Sharpening technique?

[matjaz]

Reading just the textual or still picture tutorials on edge sharpening, I created a rough mental picture of the process and used it on my Frost 780.
But then seeing this movie http://forums.outdoors-magazine.com/viewtopic.php?t=679 surprised me, since the guy covers the entire bevel along the blade in each pass.
With a short blade and a wide stone, it can be done. What about a long blade / narrow stone? Would you go with the same approach (forced to go a bit sideways, in a slicing fashion) or should one then take the blade a section at a time, sticking to strictly shave-style straight motion and just take more passes to cover it all?
cheers, M.

 

[C_Claycomb]

Use a slicing action. Aim to get the whole edge over the stone at one go. The video clip was only really showing how to lift the handle so that the stone remains in contact with the belly (curve) of the blade. It wasn't a complete "how to" for sharpening a Scandi-ground blade.

I don't have any really big knives, but I regularly sharpen edges up to 6.5 inches with narrow, 1 inch wide DMT hones, its not hard to wipe the whole edge (or nearly all of it) across in one pass. There will be a point when you might have to change technique, but its going to be for blades beyond 8 inches long. I would still wipe the edge, tackling just one narrow section at a time is asking to wear away some bits of blade more than others.

 

[Longstrider]

Hi Matjaz, Others might think differently, but my sharpening technique is to always have the stone travel on a slight diagonal to the edge. This not only helps you to keep an eye on the edge as you work on it, but prevents the edge of the stone putting a pit in the edgeof ther blade. The straight "shaving" action with a blade longer than the stone is wide will almost inevitably lead to the edge of the stone cutting a divot in the edge of the blade. A straight action is fine for things like chisels and plane blades that are narrower than the stone, but should, in my opinion, not be used for knives. The sort of action that is shown in the video would work well, as would working along the length of the edge slowly but always with a slight diagonal movement. Hope this helps.

 

[matjaz]

Thanks, Chris and Longstrider, that was very reassuring. I find it a bit more difficult this way, because I need much better coordination to keep it flat on the stone, but I'm giving it a try regularly!
But it does feel better and I must say it also looks more optically pleasing when I hold the bevel against the light - let's face it, we do like that smooth line of shine .

cheers,
M.