What to usefor touching blade up?

Keeping my knives in a safe has never been a option lol.
Then why not learn to sharpen?

You keep bringing up the cost of your Wayfarer as if it matters for a user. It's not going to live in a safe right?

One drop on the asphalt will do far more damage than a poor sharpening.

You can always fix a bad sharpening.
 
Then why not learn to sharpen?
Because some of us prefer to pay more qualified people to do certain tasks we don't want to spend the time learning. (That's more of a rationalization than a reason, though. I agree knife owners should learn basic sharpening.)
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Using the Sharpmaker and a strop is basic sharpening.

Having the skill to sharpen on bench stones is great, but not necessary. If you want to learn that skill do it with cheap kitchen knives.

The Sharpmaker only costs about the same as one decent bench stone and makes the process dummy proof. You can have Rob, or one of us here, back-bevel it for you to 15dps and then do touch ups at 20 on the Sharpmaker. It'll give you a lot of life out of an edge and keep shipments to folks like me to a minimum.

As for a strop, just about any old bit of leather will do. I like flexcut gold for a good all around compound. If you want to buy one Bark River offers some good ones as does Stropman.
 
7 year olds are not sharpening a $450 knife. Have you ever seen a knife where its blade profile is destroyed? I do not know enough about bevels and micro bevels to keep the blade even. My cheap knives are all uneven along the blades.

Generally when you see a blade with a wonky profile it's due to some sort of power equipment. Whether it be a belt grinder, worksharp or one of those counter-top monstrosities. They take off way too much material. A lifetime of hand sharpening in 30 seconds.

You have to really go to town on a bench stone to take an edge past the point of rescue. I wouldn't worry about ruining your knife with any hand sharpening technique or apparatus.
 
TLE what is your turnaround time on knivrs sent to you?

Books are closed at the moment. Hoping to reopen in late March.

Generally 1-2 weeks, depending on my work load and whether or not I just had a child born.
 
I agree with the basic Sharpmaker and a couple strops for touch-ups. But the key to having easy and pain free touch-ups, is having clean and even bevels in the first place. Starting with an uneven factory grind can keep you chasing the edge, especially if you are just learning to sharpen.

But why send your knives out for full sharpening when there multiple systems that can make you look like a pro fairly quickly? Assuming you have multiple mid priced knives to maintain. Check out the KME Sharp system (less expensive, but where value and precision begin ), and the Wicked Edge (little more money, but well engineered and thought through ). These are the two that keep both the knife, and the stone angle at fixed positions once set. There are much cheaper units that look similar to the KME, but much less precision.

Add: Doh! No offense to TLE and others that do professional services. Granted, if I were just a guy that had and used nice knives, but was not a knife fanatic, I'd send them to a pro also. But since most that find and frequent a forum like this are actually blade headed knife knuts, it's a natural next step to learn to sharpen and fully maintain top to bottom. Simplistic assumption, I know. But seems to fit most of us at some point.

I have a neighbor that is an avid hunter (local, worldwide, and exotics). He has many more higher end knives than I do. I once offered to teach him what I know about sharpening. He declined, and has absolutely no interest in learning. He's a hunter, and that's his only passion. He'd rather just drop a few dozen knives off with a sharpener once a year and get them all done at once. Unfortunately he's had too many experiences where the "pro" was just a guy with a grinder that advertised "knife sharpening ". Thus the topic of our last few conversations. But these experiences have actually made him think that it would be a horrible waste of his time to even try, especially since the "pro's" even get it wrong half the time.

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Sent from my mind....using Tap-a-Thought. (tm)
 
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Since your one a buying spree with all your new man jewelry why not just get yourself a Wicked Edge? Would cost less then the new Benz you just bought, you would never have to send a knife out to be sharpened again, touchups take 5 minutes and I'm pretty sure I could teach my 4 year old to use it so you should be golden.
 
Since your one a buying spree with all your new man jewelry why not just get yourself a Wicked Edge? Would cost less then the new Benz you just bought, you would never have to send a knife out to be sharpened again, touchups take 5 minutes and I'm pretty sure I could teach my 4 year old to use it so you should be golden.

Will look into it.
 
I've been using, and am getting great results from HeavyHanded's Washboard System. Does a great job of both refreshing and maintaining an edge.

You've gotten some good advice on sharpening your own blades (even if it wasn't what you asked for)... :) A lot of decent systems now that can put a great edge on your knife. Personally, I wouldn't want to send a $450 back and forth in the mail. :eek:
 
I use an Accusharp SharpNEasy for quick touch ups, by hand with stones otherwise.
Practice on a standard size victorinox, they usually cut very well out of the box.
Lots of good advice already posted.
 
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