What is your overall sharpening strategy?

W

Wrace

Joined
Sep 29, 2005
Messages
60
Like most of you I suspect, I have a number of knives from various manufacturers - Spyderco, Buck, Opinel, Mora, CRKT, Schrade, Case, Benchmade, and a few others. I also have the Spyderco sharpmaker (with diamond rods), and a Lansky deluxe kit (non-diamond).

I am not a knife collector in the traditional sense, though I seem to end up with an ongoing mini collection in search of the best knife for actual use in my various applications - edc general all-around, shop work, farm work, etc. I've also started purchasing well neglected blades from garage sales and trying to bring them back to life, as a hobby. The farm work in particular is hard on a knife, some of the applications likely border on knife abuse, but that's life on the farm for the most part.

I've been frustrated for some time in my lack of ability in resharpening these knives to a useable edge. The lack of ability is mostly in my skill level, or lack of it as the case may be. I have been reading back posts on this forum, googling, and watching utube videos as there is a wealth of information out there, but there is so much info that it's easy to get overwhelmed. I'm committed to improving my skill at sharpening over the course of this winter. I'm wondering if there are one or two books or specific websites on the subject of knife sharpening that are worth looking at in detail?

I had some far fetched fantasy that I would be disciplined enough to use the sharpmaker as a touch up tool every other day or so to keep the edge working. In reality what I end up doing is sharpening the knives in batches after the edge is dull or beyond dull when I have time on a Sunday afternoon. With my most used knives I have two of them, one that gets used and then traded for a resharpened one, and then when I get time resharpening the next batch. As a result, I have a couple sort-of sharp-but-not-really knives, and a bunch of dull (or worse) ones.

One of my confusions centers around the subject of factory edge angles and a sharpening strategy when one owns several different brands/models. Do you sharpen each of your knives according to the factory angle, or do you put a new standardized angle on most every knife you own based on your own preference?

For example, lets say you use the sharpmaker as a keep-sharp tool, or you use it to sharpen the micro bevel. As you know, the sharpmaker has 40 degree edge and 30 back-bevel, doesn't this pretty much dictate that all of your knives profiles be ground at this angle?

Or, lets say you re-profile on a belt sander or perhaps free-hand. What edge angle do you put on your knives and how do you measure said angle? Or does it just come with experience and you don't sweat what the exact angle is? So now you have re-profiled your edge to X degrees, but whatever tool (sharpmaker, lansky, etc) is used as the keep-sharp tool must be capable of this same X degrees, I assume?

Or is it possible to use the belt sander as both the re-profile tool and the keep-sharp tool by using the proper grit belts for each task?

Thanks
Wayne
 
To keep knives sharp I usually just strop on the leather belt on the belt sander. I don't worry too much about the angle on the belt sander, I just go low enough that the whole knife doesn't get scratches on it. The only knives that I have ever had trouble with sharpening were knives that I had too low an angle on ( 10 degrees versus 15 degrees ). In other words I was trying to get them too sharp and had to grind too much to get the apex.
 
My overall strategy? Very simple.

When making a stock-removal knife, all you have to do is grind away everything that isn't a knife. Sharpening is no different, really.
Simply remove everything that keeps it from cutting well.

How you define "cutting well" and how you go about getting to that point is a matter of nearly endless variables and debate.
 
I use a stack of pennies or something similar for a static reference of how high I'm holding the knife's spine from the sharpening stone. I don't really worry about measuring the angle... I simply subtract a penny and make the edge thinner if I think it can cut better, or add a penny if I think edge retention has gone down. So for a number of my knives I've through trial-and-error found the right amount of pennies to stack up to get the angle that I want.

I also touch up my knives in a bit of an unorthodox fashion... I look down the surface of the hone and then visually confirm that the edge is only raised enough to grind on the already-established bevel ( whether this is factory or my own ) and then just touch up like this. Sometimes this adds a bit of a micro-bevel or secondary bevel, but once it gets too big I just bring the knife back to the bench-stone and re-establish the bevel with the necessary amount of pennies.

Usually when I reprofile a factory bevel, it's just because I need to set my own angle that I can repeat when the time is needed. So generally speaking, when I get a new knife, I will touch up the factory bevel until it gets major edge deformations or gets so dull it needs a time on the benchstone, and then I just set my own angle rather than worry about matching the factory's. More often than not I only wind up lowering or raising the factory geometry by a few degrees.

If later on I want to convey what my edge geometry is to another person, I need to figure out the angle in degrees, so for that I just use calipers and a calculator to figure it out. But in my own mind, it's "This edge is four pennies, this one is five," etc. It's not exact, but it keeps me more in the "ballpark" than muscle memory does.
 
I've settled into a strategy combining the Wicked Edge with the Sharpmaker. I buy only knives with high-performance steels and reprofile them on the WE to 30 degrees. Good steels can handle that acute of an edge, and it's a waste of steel to profile the edge to less than it can take.

