sharpening a carving axe

[heath]

Just sharpened up my new Stefan Ronnqvist axe and was wondering how you folks do it. Do you take the axe to the stones or do you take the stones to the axe? I have to admit that up until now I haven't really sharpened my carving axe, preferring to just strop it regularly and all the other axes have been pretty much general purpose so I've put a convex grind on them. So just wondering how you do it, what do you use etc.

 

[robin wood]

It depends on what I have with me at the time I want to sharpen. My favourite is old worn down and broken waterstones which I use taking moving stone to static axe. If I have large stones I tend to use moving axe on static stone. Emery paper stuck to ply works very well for axes and again used moving over static axe.

 

[heath]

It depends on what I have with me at the time I want to sharpen. My favourite is old worn down and broken waterstones which I use taking moving stone to static axe. If I have large stones I tend to use moving axe on static stone. Emery paper stuck to ply works very well for axes and again used moving over static axe.

Thanks Robin, do you work in a circular motion or from edge to back as you would with a file?

 

[robin wood]

There is no right or wrong though working toward the edge is potentially dangerous unless you have some sort of stop eg arm comes up against ribcage before fingers touch edge. My chosen method generally if taking stone to axe is to run the stone back and forth along the edge in a sort of radius pivoting from the elbow, this gives similar radius to the curve of the edge covering the whole of the bevel in one go. Running from back to edge or edge to back is more likely to result in a series of small flats if you are not careful.

 

[heath]

There is no right or wrong though working toward the edge is potentially dangerous unless you have some sort of stop eg arm comes up against ribcage before fingers touch edge. My chosen method generally if taking stone to axe is to run the stone back and forth along the edge in a sort of radius pivoting from the elbow, this gives similar radius to the curve of the edge covering the whole of the bevel in one go. Running from back to edge or edge to back is more likely to result in a series of small flats if you are not careful.

That's really interesting, it had never even crossed my mind to do it that way. So have i got this right? Please forgive my terrible drawing

 

[robin wood]

Yep that's the way I do it, back and forth. I start with the stone riding on the back of the bevel and gradually tilt it forward until I can see I am hitting the full width of the bevel all the way along and getting down to the edge, once I hit the edge all the way along I give it ten or so more strokes (because experience says that when you think by eye you have hit the edge under the microscope you are not quite there yet) Then do the other side and repeat with fine stone, then repeat with piece of MDF coated with autosol, shaving sharp in second.

 

[heath]

Yep that's the way I do it, back and forth. I start with the stone riding on the back of the bevel and gradually tilt it forward until I can see I am hitting the full width of the bevel all the way along and getting down to the edge, once I hit the edge all the way along I give it ten or so more strokes (because experience says that when you think by eye you have hit the edge under the microscope you are not quite there yet) Then do the other side and repeat with fine stone, then repeat with piece of MDF coated with autosol, shaving sharp in second.

So is your MDF stage the same as stropping?

 

[robin wood]

It depends what you call stropping. There is the waving a knife on a piece of floppy leather that some folk do which I never really understood. I suspect it comes from old time stuff when we had few fine stones and so always ended sharpening with very fine burrs which were removed by the leather. Then there is using abrasive compound on a strop which is very much the equivalent of what I am doing. The difference is the amount of give in the substrate. unsupported leather eg a belt will round the edge radically. Soft leather on a wooden backing will round the edge quite a bit. Hard leather on a board will give just a tiny microbevel strengthening the edge without changing the geometry too much so it still carves well. The MDF has just the right amount of give in it to give you this microscopic microbevel, it's more like using an extra extra fine stone. I use autosol on MDF as an alternative to my Shapton 16,000 glass stone or ultra fine natural Japanese waterstone that I finish knives on. I don't like to use those fine stones on axes as it wears unevenly and needs cutting back to flatten them before using again for knives and they are expensive.

 

[heath]

It depends what you call stropping. There is the waving a knife on a piece of floppy leather that some folk do which I never really understood. I suspect it comes from old time stuff when we had few fine stones and so always ended sharpening with very fine burrs which were removed by the leather. Then there is using abrasive compound on a strop which is very much the equivalent of what I am doing. The difference is the amount of give in the substrate. unsupported leather eg a belt will round the edge radically. Soft leather on a wooden backing will round the edge quite a bit. Hard leather on a board will give just a tiny microbevel strengthening the edge without changing the geometry too much so it still carves well. The MDF has just the right amount of give in it to give you this microscopic microbevel, it's more like using an extra extra fine stone. I use autosol on MDF as an alternative to my Shapton 16,000 glass stone or ultra fine natural Japanese waterstone that I finish knives on. I don't like to use those fine stones on axes as it wears unevenly and needs cutting back to flatten them before using again for knives and they are expensive.

This is great Robin, very useful. I've always used some pretty hard leather on a block of wood and it's worked quite well for me, but i'm excited about trying the MDF.

 

[ToneWood]

Ditto. We've just been discussing using autosol on wood as a strop here: http://www.bodgers.org.uk/bb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2734&p=23206#p23206 so wonderful to see that Robin's insight already posted here, he beat us to it!

BTW Autosol has recently become v. expensive in Britain, perhaps because it is no longer made here. It's not special IMHO and apparently Aldi sell a similar product for £1. More info. at: http://www.bodgers.org.uk/bb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2745&p=23403#p23403