Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Sharpening question

I have no problem sharpening my own knives, but friends bring me ones that stump me. The knives are sound, but the edge is horrible. Where do I start? How do I continue? It some time seems like I should start with a file or grinder. From a time standpoint normal coarse stone is almost useless as a starting point.

Without knowing any details, I would get one of these in coarse grit......

https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/Norton-Crystolon-Bench-Stone-8-x-3-P24C206.aspx

Use oil on it like God and Norton intended.....don't be a metrosexual and try to use dish soap or water. I like mineral oil from the drug store or wally world, but you can use a commercial honing oil, WD-40 or 3 in 1 whatever. These stones come pre-oiled and if you use water on them they just clog up.

In the unlikely event that a coarse silicon carbide stone won't do the job, obtain some silicon carbide powder that is sold to people as "lapidary compound". I think they use it to polish rocks. Get some somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 grit. Here is an example....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/5lb-of-60-90-Coarse-Rock-Tumbling-Grit-Silicon-Carbide-Polish-for-Lapidary-use/352309569865?epid=532140474&hash=item5207496949:g:Gj0AAOSwN7pal6LR

Get the stone all oiled up and sprinkle some of that stuff on it, creating a slurry. Proceed with sharpening.

You should be able to get pretty much any blade in shape that way, it should not take long, and then you can proceed to refine it on whatever stones you use now.

Diamond is the hardest substance on earth at 10 on the Mohs scale but SIC is right there at 9.5 and is a lot cheaper.....should cut any knife steel with no problem. You can use it for situations like you describe where someone hands you a dinged up butter knife to fix/sharpen and not waste your time and nicer abrasives on it.

"These stones come pre-oiled and if you use water on them they just clog up."
Yes, but....

All stones will clog up no matter what you use.
Use whatever lube (water on water stones, oil or...) to flush and clean your stones.
I flood the stone then use an old toothbrush and wipe away with paper towel. Then re-lube the clean stone.
You can use the dirty slurry from the finest stone on a strip of leather for a final strop.

From the OPs comments, I take it you keep your knife edges in good repair.
As noted above for the basket cases your friends hand you, you need to start with a coarser grit till you start to roll the edge.

If you are going to sharpen knives for other people, there are two caveats that you must keep in mind.

Tell them up front that putting the knife in the dishwasher means you will never even consider sharpening it again and it they ask you to you will use it on a place they'd prefer you didn't.

Second, if it's a kitchen knife that says Ecko on the blade it probably isn't worth sharpening because it will go dull if you look at it.

When you can buy wonderful knives made by Chicago Cutlery on ebay for $10, and they make some paring knives that will work very well as hunting knives that are available for <$10.00 frequently there is no excuse for having a [bleep] knife.

If it's the inlaws and you have to do this to keep some peace between you and her, buy them one inexpensive VG-10 blade for Christmas and maybe they'll appreciate it Usually people who need other people to sharpen their knives have little to no appreciation of good knives because they've never used one. If they don't come to appreciate it, at least it will cut your sharpening time down to 1/4 of what it was and it will be easier. Your last alternative is to move to Gwinn. Nobody goes there and nobody comes back.

I don't sharpen other peoples kitchen knives. The two I had in mind were friends hunting knives. I have two stones I use. One is the typical Norton two-sided coarse and fine, and the others is a black Arkansas. One knife was an old Buck fixed blade, and I don't remember what the other was. That Buck was in the worst condition. I worked on it with the coarse stone while sitting around deer camp, but didn't get very far. I honestly think I would have been better off on that one starting with the knife in a vise and using a file.

I had a kid I mentored try to gut his first deer with his knife which was a buck with a huge swept blade with a gut hook and bad, bad dull. He couldn't cut into the skin even a little so I asked for his knife. I put it in my pocket and gave him mine. I also told him if I ever see him in deer camp again with a dull Klingon mating knife bad things would happen. He had a knife like mine inside of a week, and I bought him some butchering knives when he got married.

Get one of those 3 inch square by 8 inch long four sided diamond sharpeners. When you have to do that the next time the coarser diamond grits will reshape the edge in a hurry. I see them regularly for about $10.

MILES,

What happens if you throw them in the dishwasher? Does it damage the edge?



