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Sharpening on a Stone (I read the FAQs)
- Thread starter GarageBoy
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 9, 1999
- Messages
- 4,729
When you say you rounded out the bevel, do you mean you changed the shape of the blade, or that your edge bevels aren't perfectly flat? If it's just that the bevel isn't flat, don't worry about it. As long as you are consistent within 1-3 deg, you'll still get a very sharp edge. Most especially if you finish with a strop. To fix the uneven bevels, first determine which side has a narrower bevel. Then, grind only on that side with your coarse stone until they are even. Keep in mind that whichever side you are grinding on will develop a wider bevel while the bevel on the opposite side will get narrower. This will develop a large burr on the opposite side, so use the fine stones on each side to polish the edge and grind off the burr.
With the tip, all I can say is practice, and use the marker trick to examine exactly where the stone is contacting the blade. A jeweler's loupe helps too, you may be able to find one at a hobby shop. If not, there are lots of places that sell them online. Also, a great substitute for a leather strop is to load the cardboard backing of a notebook with polishing compound. You can find the compound at a Lowes or Home Depot with the bench grinders. Get the finest compound they have, it will probably be a green stick that looks like a giant crayon. Rub it all over the back of a notebook until it's all green, then use it just like a leather strop. If you use that as your final step, you should be able to get an extremely sharp edge freehand. E-mail me if you need clarification on any of this, I'll be happy to help you out however I can. Good luck!
With the tip, all I can say is practice, and use the marker trick to examine exactly where the stone is contacting the blade. A jeweler's loupe helps too, you may be able to find one at a hobby shop. If not, there are lots of places that sell them online. Also, a great substitute for a leather strop is to load the cardboard backing of a notebook with polishing compound. You can find the compound at a Lowes or Home Depot with the bench grinders. Get the finest compound they have, it will probably be a green stick that looks like a giant crayon. Rub it all over the back of a notebook until it's all green, then use it just like a leather strop. If you use that as your final step, you should be able to get an extremely sharp edge freehand. E-mail me if you need clarification on any of this, I'll be happy to help you out however I can. Good luck!
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2003
- Messages
- 717
If for whatever reason, you want to sharpen on stones, vs using a jig, I think it's a great idea to get one of the jigs also. Either make a set of crock sticks form the leevalley.com kit, and make them to whatever angle you like. Or get a spiderco or galcho set of sticks, coarse is sorta what I have in mind. Or get one of the units that holds the knife in a vise, and aligns a stone on a wire (real easy to make your own also). With this set of training wheels you can get you bevels back to flat if your sharpening rounds them over. When they are flat do the next couple of sharpenings freehand, eventualy the stretch between needing the jigs will get pretty long.
If you just want to sharpen a knife, get one of the jigs right off the bat.
When sharpening a knife with a flat bevel, put the knife on the stone, and roll it towards the edge. Just as the bevel flatens, a little skirt of oil/water will emerge rapidly, which is a good tipoff that you are lined up.
If you start with the knife tip off the stone and imagine the edge at the point has a section 90 degrees to the main part of the blade (extreme tanto). Then when you finaly got around to sharpening the tip, the main part of the blade would have lifted up to your bevel angle, gone from 0 degree flat, to say 22.5 degrees.
One way to visualize this it to put stone at the 22.5 degree angle (or whatever you are using), just like half a crock stick. The starting position for the blade will be with the main part of the edge parallel to the floor. And with the centerline of the knife on a plane perpendicular to the floor. place the edge in this position on the inclined stone. Move the edge slowly down the stone, until you are working the tip. In this position, the main edge will no longer be parallel to the stone, but at 22.5 degrees (or at least moving in that direction, since yuo probably don't have a knife with the tip rise I mentioned). This 3D swish, so easy to see in this orientation , is just what you have to make happen when sharpening the edge with the stone flat.
If you just want to sharpen a knife, get one of the jigs right off the bat.
When sharpening a knife with a flat bevel, put the knife on the stone, and roll it towards the edge. Just as the bevel flatens, a little skirt of oil/water will emerge rapidly, which is a good tipoff that you are lined up.
If you start with the knife tip off the stone and imagine the edge at the point has a section 90 degrees to the main part of the blade (extreme tanto). Then when you finaly got around to sharpening the tip, the main part of the blade would have lifted up to your bevel angle, gone from 0 degree flat, to say 22.5 degrees.
One way to visualize this it to put stone at the 22.5 degree angle (or whatever you are using), just like half a crock stick. The starting position for the blade will be with the main part of the edge parallel to the floor. And with the centerline of the knife on a plane perpendicular to the floor. place the edge in this position on the inclined stone. Move the edge slowly down the stone, until you are working the tip. In this position, the main edge will no longer be parallel to the stone, but at 22.5 degrees (or at least moving in that direction, since yuo probably don't have a knife with the tip rise I mentioned). This 3D swish, so easy to see in this orientation , is just what you have to make happen when sharpening the edge with the stone flat.
