using dry stones. I have a crkt ripple 2 with acuto+ steel and a gerber bear grylls compact scout knife which i assume is 440 stainless.

They are both easy to get feeling rough when i rub my thumb on them. I'm not sure if that is a burr or me just mangling the steel. Either way, no amount of sharpening gets them cutting hair off my arm or slicing cleanly through paper.

I'm using the two stone kit from razor edge systems, which a well known knife/tool guy said should easily be capable of that sharpness with a pocket knife.

I start with the coarse stone and have tried moving the knife like I'm slicing off a layer of the stone until the blade feels like it has a burr. Then i switch sides till a burr forms again on the other side. Then i move to the fine stone and repeat the process. Finally, slowly lowering the number of slices, alternating each side until i do one slice per side a few times. i've tried slicing forward, rotating the blade, back and forth motions, each time using that method the entire time. I've marked the blade with a sharpie and worn it down seeing that i am removing the sharpie well. But no matter what i do I can't seem to get it sharp.

I have briefly had it shave hair one time a few strokes but it dulled almost immediately, so i assume i shaved with a burr and the burr was bent back. But i can't easily get that each time. Not sure. I used a blade guide that came with the set also, but similar results.

I've tried different angles, and i really do believe I'm pretty consistent. But am i doing something wrong? Pushing too hard? Not hard enough? I've watched countless videos and read articles and i have no idea what I'm missing. I can only guess my angle is wrong or inconsistent, but i have no idea how to know or fix it. If an attached guide isn't working how can i get more consistent than that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can probablt post a video of my sharpening attempt...
Click to expand...

Make the burr, remove the burr that's all.

Just be certain you have a burr all the way from heel to tip

Do that for both sides

Then do alternating edge trailing strokes on the stone to weaken and reduce the burr. Then finish on leather.

Three common problems
1.not getting a complete burr.
2. Not completely removing the burr.
3. Rounding of the apex do to inconsistent angles. (Too high)

Here's a video of me sharpening, it might help to see it done.
Make a burr, remove a burr

The rest is just consistently, angles, grit selection and practice.
[YouTube]XyL_LcJ9fTQ[/YouTube]
 
DeadboxHero said:
Make the burr, remove the burr that's all.

Just be certain you have a burr all the way from heel to tip

Do that for both sides

Then do alternating edge trailing strokes on the stone to weaken and reduce the burr. Then finish on leather.

Three common problems
1.not getting a complete burr.
2. Not completely removing the burr.
3. Rounding of the apex do to inconsistent angles. (Too high)

Here's a video of me sharpening, it might help to see it done.
Make a burr, remove a burr

The rest is just consistently, angles, grit selection and practice.
[YouTube]XyL_LcJ9fTQ[/YouTube]
Click to expand...

Just curious about the approximate angles you are using in the video? It's probably lighting/camera angle but it looks like the right side blade angle is much greater than the left side? In other words, the angle when pulling the edge toward you. Again, probably just lighting and camera angle but was curious. I also see after you mention the back edge damage you're using a very steep angle as well. Assuming this is to really remove some steel around the damage.

This is simply curiosity, not questioning your technique. I'm still learning and trying to soak up as much as a I can. Thanks for the video.
 
I guess I posted a more complex video then I realized hahaha

The stone is at an angle to help swarf rinse of the stone to keep from loading and clogging since I'm going for speed. so my angles are relative to the stone , looks funny, but I'm still holding a ~17 dps

If you need to remove damage on a knife raise the angle and sharpen through it. Then drop the angle back to the original, it's the fastest way to remove all the little micro damages.

Otherwise it would take forever at 17dps or if I went to 90° and flattened the edge to remove damage that would be waayyyyy too much work.
 
DeadboxHero said:
I guess I posted a more complex video then I realized hahaha

The stone is at an angle to help swarf rinse of the stone to keep from loading and clogging since I'm going for speed. so my angles are relative to the stone , looks funny, but I'm still holding a ~17 dps

If you need to remove damage on a knife raise the angle and sharpen through it. Then drop the angle back to the original, it's the fastest way to remove all the little micro damages.

Otherwise it would take forever at 17dps or if I went to 90° and flattened the edge to remove damage that would be waayyyyy too much work.
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks for the clarification. That helps a lot.
 
Grip1.JPG

Grip2.JPG

My new love. Lol.

This is sharp out of the box. My wife doesn't even know knives and she saw me try shaving arm hair and said "wow i just saw a hair pop right of your arm" haha

I guess that's where they get the term hair popping sharp.

Examining this edge I'm starting to think my edge is too low. Like I'm doing 15 degrees or something.
 
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