Single bevel blades on a sharpmaker.

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veryquietdude

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Nov 2, 2005
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I recently saw an automatic knife with a single bevel blade. There is a pronounced bevel on one side and a tiny bevel on the other. I wanted to sharpen the knife on a Sharpmaker. I was told to sharpen on the large bevel side only. This does not seem logical to me. How are single bevel blades normally sharpened?

Thank you in advance for any advice.
 
If it's an Emerson-style chisel ground blade, then the advice you got is good. You "sharpen" or strop the side with the obvious secondary bevel until you create a burr along the whole length of the blade. Then you just knock the burr off from the other side (the side with no secondary bevel). This works even if the blade is V-ground with a single secondary bevel.

This technique gives you a fairly quick, fairly sharp blade. You can refine the sharpening or stropping process with a progression of grits until you get a very sharp edge, but it's still basically the same technique all the way through the process... sharpen the side with the secondary bevel and then de-burr the side with only a primary bevel.
 
I grind on the bevel side until a burr is raised. Then I lay non-bevel side flat on the stone and wipe the burr back into the grinding plane (edge trailing). The wiping is done on the finest grit. The wiping can also be done on the flat side of a ceramic blade. The technique also works on scissors.
 
Thanks for the info. I just got a new Sharpmaker and wanted to sharpen a knife for a friend. I will hit the local thrift shop and buy a bunch of knives for 50 cents each and practice first. :)
 
I'd also recommend watching the Sharpmaker video 2 or 3 times before doing anything with it. Youtube also has some good vids on the Sharpmaker. The Sharpmaker will only have two angles available... 15 degrees per side and 20 degrees per side. Chances are, most knives won't match the Sharpmaker's preset angles at first... especially if it's a chisel ground blade. The secondary bevel will probably be greater than 20 dps.

A good trick to match the existing bevels on a knife to the Sharpmaker setting is to color the knife bevel with a black Sharpie. Then use a few light strokes to see how well you're matching the existing bevel angle. When the Sharpie is being removed along the whole bevel from the shoulder to the edge (apex), you've got the right angle. Hold that angle to finish sharpening that side.
 
Light strokes are key,even if you have small invisible micro edge it doesn't matter as it still will cut like crazy.When micro edge gets visible get the stone and remove the micro edge to keep original geometry on blade.I sharpen scandis on shoemaker and they perform well as micro edge is invisible.when I start to see it I put it flat to stone.
 
Sal addresses chisel grinds briefly in this Sharpmaker video, starting around 1:30. Short version, you sharpen the bevel side maybe 5 strokes, then you lay the back side flat on the stone and make 1 stroke to cut off the burr.

It's worth watching all 4 parts of that video series.

That said, given OP description of a small bevel on the back side, I wonder if what you have is not a chisel grind but an asymmetrical grind. You can see a summary of edge types with diagrams, including asymmetrical, here. If you do in fact have an asymmetrical edge, you'd need to sharpen both bevels, not just one side like a chisel grind.

http://zknives.com/knives/articles/knifeedgetypes.shtml
 
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