When sharpening a knife with a flat bevel, put the knife on the stone, and roll it towards the edge. Just as the bevel flatens, a little skirt of oil/water will emerge rapidly, which is a good tipoff that you are lined up.
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What do you mean, roll it toward its edge? (Rotate the knife so the edge contacts the stone?)
What you are saying is that the blade will not be level to the stone when I am working on the tip? Thanks, I can sort of visualize this.
__________________________________________________________________
What do you mean, roll it toward its edge? (Rotate the knife so the edge contacts the stone?)
What you are saying is that the blade will not be level to the stone when I am working on the tip? Thanks, I can sort of visualize this.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2003
- Messages
- 717
>What do you mean, roll it toward its edge? (Rotate the knife so the edge contacts the stone?)
Can you visualize a chisel bevel (I guess not everyone has these)? To acquire the bevel (get it flat and in the right position for sharpening) You want to put it on the stone so the heel contacts first. As you lift the handle up until the bevel lays flat on the stone, you will push the lube under the bevel out of the way. As you move the handle through the last degree or so of rotation, lube has to travel quite a distance from the heel to escape the falling bevel, this last little bit of lube comes out with noticeable speed. It isn't anything dramatic, but it's what I look for when setting the bevel angle to the stone. Not as obvious if you just have a tiny knife bevel. Also, if the bevel is rounded, not flat, then all that happens is it's contact point moves along, no squirt. Imagine a ball rolling through a puddle, vs. dropping a box in it. I'm not saying the rounded edge is bad, just more difficult to pick up on the stone. When is it just right? And learners tend to find it by looking for minor edge drag (forcing the edge ever so slightly into the abrasive), with the result the rounded bevel gets steeper and steeper.
>What you are saying is that the blade will not be level to the stone when I am working on the tip? Thanks, I can sort of visualize this.
I'm sure you can, it's obvious, and I wasn't trying to be condescending. Since you said you had some difficulty with the tip (could be any number of reasons) I thought I would concentrate on the path part of it. With sticks, the blade path is in one plane, but when the stone is flat, one has this constant angle adjustment happening. So from one to the other, you can develop a way of visualizing the proper path.
Can you visualize a chisel bevel (I guess not everyone has these)? To acquire the bevel (get it flat and in the right position for sharpening) You want to put it on the stone so the heel contacts first. As you lift the handle up until the bevel lays flat on the stone, you will push the lube under the bevel out of the way. As you move the handle through the last degree or so of rotation, lube has to travel quite a distance from the heel to escape the falling bevel, this last little bit of lube comes out with noticeable speed. It isn't anything dramatic, but it's what I look for when setting the bevel angle to the stone. Not as obvious if you just have a tiny knife bevel. Also, if the bevel is rounded, not flat, then all that happens is it's contact point moves along, no squirt. Imagine a ball rolling through a puddle, vs. dropping a box in it. I'm not saying the rounded edge is bad, just more difficult to pick up on the stone. When is it just right? And learners tend to find it by looking for minor edge drag (forcing the edge ever so slightly into the abrasive), with the result the rounded bevel gets steeper and steeper.
>What you are saying is that the blade will not be level to the stone when I am working on the tip? Thanks, I can sort of visualize this.
I'm sure you can, it's obvious, and I wasn't trying to be condescending. Since you said you had some difficulty with the tip (could be any number of reasons) I thought I would concentrate on the path part of it. With sticks, the blade path is in one plane, but when the stone is flat, one has this constant angle adjustment happening. So from one to the other, you can develop a way of visualizing the proper path.
Cliff Stamp
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- Oct 5, 1998
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- 17,562
You need to keep the edge of the blade perpendicular to the hone, this means rotating it as you push it along the stone. If you don't do this, you will flatten out the belly and pretty much ignore the tip just as you noted. However keeping the blade perpendicular is trivial as you can easily judge a 90 degree angle very well by eye.
However you may still have a problem as many knives have the edge angle grow significantly more obtuse through the tip. You have two choices here; the first is to reduce the angle, which can take awhile (just keep honing and eventually it will get sharp), and the second is to keep the angle more obtuse (which is generally not necessary) and rotate the blade up as you go towards the tip - this can be difficult to do freehand.
In general freehanding the right angle is very difficult, you are much better off using some kind of jig or crock stick set up to remove this element of frustration.
-Cliff
However you may still have a problem as many knives have the edge angle grow significantly more obtuse through the tip. You have two choices here; the first is to reduce the angle, which can take awhile (just keep honing and eventually it will get sharp), and the second is to keep the angle more obtuse (which is generally not necessary) and rotate the blade up as you go towards the tip - this can be difficult to do freehand.
In general freehanding the right angle is very difficult, you are much better off using some kind of jig or crock stick set up to remove this element of frustration.
-Cliff
I suggest using the magic marker trick often, and check the edge with a magnifyer often.
See how you are forming the bevels (I know you said you round them off, keep checking), see if you are getting an even edge all along the blade, see if at some places you are making the bevel wider or narrower.