Travis

Takes 30 seconds to sharpen a knife razor sharp. Paper wheels and it's not something for a dumfuck on their first outing

http://sharpeningmadeeasy.com/paper.htm

Yes. The combination of heat, a mildly corrosive detergent and the sprayers knocking them around will wreck the edge in as little as one iteration. The heat detergent and moisture are pretty hard on the scales as well.

I did not know that.

bump...

If you want to save yourself a lot of [bleep] about get yourself a cheap Chinese belt sander and cut the front and sides of it out, then run worn 400 grit belt to sharpen with, I just put an "apple seed" edge on mine.
After you have done that run it across a "Big John Superstick" from Smokey Mountain Knifeworks...throw that stupid bloody wood handle away and mount the 1" ceramic stick in a set of 1" rings and bolt to a piece of angle iron, if you feel the need then you may want to dress the Ceramic stick with a diamond stone to smooth it out and make it finer.

Does about ten knives in ten minutes, shaves hair and edge lasts.


I have been through all the other crap and just couldn't be bothered any more as this does the same job with [bleep] all effort...it is what I settled on when I was usiing knives for my livelihood.






Any of the rest of you don't like what I do then I don't give a [bleep], it works on everything from Randall to stay-sharp.

And to check for flat spots on edge when sharpening just shine an LED light down the edge and any flats will stand out like dogs balls.


Most of the rubbish you see posted is nigh on ridiculous, sharp is not rocket science, and things people use are generally akin to fishing lures, designed to catch the eye and sell [bleep].

What you do is your business, I won't bother posting about this again.

Im a custom knife maker. I also offer custom sharpening for a lot of people. Likewise I make a couple of versions of a broadhead sharpening guide. Im also developing a knife sharpening guide to simplify knife sharpening so people dont have to bring there knives to me. Its clear that the skill set of blade sharpening is a lost art.

I try to explain it to people but their eyes glass over pretty quickly. Its all about the burr and getting down to new metal.

That is a great tip and when I learned of it a few years ago it really helped me sharpen. When I sharpen a knife I will first make a couple of cuts into the stone. This will remove damaged metal from the old edge getting down to "clean metal". It also makes a flat spot all the way down the edge that you can see with a light. I then simply sharpen with roughly equal strokes per side until the flat disappears, checking it with either a strong lamp or outside with sunlight as I go. This answered a question I always had.....when do I stop? I used to stop when I felt like it but now I stop when the apex of the edge no longer reflects light. Another advantage of this method is that you don't create a big burr to one side of the edge that you have to get rid of later.

When the apex does not reflect light, it should be sharp and keen enough to shave and make anyone happy. It really does not matter what tools you use to get there, the principle remains. But if I had dozens of kangaroos to butcher every night like you did, I would certainly use power tools as well. In my case, three or four whitetails a year, a few messes of fish, and my EDC can easily be taken care of with a couple of stones.

Nobody wants you to do chit for them ya poaching liar.

That is one of the first things I told my wife back in the day when we got our first dish washer. I see it all the time with clients that bring me knives to sharpen that have wooden handles all bleached out a cracked. I only have to tell them once about not putting knives in the dish washer. Most folks wait far to long between sharpening sessions and by the time I get the knives back, they are not just dull but they are destroyed with big nicks and chips in the blades. A good poly cutting board will help hold an edge better as well rather than cutting on a glass cutting board or granite counter tops.

That’s a good idea!

Blades that are badly damaged will first need to have the primary bevel restored before they will work well, and that task is better accomplished with something more aggressive than a coarse stone.

A grinder is one option but can be awkward to work with and easy to burn the edge unless you have good skills, and the edge will be hollow ground. A file is a reasonable choice and coarse diamond stones can work as well.

But the quickest way to put a clean bevel on a damaged blade is a belt sander.

A 1" vertical bench top model is a good option. They are easy to work with and cut fast... 30 seconds on the belt sander is equivalent to a half hour with a coarse stone, and easier to control the angle. A quick change over to a leather belt to finish-up with a razor sharp strop edge.

I routinely re-profile blades that are damaged or were not optimized from the factory and It just takes a minute or two. Once a blade is correctly profiled it won't need to touch the grinder or even the coarse stone for a long time if the edge is properly cared for.

It took me more time to type this than it actually takes to do it.

That and magnifying machinists goggles to inspect your work.