Very basic question: how do I sharpen a knife?

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There is too much information here on sharpening ... overwhelming. Start with a brief, basic guide, and move immediately to a simple effective system and get to work on a few cheap knives to start with, like old paring knives.

The basic guide is in our BladeForums.com Knife FAQs. See the FAQ: Knife Sharpening by Joe Talmadge, but take a look at the others for equally good background also.

The system is the Spyderco Sharpmaker. It comes with very good instructions, and using it will actually teach you a lot about what sharpening really does, which should lead you to other ways to do it.
 
Sharpmaker is the best.
You start from this position:
SpydercoSharpmaker05.jpg

to this:
SpydercoSharpmaker06.jpg

160 moves like this and you knife will be shaving sharp.

Thanks, Vassili
 
Me personally...I dont use the modern stuff like triangle jigs and junk like that....I think that once you learn a few basic things about how a oil stone is made to work, you know enough....

Take the stone...decide what side of the knife you wish to do first.

hold the blade to the stone as if you were going to shave a stamp off of it...

drag the blade across the stone,,,Use Two Hands!,
do that again and again,,DO NOT FLIP IT OVER , DO NOT WORRY ABOUT DOING THE OTHER SIDE!....

Just grind on the one side first until you can feel a burr hanging on the whole edge..(No Counting!...No Math!!!, you just keep going until the knife is done, not because you reached a lucky number! !!).the burr means you are done with side-1 and can now flip the blade over and start sharping that side..

grind side -2 untill you again feel the little burr hanging over the edge..

(Remember NO MATH!,,,Only pay attention to what you are doing!!you are sharpening a knife, not counting strokes!,,,the knife blade will show you when to flip it over,,it may be right away, it may be in a few ...it's up to the blade!).

NOW. switch gears and do the "Stroke/Flip/Strok/Flip" thingy....do this until you feel the burr gone, then, stroke lighter and lighter,,,

The last strokes are just very light, ,,

The blade is now sharp enough for most cuts,,,,from here you can use a finer stone, sand paper or a power sander,,,,or even a buffer....and you can get the blade as sharp as you want....

The use of a normal oil stone will help you get rid of dings and dips in your knife blade,,,a triangle sharpner will not...the triangle system is faster,,,it's great for times when you are in the middle of something...But the flaw of all triangle sharpeners is that the sharpeneing rods dont have any way to even out the whole side of the blade,,,they just sharpen the small section they are against,,,so dips and dings in the knife blade are not fixed,,,infact they are made deeper...

Each type of sharpening system had it's ups and downs,,,,I like an oil stone because there is nothing like the looks of respect you get from people when you are able to use anything, even a river rock, and make their dull knives sharp as new...a oil stone teaches you how to sharpen...
 
Well, Sharpmaker makes blade not just "sharp enough for most cuts" - this stage happens after first 40 moves (this count helps if you don't have skills or desier to check it, I bet checking it will take more time then just do 40 strokes (20 each side - 1 stroke less then second)). After 160 moves - any blade is able to shave.

And oil is messy - everythin is in this dirty oil: hands, table, knife, stone.

And If you blade is not straight but belly S-curved etc, you will need special skills to sharpen it, but Sharpmaker rods are designed for this (as I understand). And I can't agree with this - "so dips and dings in the knife blade are not fixed,,,infact they are made deeper...", flat side of the rod flattening edge very well.

Thnaks, Vassili.
 
Besides, only the Sharpmaker can sharpen the curved cutting edge of a small nailclipper! and the TSA has shown us how deadly they can be when they're really sharp!

Scissors, too.

Potato peelers!

See? :D
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Besides, only the Sharpmaker can sharpen the curved cutting edge of a small nailclipper!
Click to expand...



Rrrrrrrrright.............theres something guys can't get enough of doing....
 
I am also one of those who has gone away from the dark side of sharpening (a Sharpmaker, Lansky, etc...), and am again using a (large) benchstone, and I have to say that MY knives have never been sharper!...(I also "finish" with a flat [Gerber] honing steel, and that REALLY makes the edge SHARP!).
 
I used to be the kinda guy who everyone sent their knives to if they wanted them dulled..... I had tried this and that and the other thing, but the knife-sharpening genes of my grandfather never made it to me. I tried sticks and stones but only made things as sharp as bones.

Well, here's my success story:
I had read in another thread about a fellow who glued some leather onto a mouse pad, so I did that. Then I read elsewhere about this green micro-honing stuff for straight razors, so I bought some of that. Then I duct-taped the mouse/leather strop pad to the workbench and rubbed a whole mess of the green stuff into the leather. So far so good.

Then I got lucky. I bought one of them $5 plastic thingies in walmart, the kind with the carbide cutters set at an angle. I clamped it in the vise with cutters facing up. I got out a beat-up and hugely dull Kabar and drug the blade across the cutters, using a lot of pressure. It was almost like a lathe, piles of chips were coming off. I guess I was re-profiling the blade. Everything started out smoothly, but after a few passes I could feel the cutters really digging in and the chips were flying. And lo and behold, the Kabar was suddenly plenty much sharp !!
Then I grabbed the Kabar handle in both hands and began stropping it across the mouse/leather strop pad using a fair amount of pressure, nothing wimpy about it.

I'm telling ya, the method works for me. The former King of Dull found a method that puts the scary into sharp. I've used it on my Randall Model 1, a batch of Kabars, a couple of Hankins, my SOG's, and even my most-prized WWII-vintage M3 Trench Knife.

Cheers,

Carl
 
DaQo'tah Forge said:
Me personally...I dont use the modern stuff like triangle jigs and junk like that....I think that once you learn a few basic things about how a oil stone is made to work, you know enough....
Click to expand...

I agree and disagree. Most sharpening systems ARE junk, but the Spyderco Sharpmaker is NOT. The Sharpmaker is very adaptive:
1. Corners of triangle stones do rough profiling AND are used for serrated blades.
2. Flats of the stones are used AFTER the corners to even out the edges.
3. V-shape angles for #1 and #2 are at both 30 and 40 degrees.
4. 77.5 angle slot for scissor blades (12.5 from horizontal).
5. As mentioned above, can do things like nail cutters and potato peelers. (You can immediately tell the difference in your nail cutters - you barely have to press)
6. The flats and Vs on the stones can be used freehand.
7. The stones fit in the base horizontally to form a flat benchstone.
8. Requires almost zero practice.

Sure, you can use a benchstone and prove you are an expert, but the sharpmaker is cheap (cheaper than most of your knives, I'll bet), fast, and easy to use for a perfect edge.

DaQo'tah Forge said:
The use of a normal oil stone will help you get rid of dings and dips in your knife blade,,,a triangle sharpner will not...the triangle system is faster,,,it's great for times when you are in the middle of something...But the flaw of all triangle sharpeners is that the sharpeneing rods dont have any way to even out the whole side of the blade,,,they just sharpen the small section they are against,,,so dips and dings in the knife blade are not fixed,,,infact they are made deeper...
Click to expand...

The cheap, round, rod-type sharpeners are nothing like the sharpmaker. The sharpmaker's flat and cornered stones make very even, perfect edges, and it can be a flat stone if so desired anyway. Serrations are dips in the blade and they are sharpened only with the triangle edge of the stone (you want them to be deeper). PE blades are roughed with the corners and evened with the flat edges.

Bottom Line:
The sharpmaker can do anything (and more than) a bench stone can do and in most cases, easier.

Of course, we all use bench stones in the field, and you MUST learn it that way too. :)
 
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