Make sure you uderstand what it means to maintain the angle, think of the blade being in a plane and as you get to the belly you have to rotate it so that it is against the stone but the blade stays in the plane.
Or, as I have mentioned before, using an inclined plane to lay the stone to keep it at the correct angle an maintaining the blade horizontal as you draw it across should help a lot.
See how you are forming the bevels (I know you said you round them off, keep checking), see if you are getting an even edge all along the blade, see if at some places you are making the bevel wider or narrower.
Make sure you uderstand what it means to maintain the angle, think of the blade being in a plane and as you get to the belly you have to rotate it so that it is against the stone but the blade stays in the plane.
Or, as I have mentioned before, using an inclined plane to lay the stone to keep it at the correct angle an maintaining the blade horizontal as you draw it across should help a lot.
The best way to explain it that I know of is for you to hold 2 pens or pencils next to each other.Now move the top of the left one away from the right one a little, while still touching them at the bottom That's about 5 degrees. A PROTRACTOR is the tool you need to see how angles work, but the more you move , the more degrees you get. If you sharpen at a 5 degree angle on the left side of the blade, that will be called a 10 degree INCLUDED or TOTAL angle, if you sharpen the right side at 5 degrees also. The ZERO degrees angle is the centerline of your knife blade running from the tip to the handle, spine of blade to edge.
The reason that you are reading to put an initial bevel of 20 degrees , then 25 degrees, is that the 20 degree angle is called a BACK BEVEL. It is not the edge, but prepares the knife for the final edge at 25 degrees. That is not a very good edge though. I would recommend using a 30 degree back bevel followed by a 40 degree final edge. That's TOTAL,or INCLUDED angle. The reason for this is that it gives a stronger longer lasting edge than just a 30 degree bevel , which will not last long on most knives. The final 40 degree edge is just a MICRO-BEVEL that you put on to remove the BURR once you've created the 30 degree back bevel down to the burr. This micro-bevel is done very lightly with fine or ultra fine stones.
Remember, the edge of a knife is microscopic. A seemingly small change in angle when you hone the knife will change the angle you are honing at a LOT. Freehand sharpening is not something you learn overnight. Don't give up, be patient. If you get frustrated, stop. Try again when you have time. Eventually you will develop the "muscle memory" that lets you sharpen by "feel". Go slow at first, speed will come by itself. Every stroke should be a masterpiece. Exactly on target. Practice on knives that are'nt valuable at first. Use a strong magnifying glass & magic marker to see how you're doing , & don't give up. We can only point you in the right direction, you'll have to keep trying untill you develop the "feel" for it. It's worth the effort. Let us know how you are doing.
The reason that you are reading to put an initial bevel of 20 degrees , then 25 degrees, is that the 20 degree angle is called a BACK BEVEL. It is not the edge, but prepares the knife for the final edge at 25 degrees. That is not a very good edge though. I would recommend using a 30 degree back bevel followed by a 40 degree final edge. That's TOTAL,or INCLUDED angle. The reason for this is that it gives a stronger longer lasting edge than just a 30 degree bevel , which will not last long on most knives. The final 40 degree edge is just a MICRO-BEVEL that you put on to remove the BURR once you've created the 30 degree back bevel down to the burr. This micro-bevel is done very lightly with fine or ultra fine stones.
Remember, the edge of a knife is microscopic. A seemingly small change in angle when you hone the knife will change the angle you are honing at a LOT. Freehand sharpening is not something you learn overnight. Don't give up, be patient. If you get frustrated, stop. Try again when you have time. Eventually you will develop the "muscle memory" that lets you sharpen by "feel". Go slow at first, speed will come by itself. Every stroke should be a masterpiece. Exactly on target. Practice on knives that are'nt valuable at first. Use a strong magnifying glass & magic marker to see how you're doing , & don't give up. We can only point you in the right direction, you'll have to keep trying untill you develop the "feel" for it. It's worth the effort. Let us know how you are doing.
If you lay your blade flat on the stone, that's 0 degrees. Tilt the knife up & that creates the edge at the desired angle, typically about 15 degrees. This is 1/2 the total or included angle. Flip the knife over & tilt knife up on that side, sharpen & you create the other half of the included/total angle, 15 degrees. This now is a total/included angle of 30 degrees.
Yes, the "microbevel" IS a little steeper than the "backbevel", but it is VERY small. It's what gives an edge a high resistance to rolling & deforming. It's the final step when honing, AFTER you've created a "burr" on the "backbevel".
Keep reading these replies & the faqs & keep at it. You'll get it , it's just a matter of practice..
Yes, the "microbevel" IS a little steeper than the "backbevel", but it is VERY small. It's what gives an edge a high resistance to rolling & deforming. It's the final step when honing, AFTER you've created a "burr" on the "backbevel".
Keep reading these replies & the faqs & keep at it. You'll get it , it's just a matter of practice..
