sharpening with a whet stone

[rdsaylr]

I currently only have a whet stone (or a few whet stones) that I use to sharpen my knives- monstly folders. It came with a "guide" of 23°.....is this the angle I need to sharpen my Buck Cadet 303? Any help on knife sharpening would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Jeff Clark]

No...
Throw away the guide. Color the edge with a marker so you can see what you are doing. Sharpen at 15-degrees until you remove marking at the edge on both sides. Sharpen lightly at a little under 20 degrees. The next couple times you sharpen use the same angle. Every third or fourth time go back and thin the edge again at 15-degrees.

Sticking with a 23-degree sharpening angle all the time will give you significantly reduced cutting efficiency. I would only use 23 degrees if you cut copper wire a lot.

 

[Jeff Clark]

PS. See the sharpening faq:

http://www.bladeforums.com/features/faqsharp.shtml

 

[Elwin]

I have been considering going back to the 22-23 degree angle recently, after having used one of 17-20 for about 2 years. I used a hand whetstone for years, then switched to a sharpmaker 204. This required re-beveling my knives to fit the preset angles. This provides a razor sharp blade, but reprofiling takes a lot of time and removes a lot of metal from the blade. Also, I dont remember a lot of difference in difficulty cutting things. This may require further investigation. I'll let you know what I find.