- Joined
- Jul 13, 2011
- Messages
- 2,090
Today, on my way home from work I found the perfect candidate for an experiment: a broken piece of concrete sidewalk pavement lying in a ditch. There have been several threads here recently asking about what equipment to buy in order to get a sharp edge. I consider an edge that push-cuts newspaper to be very sharp, and that is my general standard for sharpness. An edge that push-cuts newspaper will also shave hair easily. In this video, I sharpen a cheap pocket knife from a dull factory edge to a push cutting edge using only the following:
Piece of concrete sidewalk pavement ($0.00)
Ikea coffee cup ($0.00)
Old newspaper taken from my office lobby ($0.00)
Old pair of jeans ($0.00)
With the right skill, even something as crude as a broken brick is all you need. The nicer stones just make the process faster, smoother, more accurate, and more enjoyable, for sure, and I do prefer my nice, expensive water stones. But they all do the same thing -- whether its a free brick you find on the side of the road or a $5,000 natural Japanese water stone -- they make an edge keen. Granted, a natural Japanese water stone will put a much nicer edge on.
Even though this is a demonstration, this is actually the first time Ive tested this concept. Ive never sharpened with a reclaimed brick before. The brick was in such bad shape, I had to wash it in the dishwasher and flatten it first. (Note: You can flatten a brick by rubbing it in circles in a wax on, wax off motion on a concrete or brick floor) You always want to do this with reclaimed material because you want to avoid objects imbedded in the material from sticking out and damaging the edge you are trying to create. I used my DMT XXC stone to do the flattening because it was late at night when I got home, and I live in the city and didnt want to make a racket outside (or get arrested for being a weirdo).
I had originally intended to start with the reclaimed brick and move up to the rim of the ceramic coffee cup, but upon inspection after working on the coffee cup for a while, I sadly discovered that the coffee cup ceramic was actually coarser than the brick and left a coarser scratch pattern! Thats one issue with using unknown materials; estimating grit size can be a challenge. So I had to go back to the brick. But at the end of it all, the result was the same: a clean, keen edge. I finished stropping on newsprint and some old jeans.
Cheers,
Mag
I am uploading this before the video is fully processed, so if it is not available yet, please check back later:
[youtube]xzlvFjoW8IY[/youtube]
Piece of concrete sidewalk pavement ($0.00)
Ikea coffee cup ($0.00)
Old newspaper taken from my office lobby ($0.00)
Old pair of jeans ($0.00)
With the right skill, even something as crude as a broken brick is all you need. The nicer stones just make the process faster, smoother, more accurate, and more enjoyable, for sure, and I do prefer my nice, expensive water stones. But they all do the same thing -- whether its a free brick you find on the side of the road or a $5,000 natural Japanese water stone -- they make an edge keen. Granted, a natural Japanese water stone will put a much nicer edge on.
Even though this is a demonstration, this is actually the first time Ive tested this concept. Ive never sharpened with a reclaimed brick before. The brick was in such bad shape, I had to wash it in the dishwasher and flatten it first. (Note: You can flatten a brick by rubbing it in circles in a wax on, wax off motion on a concrete or brick floor) You always want to do this with reclaimed material because you want to avoid objects imbedded in the material from sticking out and damaging the edge you are trying to create. I used my DMT XXC stone to do the flattening because it was late at night when I got home, and I live in the city and didnt want to make a racket outside (or get arrested for being a weirdo).
I had originally intended to start with the reclaimed brick and move up to the rim of the ceramic coffee cup, but upon inspection after working on the coffee cup for a while, I sadly discovered that the coffee cup ceramic was actually coarser than the brick and left a coarser scratch pattern! Thats one issue with using unknown materials; estimating grit size can be a challenge. So I had to go back to the brick. But at the end of it all, the result was the same: a clean, keen edge. I finished stropping on newsprint and some old jeans.
Cheers,
Mag
I am uploading this before the video is fully processed, so if it is not available yet, please check back later:
[youtube]xzlvFjoW8IY[/youtube]
I like the way you set the cardboard box up and used the folded corner, which made a nice, straight, hard edge to work with. Very clever. Ill try that next time Im on vacation! 
