Sharpening your knives

A

andrew132

Joined
May 4, 2011
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Hi, im new to the forums and knives :) Im just wondering what do you all use to sharpen your knives? I have a few knives, that are old, and am clueless on how to sharpen them.

Thanks
 
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That is one heck of a question Andrew. There are going to be as many answers as there are people who respond. I would suggest that you go to the Maintenance, Tinkering, and Embellishment forum here and look around. There are literally thousands of posts over there that will address everything to basics to the fine points of advanced technique.

Basically, at least from my perspective, there are three very broad appproaches.

!. Freehand. This is the use of what some people call the whet stone. There are probably a thousand kinds of stones but in general there are oil stones, water stones, and diamond stones...natural and synthetic. The one thing they all have in common is that they are flat pieces of abrasive material on which you abrade metal off of the edge making it sharp.

2. The "gadgets". These are all jigs of various sorts. These are things that in one way or another hold either the knife or the stone at a fixed angle. EdgePro is a very good one. Also SharpMaker. There are probably a thousand of these too. The one kind you want to avoid are the pull throughs...those are terrible.

3. Rods or steels. These are either made of steel only, steel coated in diamonds, or ceramics. These are foot long rods that round and that one uses to sharpen by holding the blade at the proper angle and drawing the blade. Some are abrasive and some (the all steel ones) are not.

4. The power tools. There are some very specific knife sharpening tools that cost a great deal of money are are used almost exclusively in kitchen or meat-cutting settings. All the way down to the el-cheapo belt sander...yes, you can sharpen a knife with belt sander. NEVER, EVER use a bench grinder to sharpen a knive...unless you have paper wheels.

Andrew...this is going to be a long road.
 
Thanks for the prompt and great response. I will check in to edgepro and sharpmaker. Do you by any chance live in Indiana? I do. Im just asking because of your name
 
If there are any tips I can impart, it would be go slowly, check your progress often and use a black texture to colour in the edge of the blade. This will allow you to see where the blade is being sharpened.

Lastly there are a heap of good videos on YouTube, not only on the action of sharpening but also the theory.

Good luck!
 
At one time or another, I've used all of the following:

Combination Oil Bench Stone, Coarse and Fine sides. $5 to $30

Arkansas Stones, Soft (medium grit) and Hard (fine grit). Large price range here. Good ones are hard to find.

Diamond Stones, Coarse. Good for removing damage and setting a new bevel. Also provides a good, quick, working edge when needed. $30 and up for bench stone sizes.

Water Stones, Coarse and Medium. Take some getting used to, but I like mine a lot now. $15 and up. These can get very expensive, especially the rare natural water stones.

Sharpmaker, Medium and Fine standard stones. Works great, and quite versatile as a medium and fine finishing stone and for touch up work between full sharpening. The only drawback is the limited angle setting. It's also difficult to rebevel a knife with only a Sharpmaker, but it can be done. The ceramic stones do chip if not handled carefully. $40 to $60.

Wet/Dry Sandpaper, 100 to 1000 grit, depending on what needs to be done. I've used it glued to wood, clamped over leather, clamped at one end and stretched taught like a barbers strop, and some others. Very versatile and only about $1.50 per sheet.

Belt Sander, 80 to 1200 grit and leather belts. A must for machetes and large knives. These work well, but require some practice first. I've ground small blades starting with 80 grit. 1200 grit followed by a leather sander belt loaded with white buffing compound gives a mirror edge. I now just use 2 steps. First is a 180 grit belt, followed by the leather w/ compound. This produces a tree topping, hair whittling edge. $30 to $300 for the sander, $1 to $7 per belt. Leather belts are $20 to $30.

Kitchen Steel. Used for touch ups between sharpening. I'm not really fond of them, but they do keep a knife cutting until you have time for more involved sharpening. Large range of prices.

Coffee Mugs, Car Windows, Concrete Rubbing Stones. All are improvised sharpening tools when nothing else is around. They do work, but require some skill.

Files. Another must for large chopping blades. Several members here can get an arm shaving edge with just a file. Also a large range of prices, but generally $10 to $15.
 
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WOW thanks, this has really given me an idea of what I will use. My dad has a belt sander at his work I can look into using, or I will check out the variety of stones
 
First you have to match the angle of your stone to the angle of the edge bevel. If they don't match, you either reprofile the edge or change the angle of the stone.

Second, you raise a burr along the entire edge, both side. The burr forms when you've sharpened one side of the edge as much as it can take.

Third, you gently remove the burr so you get a refined and durable edge.

Fourth, if you want and if you need, you gently strop the edge to get extra sharpness.
 
andrew132 said:
WOW thanks, this has really given me an idea of what I will use. My dad has a belt sander at his work I can look into using, or I will check out the variety of stones
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If your dad's belt sander is something in the range of 1" by 42" I wouldn't recommend it(unless you can adjust the speed to a low setting). The belt will either eat your blade or damage the temper.

My favorite thus far is a mini-belt sander, the Work Sharp Knife & Tool Sharpener. The only real catch is that aftermarket belts are a MUST. The included belts will eat up your blade(depending on individual ham-handedness) or again, ruin the temper. Though with 1/2" by 12" dimensions, it's not as likely to happen as opposed to a full-sized belt sander. To my knowledge, only one site sells the appropriate micro-mesh MX belts, and they charge a flat $12-ish shipping, so buying in bulk is recommended.

Though if you only have old knives, I would just recommend the usual waterstones. It's rather therapeutic really. I use power tools because my knives are mostly in wear resistant steels like S90V, CTS-20CP, M390, S30V, ZDP-189, etc.
 
All you have to do when sharpening is make the two sides meet in as fine an intersection as possible. The finer the intersection between the two sides of the edge the sharper the edge will be.

