Knife sharpening

  • Thread starter Thread starter Floyd Eye
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Floyd Eye

Floyd Eye

Well-known member
So we've all seen or tried the little pocket sharpeners and/or electric sharpeners. Some I know even use belt sanders. My dad was a butcher his whole life and while I learned at a very young age how to butcher a deer I never paid attention to him when he was sharpening his knives. Now he's a very old man and sadly in the beginning stage of dementia. A few years ago he gave me all his cool stuff, including knife sharpening paraphanalia. Steels, stones and a super sweet Japanese water stone. Maybe a year ago I began teaching myself how to correctly sharpen a blade. All of those other sharpeners I mentioned and the belt sander are the INCORRECT way to sharpen a blade. I have it down pretty good now. It took time to learn. A year in my case, but I am kinda stupid. I started out with crappy little knives and I learned that shitty Chinese steel is generally pretty difficult to sharpen compared to a good blade. I also learned that it is nearly impossible to actually "Ruin" a knife unless you do it on purpose. Angle is important, but not as important as you think. And you can almost always get the angle back if you do fuck one up. A steel is a great thing, as is a strop. 90% of the time when you think your knife is dull, it doesn't need to be sharpened, it needs the edge put back on it.

Any other knife guys around ? Being fairly new to it I'm always interested in learning new things.
 
I’m I knife guy. I like collecting, and I also like good kitchen stuff.

There’s a mobile knife sharpening guy I used to use, he’d just pull up in the driveway and go to town and I swear I felt like I was ripping him off every time I got the bill it was so cheap.

Here are a few goodies:

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Floyd I said:
That's a hell of a nice collection brother.
Click to expand...

Thank you sir. Yes, there was a store here that carried all the good stuff and any time the got done thing in well it was hard to resist.

I’m spoiled with those Chroma kitchen knives too, nothing else feels good in my hand anymore.
 
I like to use a simple Lansky system or a Work Sharp Ken Onion. Eventually I will learn/practice how to whetstone sharpen, but for now I don't have complaints on how I get my blades sharp. I EDC knives with good steel too (Benchmade, ZT, etc), so the downside is it takes more time to sharpen knives with a good HRC
 
sahlomonic said:
I like to use a simple Lansky system or a Work Sharp Ken Onion. Eventually I will learn/practice how to whetstone sharpen, but for now I don't have complaints on how I get my blades sharp. I EDC knives with good steel too (Benchmade, ZT, etc), so the downside is it takes more time to sharpen knives with a good HRC
Click to expand...
I've always been afraid to try those automatic systems. Not that most of what I have is too good for it I suppose. My collection is meager, especially compared to the one up there. I have a few nice ones but mostly I have cheap $100 autos and duffel bags full of whatever I have picked up over the last 45 years of my life.
 
DemNuts said:
Good enough they cut paper easy. Not as ridiculous as a wet stone can get.

Couldn't be easier. They also make a few for less than this.

Wusthof
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I have a little hand held job similar to this. It’s ok in a pinch, like in the field.
 
Floyd I said:
I have a little hand held job similar to this. It’s ok in a pinch, like in the field.
Click to expand...
Hand jobs are always ok in a pinch. :p

Here's my initial thought on pull through sharpeners - and I may be totally wrong about this:
It's only 1 set angle to work with. Each knife can have different blade thicknesses and edge angles, and some are personal preference after you get them sharp yourself. If the pull through sharpener is lets say 15 deg, then its impossible to sharpen a knife with let's say a wider 25 deg angle. Geometry just won't allow it to happen unless you remove lots of material for quite a long time and reprofile the edge. I'd think in some cases you'd wear out the sharpener before even getting to the tip of the blade edge to actually sharpen it.

Exaggerated example I drew up in CAD. Red is cross section of the blade pulling through the white lines that represent the pull through sharpener:
1.jpg
 
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sahlomonic said:
Hand jobs are always ok in a pinch. :p
Click to expand...

(y)

Which CAD program.
SolidWorks and AutoCad here.

I anticipated what you've noted so made sure to buy a Wusthof pull thru since that what I use for kitchen knives.
 
DemNuts said:
(y)

Which CAD program.
SolidWorks and AutoCad here.

I anticipated what you've noted so made sure to buy a Wusthof pull thru since that what I use for kitchen knives.
Click to expand...
AutoCAD LT and a stripped down Solidworks embedded in a proprietary nesting program. We do laser cut steel parts. Here in a few months we'll have a press brake to do some 2nd phase fab.
 
I was a butcher for a decent amount of time and learned how to sharpen my knives and when/how to use a steel. I don't have a huge collection of knives, just 5 that I use frequently from various different brands. My nicest knife is a Shun santoku, which is a treat to use. There's nothing better than a nice sharp knife in the kitchen, I just picked up a Spyderco Yojumbo as my EDC. I'm excited for that one to show up, things can get a little hairy sometimes in the places I frequent and I am not at the point where I want a gun just yet.
 
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