Sharpening

[C_Claycomb]

FJS90-91, I tend to agree with you! I have played around with hand held ceramic rods, folding diamond hones, Arkansas stones, strops, waterstones and wet-n-dry, and really there isn't much to choose. You can get just as good an edge on a stone, or paper, as you can with some fancy guide. If you learn to sharpen freehand, you can apply that anywhere. If you depend too much on guides, what happens when you need to sharpen without them?

I guess that keeping a perfect angle on a secondary bevel can benefit from a guide, but I think the perfect angle thing is over-rated. If you remove metal right to the edge, and the resulting wedge shape isn't so thick it binds, or thin it bends, it will work. The margins are pretty wide.

In the spirit of bushcraft find a nice simple hone and learn to use it free hand.

 

[jakunen]

And IMNHO, the DC4 from Stuart's lot is THE BEST hand held stone!
Mine turned up Friday and last night I tried it out on my Opinel.
One of next doors cats decided to sneak in and say hello. I missed the stone and now have an interestingly manicured fingernail.
For a pocket size stone that REALLY works and doesn't cost a lot, this one ROCKS!!!!!!!!

(My old army stone is looking very much at home in the rockery.)

 

[Adi007]

And IMNHO, the DC4 from Stuart's lot is THE BEST hand held stone!

I agree ... it gives the best of both worlds ... diamond when you want to remove a lot of material and ceramic for general honing. :biggthump
http://www.tregor.co.uk/dc4.html

 

[Soarn]

I, too, had the same problem. I was able to get a good edge on my knife, but could never get that "razor blade" edge. I was banging my head over and over to as why. This forum thread actually encouraged me to begin looking for ecverything that I could find about sharpening and what were the best tools for doing so.

To make a long story short and "to the point" (pardon the pun) I spent the better part of 2 days "working the edge" of my SAK. Nothing seemed to work for me... UNTIL I went to the "Victorinox" website. I there saw that their reccomendation for the "edge angle" was 15-20 degrees. Well I figured that I would try to see what happened. I have been sharpening my knives at approx 25 - 30 degrees, so I had to get out my sons "cheap" stone that has a heavy and light stone on opposite sides. I ground on the coarse side perhaps 25-30 strokes until I came up with a burr.

I then turned the knife over and ground 25-30 more, evening out the blade. I then turned the stone over and repeated the process on the smoother side. Well here was the trick I found. Perhaps my only problem (along with others) is that I am not a good judge of angles. Instead of holding the stone horizonally like I have always seen others do, I hels it basically vertically while looking down the stone. It was quite easy to see the angle I was working at this way. I finished the knife with 25 or so more strokes on each side on an "Arkansas" (very smooth) stone, and 25 times per side with my ceramic rods. I then "stropped" the blade on the back of my cordaira knife sheath.

The verdict - A razor sharp edge on the knife. So I immediately began with othe knives in my "arsenal" (we have probably 25 or so with my wife's and children's). EVERY blade came out just as sharp as the first. I am a "happy survivalist". Don't know if this will help anyone else, but it worked for me. Try lowering the angle just a little, but not enough to make the edge "weak"

-Soarn

 

[warthog1981]

ive used a DMT diamond hone for years the fold out one with the coarse and fine nice and easy to use and they shapen just about anything
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