Sharpening my knifes. Steel types

D

Dkenz

Joined
May 20, 2013
Messages
80
First I wanna say thanks to everyone here who has helped me pick out some awesome knives. My wife would pry wanna do the opposite :) And forgive me if this post should be somewhere else, I didn't see a section. I know sharpening has been covered 100s if not thousands of times on the net and to be honest I've pry read most of em. I've got down how I wanna sharpen my knives I think. But I'm pretty unfamiliar with the steels. In the past I've collected allot of funky looking fantasy knives from movies and such. Just recently getting into knives that are ment to use so I'm clueless on steel other than what I've read.

I've got a basic understanding on the more popular types of steel like s30v, s90v, vg10.. Etc etc. Most popular. Recently got an elmax blade.. Almost bought a cts-xhp recently. Current my steels are s30v,elmax,vg10. Just wondering if there is a difference on sharpening these steels? I know a very small angle on harder steels may chip. Then maybe include a micro bevel? I donno where elmax falls.. I've heard it was a "super steel". But then some say s30v is. Speaking of which anyone know what angle zt sharpens there kives (0560 in piticular)?

My EDC blades currently are just 0560, Paramilitary 2, and have a Dragonfly 2 in the mail. Figure the dragon fly a little more people friendly. But anyways I bought a Sharpmaker with UF stones. (Coming with dragonfly) almost got a edge pro apex. But honestly I think the SM will be fine.. I don't need my knifes scary sharp. Tought about a strop too.. But again pry don't need it. I'm wondering should I sharpen my steels the same? Micro bevel.. No micro bevel? Should I have got a better sharpener? Maybe for different steels.. I'm a total noob on sharpening.

I did have a crappy s&w folder in the past and bought a lansky system at the time and tried to use it with little results. I think I didn't know what I was doing... Not patient enough.. Plus crappy Steel was the reason. But good Steels.. Good sharpener (for the price) and now that I have knives worth over 200+ plus I'm about 10years older now. I really wanna take care of my knives the way they were lent to be.
 
First I wanna say thanks to everyone here who has helped me pick out some awesome knives. My wife would pry wanna do the opposite :) And forgive me if this post should be somewhere else, I didn't see a section. I know sharpening has been covered 100s if not thousands of times on the net and to be honest I've pry read most of em. I've got down how I wanna sharpen my knives I think. But I'm pretty unfamiliar with the steels. In the past I've collected allot of funky looking fantasy knives from movies and such. Just recently getting into knives that are ment to use so I'm clueless on steel other than what I've read.

I've got a basic understanding on the more popular types of steel like s30v, s90v, vg10.. Etc etc. Most popular. Recently got an elmax blade.. Almost bought a cts-xhp recently. Current my steels are s30v,elmax,vg10. Just wondering if there is a difference on sharpening these steels? I know a very small angle on harder steels may chip. Then maybe include a micro bevel? I donno where elmax falls.. I've heard it was a "super steel". But then some say s30v is. Speaking of which anyone know what angle zt sharpens there kives (0560 in piticular)?

My EDC blades currently are just 0560, Paramilitary 2, and have a Dragonfly 2 in the mail. Figure the dragon fly a little more people friendly. But anyways I bought a Sharpmaker with UF stones. (Coming with dragonfly) almost got a edge pro apex. But honestly I think the SM will be fine.. I don't need my knifes scary sharp. Tought about a strop too.. But again pry don't need it. I'm wondering should I sharpen my steels the same? Micro bevel.. No micro bevel? Should I have got a better sharpener? Maybe for different steels.. I'm a total noob on sharpening.

I did have a crappy s&w folder in the past and bought a lansky system at the time and tried to use it with little results. I think I didn't know what I was doing... Not patient enough.. Plus crappy Steel was the reason. But good Steels.. Good sharpener (for the price) and now that I have knives worth over 200+ plus I'm about 10years older now. I really wanna take care of my knives the way they were ment to be. There just general purpose knives.. Cut tape, cardboard, zip ties.. And don't get used often.. Maybe half dozen times a week. Tho I'm sure they would be used heavily on occasion

Any thoughts or suggestions on my topic, my ZT has lost its hair cutting ability but still very sharp..my PM2 came in the mail so I put the ZT at rest for a bit. Plus my dragonfly is coming. There all gonna need sharpening soon. Just wanna know the best affordable way of going about it.

Thanks!
 
The SM does fine once the blade is profiled to suit. The same technique will work on all steels, harder steels simply take longer.

When I used a SM, I sharpened everything to 15 per side. If the blade chipped or complained, I touched it up at 20. It is a good practical solution to find out what suits your knife. The initial sharpening to 15 per sid can take a while, though.
 
If you've "just lost the hair cutting edge but it's still sharp" there's no reason to sharpen it now while t
you don't know what your doing (no offense), just touch it up with a strop you make out of a piece of scrap leather and a paint stir-stick. You can't mess it up on the strop like you can on stones (the sharpmaker is a stone). Get some of your cheaper knives out to learn how to sharpen on, you WILL screw up before you get it right.
 
Read up on how to properly use the Lansky sharpener if you still have it and practice on that S&W or whatever cheap knives you have that you don't care about. I use the DMT Aligner and I picked up a $4 Victorinox paring knife to practice on. You are going to screw up a lot when you first start learning to sharpen so do it on something cheap. And when your done, try it again on that knife. Get in a lot of practice that is the major thing in sharpening you need practice. This goes for the sharpmaker as well.

Just know that you will more than likely need to reprofile your knives to sharpen them properly on the lansky as it's very doubtful that it's at one of those exact angles. And telling you what angle a knife from a company should be is a bit pointless in my opinion as they don't hit those angles perfectly and it's generally more of guideline that they aim for, and can vary a bit depending on the company.

Honestly I would use that lansky to reprofile your blades and get them to the angles that the sharpmaker uses and than just use the sharpmaker to touch up the knives. But for now if it's sharp leave it alone, if it's dull go for it.

(And I have a S&W I used to practice on initially, I reprofiled it and it's sharp enough to shave your arm, and I did this with this knife before I could do it with any other. I retired it from it's practice knife duties because dealing with a recurve blade was a pain.)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top