Visiting an old friend

[garry3]

One of my weaknesses is getting the angle on the opposite side of the stone, I can see on the near side what's happening but not so much on the far side. I've been tempted to buy those plastic wedge thingys but held off. So I tried using a piece of plastic that I cut up and flattened the ends so when you tighten down the stone it grips these posts. Depending on how wide the blade is, and the angle of the bevel, I can tilt the posts to the side to get it close and match each side up. So when I go to sharpen, I just need to rest the spine of the blade on the post, near the very edge of it, and then using two hands I can make sure that I maintain that angle while I push the blade across the stone. On the opposite side, same thing, rest on the post and draw the blade towards me, using my left hand as a sensor type thing to make sure I don't wobble or change angles. It reminds me of when I use the Ken Onion sharpener that you reference on the flat plate and carefully bring the blade up to the belt.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

G2

It's a pretty good argument for switching hands so that the edge is always facing you. I kind of wish I would have started out that way.



Holding or starting a knife at about a 45 to the stone seems to aid in keeping a consistent angle. Not that it really matters...

 

[Gary W. Graley]

I ended up cutting some bamboo skewers as the posts to make as a reference, those bits of black plastic fell and bounced...somewhere ....so these actually are easier to setup/adjust for each side and I can always snip off new pieces if I lose them.

This is a sharpening on a small two bladed traditional knife so you can see that I angled the posts so the spine of the blade is just above the stone slightly.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

G2

 

[Gary W. Graley]

So, I kept thinking that this was a moderately good idea, but trying to measure with a ruler wasn't so easy, I needed something a little more fool proof, because fools can be quite ingenious sometimes

I bought the cheapest marking gauge off of Amazon and cut the stainless rod down so it wasn't too cumbersome, as I wouldn't need but fractions of an inch to set the height of the bamboo pieces. I would figure out what angle I wanted to sharpen my knife at, then I would bring the spine of the blade to the bamboo piece and raise or lower the bamboo to support the spine of the blade at that angle.

THEN, I would take my new 'tool' and take a measurement of that bamboo height and then set the other side to be the same. This worked well and what is nice is, when you move from one stone to another, you already have that reference height dialed in so getting the bamboo set to be the same was a cinch.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Also, as you can see I trimmed off one side of the brass plate, that serves two purposes, allowing to see the bamboo better and with the flat section, it doesn't roll away when you go to set it down.
and, if I were super duper nerdy, I would log in a small note book, the particular knife and at what height to set by noting where the number is on the shaft of the marking gauge, but, I'm not that tuned up...not yet anyways

G2

 

[Gary W. Graley]

So, I've ditched the bamboo pegs, wasn't working out, kept losing them lol or just hard to make sure they stayed right at the correct height. So, I took some wood screws with a smooth torx head and drilled a hole down into each side and screwed in the screw, takes a T10 wrench. Now I can use my T10 wrench to raise or lower the screws to match the marking gauge very closely. A much better setup and fairly easy to do. Again this is just used as a reference as when I move from one side of the blade to another it is too easy to 'think' you have matched the same angle, this just provides you with a reference to help keep you close. Once the bevels are set, then they are sort of self leveling IF you are not too heavy handed and for sharpening you don't or shouldn't be heavy handed at all, let the stones do the work, just some light even pressure does it.

What's nice about using the marking gauge is even when you move to a stone that is thinner or thicker, you are always referencing from the top surface of the stone, so when I change out stones, if they are different thicknesses, I'll just do a quick check with the marking gauge that I left set from the first stone in the progression.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

G2

 

[JC972]

I inherited my uncle’s and my Grandpaw’s stones when they both died. A couple DMT diamond stones, an old EZ Lap 3” stone in a leather pouch, a ceramic sandblaster tip (it does a good job, but a little odd I guess), and some ceramic stones, a coarse/medium/fine stones attached to a wooden triangular block that fits in a wooden base with a bottle of honing oil in a kit, and a medium Norton India stone. I exclusively use these stones for all my sharpening these days. They do a good job and brings back a lot of good memories while using them. I’ve never heard of using lighter fluid to clean stones but I’m going to try it. I’ve always used aerosol electronic cleaner in a spray can but that’s kind of on the expensive side. Looking forward to the lighter fluid the next time I clean stones!