What Did You Sharpen Today?

Have been lurking here too long, and have viewed some Bob Kramer video's and got motivated. I bought some Shapton stones in 320, 1000 and 5000 and a strop. In the last week I've been freehand sharpening all of our knives after developing a bit of technique with some $1.00 Goodwill knives that I could make mistakes on. Now I've sharpened our Wusthoff paring knife, 6" and 8" chef's knives and a Santoku knife. Also sharpened our old Chicago Cutlery steak knives. In addition to the paper cutting test, I also try to cut crazy thin slices of cherry tomato's and grapes. This is really fun!!
 
Quick touch up of my current carry.

027as3w.jpg
 
Today I sharpened my daily carry / user a Spyderco, Caly 3.5 2with a ZDP-189 core san Mai construction blade. I normally keep this knife in my left pocket and use it for whatever miscellaneous daily tasks I have, I had the time so I got out the Wicked Edge to bring this up to a really nice edge.

It takes a little while to go through the process but when it is done the edge is very fine.

Wicked Edge 101.jpg
 
vjb.knife said:
Today I sharpened my daily carry / user a Spyderco, Caly 3.5 2with a ZDP-189 core san Mai construction blade. I normally keep this knife in my left pocket and use it for whatever miscellaneous daily tasks I have, I had the time so I got out the Wicked Edge to bring this up to a really nice edge.

It takes a little while to go through the process but when it is done the edge is very fine.

View attachment 2632100
Click to expand...
Nice set up. :thumbsup:
 
This Joe Calton Joe Calton small fixed blade, it's in 440c and it wasn't really in need of a sharpening, but I have used it a bit and wanted to just freshen it up, thin stock and razor sharp.

Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

This is one of his neck knives patterned after Murray Carter style.
 
Sharpened a new Rat Model 1. Been a fan of this pattern of knife for a while, so I finally treated myself to the PM steel version.

Used a K03, profiled to 18 with a Venev Ursa 150. The factory grind wasn't the worst I've seen, but it still took a while to get it all the way even. Then switched to EP Matrix and ran edge trailing heel to tip strokes from the 250 stone up to 4k. Very slow and careful.

Matrix gives the best polish I've found yet. Hard to capture in a photograph with only two hands.

1000004945.jpg1000004946.jpg1000004944.jpg
 
Dutch87 said:
Sharpened a new Rat Model 1. Been a fan of this pattern of knife for a while, so I finally treated myself to the PM steel version.

Used a K03, profiled to 18 with a Venev Ursa 150. The factory grind wasn't the worst I've seen, but it still took a while to get it all the way even. Then switched to EP Matrix and ran edge trailing heel to tip strokes from the 250 stone up to 4k. Very slow and careful.

Matrix gives the best polish I've found yet. Hard to capture in a photograph with only two hands.

View attachment 2633971View attachment 2633972View attachment 2633973
Click to expand...
Nice work. Last photo shows the polished finish. :thumbsup:
 
If you look at almost any factory and some custom knives under 10X magnification they seldom have finer than a 400 grit finish on the edge, which for me is not very good. Some think that these rough places are "micro serrations", but they are actually just rough bits that hangup the cutting process and make it harder to slice into any material. If you cut a few things with a knife blade that has that rough of an edge and then take that same blade and put something upwards of a 3000 grit finish on it or bring it to a mirror polished edge you will see how much easier it cuts through anything. There is no comparison in the two. I don't necessarily put that kind of edge on every knife that I use but I do on certain knives that I carry but don't use on day to day tasks. The best factory edge that I have ever seen is on a Rockstead Kon fixed blade while the best Custom knife edge that I have seen is on a R.J. Martin Devastator and they are comparable. I use them very infrequently, and when I carry them I know that they will cut through anything I put them to.

xx Rockstead Kon.jpg

RJM Dev.jpg
 
vjb.knife said:
If you look at almost any factory and some custom knives under 10X magnification they seldom have finer than a 400 grit finish on the edge, which for me is not very good. Some think that these rough places are "micro serrations", but they are actually just rough bits that hangup the cutting process and make it harder to slice into any material. If you cut a few things with a knife blade that has that rough of an edge and then take that same blade and put something upwards of a 3000 grit finish on it or bring it to a mirror polished edge you will see how much easier it cuts through anything. There is no comparison in the two. I don't necessarily put that kind of edge on every knife that I use but I do on certain knives that I carry but don't use on day to day tasks. The best factory edge that I have ever seen is on a Rockstead Kon fixed blade while the best Custom knife edge that I have seen is on a R.J. Martin Devastator and they are comparable. I use them very infrequently, and when I carry them I know that they will cut through anything I put them to.

