Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Knife Sharpening

renegade50
What kind of steel and hardness you sharpening on a soft dry stone??????

Already posted about the gist of it all, and about Buck 110,s which take an excellent edge.
Also have a 119 and a gerber dirk.
The 119 takes a razor edge but ya gotta use pressure to get hair.
The gerber dirk is probably super sharp to the average person, it can take a few hairs with alot of pressure.

Whatever they use for metalurgy.
Im sure someone can chime in about the science of the metal.
IDC.
Other answers below to your post which have been hit on previously.
Stone has spit on it when I use it.
It's a medium hard white and black speckled arkansas bought in 1985.

It's all about feel thru the blade.
If your wearing in a stone to where it has a curve into it.
Or see a blade line starting to curve in.

IMO your sanding/ grinding a blade with too much pressure and a really bad angle.
Or have a inferior stone or inferior metal in your knife/stone combo.

When what you should be seeking is a continuous unbroken readable angled edge with no dark spots or light refractions when held up to a light source.
Reading the pool of greyish blackish residue while sharpening will tell you things about the progress of your session also from start to finish.
Black line residue off the blade edge on the stone.
Small C shaped line residue off the edge of the blade on the stone
Transistion from start to finish of session of the color of the residue from dark to very light.
All while being worked.
Stroping a blade to get rid of the micro curl/burr on it from sharpening is important also.

Everyone has their ways of doing things and what works for them.


JMO....

Most knives just need to be steeled for 30 seconds, or stroped if you have one handy, crock sticks. No need to take metal off every time it gets a bit dull.

30 seconds on a rada and 30 seconds with a steel will be hair shaving sharp, steel frequently after that until you need to take the relief back again.

Butcher's know what they're doing... steel...

Kent

That Rada tool is tough on a blade. Butchers use inexpensive knives that they dispose of when the blade is wiped away from a tool like the Rada. I wouldn't put a nice blade through that thing.

I have butcher knives over 100 years old, the handles are beat to chit, the blades were sent to professional 'grinders' that take the angle way back and it's not pretty, those blades are still good and would last another 100 years. They grind the blades back to keep the blade so they can steel over and over again and only send them in for grinding each year.

Anytime you use any 'sharpener' you take metal off, it's physics. You don't need to reangle or cut the relief back as soon as the knife starts getting dull... steel it back straight, I mean you could use a super smooth stone and straighten it back without taking metal off, but a steel is easier for the same thing, as is a strop.

But most start with a coarse stone, taking off metal, then work to a smooth every time, so what's the difference?

Steel,steel,steel,steel... learn that, cut your relief angle anyway you want when it gets 'blunt', steel in between will save your blade.

I only have working knives and will never wear one out, though I've seen guys that use their knives only a few times, but sharpen them down to nubs with stones.

Kent

When using a wet stone, try assuming the angle is a lot more shallow than you think, because it probably is. Start holding it flat, then raise it gradually till you feel the flat of the edge, then hold it at that angle while you slide the blade across the stone. The motion doesn't matter nearly as much as holding that angle and sweeping the blade across the surface. Do that, and it won't take long before you feel a bite in the edge on your thumb.

Here's the thing about the rada or similar, if you have a 50 buck folder or kitchen knives your wife abuses, once it sets the angle, by pulling it trough and removing metal, it's set. A few swipes by anyone and the knife is fairly sharp immediately. If you are field dressing an elk, it takes a few swipes to reset even it it seems sharp still it isn't and makes a difference, bloody hands and all, 10 seconds and it almost as sharp as if it was steeled.

Constantly changing sharpening gadgets and technique means different angles and removing metal. Pick one and stay with it, but if it's not in your pack in elk canyon and readily usable, meh...

Kent