Struggling With Freehand

R

Rowrunner

Joined
Dec 5, 2015
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2
I've finally gotten some waterstones after lurking on this board for a while. Even on my Beston 500 I'm struggling to get a burr. I still have some wobble in my stroke, but I would think at that rough of a stone it would still happen. I'm using some really dull and cheap SS kitchen knives. Is there something different about SS I don't know about?

I know it's going to take more than a week of practice to get decent at this, but not getting the 1st key accomplished is a bit of a buzzkill.
 
Don't give up. Freehand takes lots of practice but is worth the time and effort. You are probably not hitting the apex. Do the sharpie trick to mark sure.
 
Nothing 'different' about SS.

droptrd said:
Don't give up. Freehand takes lots of practice but is worth the time and effort. You are probably not hitting the apex. Do the sharpie trick to mark sure.
Click to expand...
Agree.

Take a marker like a Sharpie and color over the entire bevel, sharpen on the stone, look at the bevel to see where the mark is missing.

(Alcohol will clean up any remaining marker easily.)
 
Rowrunner said:
I've finally gotten some waterstones after lurking on this board for a while. Even on my Beston 500 I'm struggling to get a burr. I still have some wobble in my stroke, but I would think at that rough of a stone it would still happen. I'm using some really dull and cheap SS kitchen knives. Is there something different about SS I don't know about?

I know it's going to take more than a week of practice to get decent at this, but not getting the 1st key accomplished is a bit of a buzzkill.
Click to expand...

can the knife slice paper?
Its possible with muddy waterstones not to form burrs,
so if the knife can slice paper,
time to switch to next step
which might be go to next stone
or microbevel by letting the surface/slurry dry up and increase angle
or do a dozen strop/trailing strokes
or take some of the slurry put it on newspaper, wrap newspaper around stone, and strop
and then you're done


or it could be your angle is too low, you're trying to remove to much steel
in which case increase the angle
you can increase to match the existing angle (sharpie trick , 10-20dps )
or you can increase past that to microbevel (25dps, faster to raise burr, but not as sharp)
 
It took me a long time to get consistent results freehand, lots of practice & watching videos like the ones above were the biggest help.
 
To the above I'll add that some waterstones, especially muddy ones, are well known for creating small burrs to begin with. If you can get a magnifier of maybe 8-10x you could get a better idea of what's happening.
 
The worst thing about sharpening, when you're trying to learn, is not knowing how to check your progress. Are you half way there? Most of the way there? Have you already been finished for the last 5 minutes and didn't know it?

With a really dull blade, it's hard to track your progress using just the sharpie. You need to inspect the actual cutting edge. The part of the blade that cuts through things. Look straight down at the cutting edge under strong light. Move the blade tip down towards the floor, then up towards the ceiling. Look for a reflection along the edge. Any part of the cutting edge that will reflect light is "dull". It's not uncommon at ALL to find blades that strongly reflect light along the entire edge. This is a dull blade!

You can use this to track your progress in sharpening the edge. As it gets closer and closer to sharp, the reflections will get smaller and smaller. At some point you won't be able to see reflected light at all. That's when you're either all the way there, or very close. Then you can start to use various techniques of checking for the burr.

Try the reflected light technique. It's immensely powerful.

Brian.
 
Most of the sharpening I do is with premium cutlery steels. Bottom line, they take better edges. It's easier to tell where you're at when working on these steels. That being said, I've practiced with a lot of different cheapo kitchen knives that have cheapo steels. They don't take nice edges, thus it's harder to tell where you're at in the sharping process.

1-3 degree rocking while you sharpening is typical. If you can achieve a sub 1 degree rocking motion, you're going to be really good when you do realize what to look/feel for.

Watch Jason B's videos. Then practice, and then practice some more.
 
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