Trying to up my sharpening game

[WilliamTK1974]

Hey everyone,

Up until now, the tools I had for sharpening knives consisted of a Smith's Diamond Precision Sharpening System with two sharpening angles, and a Steamboat Super Sharpener. They both have their good and bad points. I've been able to use both of them to put decent edges on an Opinel #8 and an SAK.

I recently bought an Okapi ratchet knife, and decided after trying to sharpen it using both of those tools and having less than stellar results, I decided to try a different kind of sharpener. The nearby Bass Pro had a Smith's 6" 3-Stone Sharpening System on sale, so I got one. If you've never seen one, it consists of three stones, beginning with Coarse, Medium, then a Fine Arkansas for the final edge. It came with a barely adequate supply of honing oil and easy to follow instructions. One thing I've never seen in the sharpening world is the small plastic angle guide that helped the user with holding the blade at a suggested angle for optimal sharpening.

After giving it a try, the edge on the Okapi is better than it was after it first arrived. However, it's still not as sharp as the Opinel. I've read several Okapi reviews where it's stated that these knives can be sharpened to near-razor sharpness with some patience to overcome the poor quality of their initial edge.

Can this be done, and am I on the right track?

Thank you,
-William

 

[Meaningless opinion]

This is my first response on here and I'm a tad tipsy, but I felt the need to given your situation. I had the exact same sharpener, the 3 stone not the diamond - the course and med stone were junk after a few sharpenings (dished out, barely cut). What I would do if I were you, is buy a course - medium DMT and a fine spyderco to start. The diamond helps to remove metal well, no flattening and no water/oil needed. The spyderco is rough enough to deal with your burr but fine enough to leave a great edge, and again no water and no flattening. I've came a long way since my "smith's" days, I didn't know anything about sharpening until these forums and edge snobs on facebook (another great sharpening page). I went from nothing to whittling hair free hand in a year or so, and a good diamond "edge fixing" stone and the spyderco fine would be the 2 stones I would pick if I only had 2. Some decent stones you don't have to worry about helps a lot - knowing they are flat, etc - plus all of the spydies give great feed back compared to the stones your using now. Out of everything I have, Id say my spyderco (med-uf), rougher diamonds (dealers choice), and 1000 naniwa diamond waterstone (I use between my nasty diamond plates and my spyderco medium to even everything out after serious work) are my most used. Good stones helped me learn technique and push forward. You can feel more, and know any mistakes you make are you and not the stones being uneven, etc, so you can work on it. My sharpening game jumped 10 fold when I got my first "good" stone, my spydie fine. As much as I hate to say you need good equipment to do well, good stones taught me a lot in my journey. Your steel shouldn't be super hard though, whatever your using should cut it if I'm looking at the right knife. Diamond emulsions and nanocloth are good at removing burrs also, that's what I'm mostly using now.