Generally the smaller the angle the better the slicing. The larger the angle the longer the edge will last.

Whatever method you use it all comes down to that.

1. Choose a method that works for you. Take into consideration maintenance of your edges.

2. Choose an angle that gives you what you need in terms of compromise between slicing and dicing and edge holding longevity.

3. Remove metal to allow the sides to meet. Refine up to the point you are comfortable with.

4. Repeat step 3 as needed.

Good Luck
 
Twindog said:
Second, you raise a burr along the entire edge, both side. The burr forms when you've sharpened one side of the edge as much as it can take.

Third, you gently remove the burr so you get a refined and durable edge.
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About that point, a member, i can't remember his forum name, gave a very good image of what Twindog explained.

A dull edge is a "U". You want to get a "V". You have to go by the step "Y".

Something else: whatever is the tool and the technic you will choose one important thing is: light hand, no speed, no strength.

dantzk.
 
Instead of learning on your old knives (I assume they have some value), why don't you go to any sporting shop and buy a couple of $10.00 knives and practice on them? What ever method you stay with will require practice, so it might as well be on some cheap knives. What ever method you attempt, just take your time, it take care and time to take metal off of a knife and keep it functional. Good Luck!
 
I am in the process of teaching my kids how to sharpen knives. I picked up a few inexpensive thrift store and garage sale kitchen knives for them to practice on. I did let my son try a few strokes on a little fix blade I made that I use for a shop knife so he could feel the difference in the hardness of the steel.

I found it very helpful to watch one of my friends sharpen his knives. I noticed that watching someone in person is very different than watching a video. Some of the things that I noticed is the sound of the blade moving over the steel, how much pressure is used, and how to move the blade to keep a consistent bevel on the belly and tip. Usually every couple of months, my friend and I end up touching up whatever knife we have on us, and every time I seem to learn a little more.

So depending where you are, you might find a local maker or knifenut to get you started. Where are you on the map? I'm in the SF Bay area (silicon valley).

My favorite workhorse stone is a Norton Combination India stone.

Ric
 
I'm still trying to answer that question, a lot of the guided stuff plain doesn't work (Accusharp.) Powertools can be dangerous and also expensive, and it can be really easy to ruin a knife. Freehand and rods/steels can also ruin your knife if you don't hold your blade at a constant angle. Guided is the best option, I think. Since you have made an account on Bladeforums, you can ask everyone here as many questions as you want, so finding a quality sharpener shouldn't be difficult. If you do buy one of the more expensive guided tools, it will last you pretty much forever.
The last point I will make is this; what ever you do, don't start off sharpening your older knives. Buy a crappy knife that you can practice with. You can always buy another Benchmade, but there are only so many WWII knives out there. I've made this mistake, and I need to re profile my USMC Ka-Bar.
 
last year, my daughter bought me an EdgePro system. It is the best sharpener I have found yet.
 
TheUSMC2017 said:
I'm still trying to answer that question, a lot of the guided stuff plain doesn't work (Accusharp.) Powertools can be dangerous and also expensive, and it can be really easy to ruin a knife. Freehand and rods/steels can also ruin your knife if you don't hold your blade at a constant angle. Guided is the best option, I think. Since you have made an account on Bladeforums, you can ask everyone here as many questions as you want, so finding a quality sharpener shouldn't be difficult. If you do buy one of the more expensive guided tools, it will last you pretty much forever.
The last point I will make is this; what ever you do, don't start off sharpening your older knives. Buy a crappy knife that you can practice with. You can always buy another Benchmade, but there are only so many WWII knives out there. I've made this mistake, and I need to re profile my USMC Ka-Bar.
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I like the GATCO for my rod guided system. It works great for me.

I would think that any edge "ruined" by freehand sharpening can be repaired. It is all removing material and making the bevels meet. What do you mean by "ruin". If you mean make dull then the answer would be to repair it by sharpening.
 
Thanks everyone for the help! Hopefully my dad will take me to sporting good store today to look at knife sharpening stones. I might look into things like an EdgePro when i get the money, my budget is just around 10-15 bucks. Dont worry, when I said older knives, I meant the knives my dad got like 15 years ago, im pretty certain they have no value to them. I didnt mean to say "very old", sorry.
 
Maybe its just me but save some money and buy a 1 *30 belt sander. I bought sharpmaker and gatco products and had nothing but a frustrating time with them. I ruined knives and my enjoyment. I was like Nutfancy taking them out to be professionally sharpened at great expense. A belt sander costs like $40 with 420 in belts its extremely easy to use and the results are amazing.

It wasn't til a You Tub fav made a video on his same experience that i went this route 6 months ago. I couldn't be happier now with my results.

Watch a few videos on you tube on this subject. Hand sharpening requires a skill I believe myself and many others just cant get!!
 
I would still practice on some cheap thrift store knives. I still have knives that my dad gave me and as I got older, they increased in their sedimental value. Some of those knives are 40+ years old. They're in good shape, and when I use them they bring back some good memories (except when I was doing something stupid and cut myself).

I was able to find some decent sharpening stones at an oriental store. They are the Asian equivalent of the dollar stores (with most stuff being $1.50). They had some silicon carbide combination stones for $1.50, I picked up a 180/320 and seems to be decent.

Ric
 
Noctis3880 said:
If your dad's belt sander is something in the range of 1" by 42" I wouldn't recommend it(unless you can adjust the speed to a low setting). The belt will either eat your blade or damage the temper.

That's just plain not true. The learning curve for using the belt sander is not very steep. I started with an inexpensivve Harbor Freight 1x30, which is pretty high speed and didn't burn even one blade. Sure, if you just go at it willy nilly and don't think about the heat your building in the blade you are going to screw up. Belt sander is the fastest way to a polished, refined edge.
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