I pay no attention to the factory edge, which is going to vary -- often by a lot, even on the same models.

30 degrees means I can quickly touch up the edge on the Sharpmaker.

On knives with thin, high-performance edge shoulders, such as the Spyderco Military or Gayle Bradley, Sebenza or Benchmade Onslaught, I leave the angle at 30 degrees, with no micro bevel.

On knives with thick blades, such as the ZT 560, a 30 degree edge leaves a wide bevel, which is not easy to resharpen on the Sharpmaker. So I add a 40-degree microbevel and use the 40-degree setting on the Sharpmaker. The micro bevel is a snap to maintain.

On heavy duty knives, such as a bowie knife or bolo, I typically add a 40-degree micro bevel to improve the strength of the edge.

On every edge, I strop off the burr at the very end.

I'm not a fan of free handing because its imprecise, and we now have access to cheap tools that can give us a perfect edge. Why not use them?

But if you're using cheap steels in your reconditioning hobby or allowing a knife to get too dull before resharpening or having to resharpen a lot of dull knives, you'll probably be better off with a power sharpening system. In that case, you might want to read Richardj's paper wheel thread. You might also want a grinder of some kind for reprofiling.
 
You're touching on a lot of stuff here. For starters I don't care what the factory edge is, I'm going to put the most acute inclusive bevel on all my tools that they can hold under use - this involves some trial and error and experience. Second, I'm going to use an edge grind strategy that makes sense for the tool in question. If I'm beating the heck out of the edge then I'll work my way back down through the grit progression till I hit an edge that can hold up for a few and/or can be easily touched up while being used. At one point at my job I dropped down to an 80 grit tile rubbing stone for my EDU and was very happy with how long it stayed functional. My machetes and hatchets get stropped till they shave arm hair easily and in most cases could be used to shave my face - because IMHO they chop better and longer with that sort of treatment and as a result can be repaired quickly using a coarse and fine strop (softer steels used for heavy choppers helps this dynamic quite a bit). My smaller knives get a toothier edge as they're liable to be used for draw cutting more - still I use the finest edge that will hold up.

Working on a farm I suspect you'll be better off with a very portable system much of the time, like a diamond or canoe file.

Learn to freehand - there is no substitute.
 
Thanks for the replies. So it sounds like people who freehand don't sweat keeping the factory edge angle on the blade and just kind of settle into their own semi-standardized angle for every knife? Probably settle on something that works through some trial and error? Unless the personally defined edge angle just happened to match the pre-set angles on something like the sharpmaker, that would make the sharpmaker obsolete. I do understand that one can 'tilt' the blade from straight up and down when using the sharpmaker but it seems like if you have to do that you might as well freehand on a bench stone?

Another example is I just received two new Mora knives so I now have a Robust, Clipper, and Companion, along with a new Opinel #8. Obviously I can use my sharpmaker for my spyderco knives but what about the Moras and the Opinel, can I use the sharpmaker to keep those sharp? What edge angle do the Moras and Opinels have?

Not trying to bust on the sharpmaker here, just trying to figure out a plan what will be somewhat standardized. One thing I really like about the sharpmaker is it's very compact and really fast to set-up/take-down. Also it is very flexible in terms of its capability to sharpen a variety of different tools. For example, I use it to keep my spade drill bits sharp.

Thanks
 
I have tried many different options and have recently arrived at a state of contentedness. I use a Gatco Edgemate with diamond stones. I set the angle with the sharpie method and work through the stones progressively until finishing with their ceramic hone. Then I strop with green compound and end up with an edge I am pleased with. I have no standard angle yet and am constantly trying different ones . This may continue for eternity as their is not a "perfect" angle which will do everything everyone wants with a knife. But , in my mind, this is good.
 
My strategy is to arrive at the edge that accomplishes the objectives of the tool. The objectives can be quite varied.

There are numerous variables to consider and numerous tools that may be called upon for the sharpening and maintaining tasks. Sorry to be vague, but there is potentially a lot to consider depending on how far down the rabbit hole one wants to explore;)
 
At the moment I too use a sharpmaker, with the stock rods I get a hair popping edge, and I'm perfectly fine with it. I also (sometimes) try and hit the edge everyday or every other day usually with the white rods, to maintain the shaving ability.

I presently do not have any good bench stones so the sharpmaker gets the vast majority of work. However, I will also use the sandpaper on a pad trick as well and go free hand. It depends on the knife.

I do not really care about factory edges, and honestly when I start thinking or reading about what degree edge this or that knife has my head hurts.

The hard part (for me with what I am using) is if a knife comes with an edge that the sharpmaker is not close to. When thats the case I either have to do a lot of work on the sharpmaker, or I "free hand" with the sharpmaker, meaning I just angle the blade a bit.

The "trick" I have found is if the factory edge is not to the liking of the sharpmaker is to first sharpen it on the sandpaper/pad. Basically I am just re-profiling the edge to something closer to the sharpmaker, then I use the sharpmaker and all is well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top