Uneven edges - which side do you sharpen?

T

ThreeWorlds

Joined
Dec 14, 2005
Messages
498
Hey everyone,

I'm new to this whole sharpening thing (I just bought my Sharpmaker, it's waiting to be unpacked :)). I know sometimes blades come sharpened unevenly, and that you're supposed to be able to tell by whether it slants to one side or another when you cut. Well, I have a new knife that's pretty sharp overall, but one side is definitely sharper than the other (shaves really cleanly on one side, not so much on the other). My question is, which side do you sharpen? Is it the non-contacting edge that is facing up of the sharp side?
 
If a knife only shaves on one side like that, it means it has a wire edge. There have been a lot of very good threads on this forum about this subject, just do a search .... FWIW Jeff Clark looks to be the recognized master of getting rid of wire edges and sharpening in general so check you his posts.

Unless a knife is a chisel grind - ground on one side only, which will be obvious - or what I think Busse calls a "zero edge" grind, you want to work both sides as close to the same as you can ..... your knife should shave the same on either side.
 
well, it shaves on both sides, it just seems that one side is noticeably better than it than the other. This is a fairly common problem that I have with my production folders (including my Spydercos, which are supposed to come really sharp). Is that still considered a wire edge?
 
Wire edge can easily do that, 3W. What causes the different behavior from one side to the other is that the wire edge is leaning one way. If you manage to get a wire edge that's "straight" and pretty much aligned with the edge then you won't see this, but wire edges don't hold up well at all.

Here's a thread that might be helpful:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=405805

Particularly read Jeff's reply #9, also #5 and #19.

Good luck!
 
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