View attachment 2635210

View attachment 2635212
Click to expand...
Man !! Nice set you go there. Pretty ! In a manly way of course.
 
Man's best friend, and a dog. ;)



Got my first Strider knife the other day. Quite enjoying it, but the factory edge was ... something that comes out the rear end of that dog up there. Factory angle was 18° on one side and 30° on the other. Scuse me? Pretty dull, too. Would not reliably slice catalogue paper. 20cv steel which I measured at 60 hrc.

So, put it on Tormek for the usual treatment: 600 CBN + 1000 CBN + honing on WS with leather belts, 1 micron, Tormek PA-70 compound. I did 17 dps for now. Wanted to see how wide it got before going lower. Still managed a BESS score of 85g, so I might just keep it at 17.
 
I did a Case Slimline Trapper last night because I thought it would be a layup. I wrapped the blade up in kapton tape to keep the scratches down and wrapped masking tape to protect other areas of the knife. Used a magnetic table on my K03, which makes figuring the angle tricky because the blade did not lie square on the table. I like to use 1/2" stones on small blades, so I profiled with a 1/2" 150 grit Boride TS stone. The factory grind was so uneven that the left side bevel ended up twice as thick as the right side. The heel of the left side had a big low spot, and I decided it wasn't worth it to get out so I switched to Venev Ursa stones and did edge trailing strokes from 150-800 grit. Turned out decently sharp. I should have used clamps on this blade because there is enough flat real estate just above the bolster.

trapper sharp.jpg

trapper bess.jpg
 
CJRB Prado, reprofiled it to a hand honed convex and gave it a proper smiley on both sides in the process (even with the choil the plunge fell too close to the grind).

Grit progression was coarse/fine diamond (cheap chinese bench stone on amazon that just keeps working) then to a DC4 ceramic (my favorite grit) and off to the spyderco fine pocket stone (with one side lapped to UF) and finally a regular strop.

prado1.jpg

prado2.jpg
 
Last edited:
I haven't been doing much real sharpening lately, just maintaining the kitchen knives at onion cutting level. However, I got a new knife for Father's Day and decided to give it a homemade edge. I'm in the rebeveling stage right now, first evening the factory bevel at 22 degrees per side (dps) and now lowering it down to a more reasonable 17 degrees. As soon as I refine the scratches a little from the coarse stone, I'll give it a final edge on the Sharpmaker at 20 dps. Is this a huge reduction in edge? Not really. However, this is a Kershaw orange scaled rescue knife with a seatbelt cutter, using 14C28N steel. I find this steel behaves itself with thinner/more acute edges. A 17/20 dps bevel/microbevel is a pit stop on the way to 12/15 dps. Next time I do a full sharpening, I'll lower it again. I do need to stop and see if the lower angle will allow the thumbstuds to clear the stone. If not, I'll leave it where it is. This has been an issue with other Kershaw knives like my Random Leek. Excellent blade and edge holding on that one, but the thumb stud interfered with angles lower than 17/20 dps and the metal handle was just a bit too slippery for my liking.
 
SwissHeritageCo said:
CJRB Prado, reprofiled it to a hand convex and gave it a proper smiley on both sides in the process (even with the choil the plunge fell too close to the grind).

Grit progression was coarse/fine (cheap chinese bench stone) then to a DC4 ceramic (my favorite grit) and off to the spyderco fine pocket stone (with one side lapped to UF) and finally a regular strop.

View attachment 2652173

View attachment 2652174
Click to expand...
Really nice work. 👌
 
cudgee said:
Nice looking edge, do you use any lubricant or just dry ???
Click to expand...

Dry this time. I always go dry these days with diamond plates at least. The first time I sharpend this knife, I used a Venev resin bonded diamond stone and did use water, but I always get those snail trails when I wipe the blade off. Not sure how to avoid that when I use water to be honest haha. Not a huge deal though if I'm using the knife anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top