Advanced Sharpening Notes
 

Just finished hand sharpening some of our knives that have been out in the "sand" made from the CPM S-30V steel.

Two things, first I use WD-40 on the long Norton Fine India stone clamped onto the bench top, this has previously been stated on this forum but it's very important to note this part:

Stop during sharpening to use more WD-40 to clean the abraded particles out of the stone. This is to keep the stone cutting at the best possible "rate of removal".

While we have some WD-40 on the stone, I observed I was watching the little "wave" of the WD moving along just forward of the edge that was in contact with the stone.

Yes I said that correctly, "observed I was watching".

This is how I tell what part of the curved edge is in contact with the stone and let's me know when to stop at the tip so I don't over sharpen or "round off" the point of the blade.

Mr Harsey-
When can I take your sharpening class(es)? Your insights amaze me, I can keep a blade fairly sharp, but you make them sing...

That is my problem.

I can get the edge right but I round the tips.

I always have to go back and repoint the tip, which is then uneven.

'Course, I don't have one o' them fancy bench stones.

Got plenty of WD-40 though!

TR

Ditto.

I'm starting to make excuses to my girlfriend why I would have to take a pilgrimage to the Northwest that doesn't involve guns or knives.

Bill, there's some great fishing up there, right?

If you get close to this neighborhood, your a welcome guest in the shop and we can work on sharpening.

TR, You need me to find a stone for you?

BrianH, The fishing up here is one reason to keep knives sharp.

I don't know about TR, but THIS GUY needs you to find a stone for him :)

The Sharpening Stone
 

The one single stone I use the most for knife work here is made by Norton and is called the Crystolan/India Combo. It's an eleven inch long double sided stone, medium silicon carbide on one side and fine aluminum oxide on the other.
Current price on this stone from Tru Grit is 36.25 US plus shipping.

If you can't get something sharp with this, you need a belt grinder.

Here's the contact: Tru Grit Inc., (trugrit.com) in Ontario, California.
Phone: 909-923-4116

Tru Grit are great folks and are very good to deal with.
They supply all of Chris Reeve Knives and my grinding belts and other abrasives like stones.

Looking, Seeing
 

One of the subtle problems sharpening any knife, especially the thicker tactical or hard use type blades is that we do a whole lot of sharpening and the knife isn't getting sharp.
Sometimes it's tempting to change the angle to make the knife sharpen out to the edge faster. This can be a mistake because it blunts off the leading edge and this makes the knife not cut as well as it could, and makes it harder for us to maintain a sharp knife in the long run.

Try using some magnification to look and see what part of the edge your working on.

Here is my point, often we don't need to change anything we are doing while sharpening but only need to keep doing the same thing a while longer to get very good results.

Bill:

If I could elaborate afrom an amateur perspective, that angle is one of the reasons that I have suggested carefully marking the sharpened portion of the edge with a Sharpie or some other marker to see how much you are taking off and where.

If as you sharpen, you see the color of the marked edge is not being removed uniformly, you are changing the edge geometry.

On a really good knife that comes sharp, the factory edge is probably where it needs to be to do what the blade is designed for. The edge geometry on an axe will not be the same edge as a machete, or a pocket knife, or a straight razor. Most good sharpeners have the ability to change edge angles to suit the design of the individual piece. It might even have a compound angle, or serrations, which can be a real bear to maintain.

Once you have the right angle for sharpening the individual blade, try to maintain it during the remainder of your sharpening.

HTH.

TR

Advance sharpening notes......................hell, now you reallly want me to hurt myself.

TR,
Your correct about using the magic marker on the edge, this does help.
When sharpening I stop and look for the fresh abrasion marks and have gotten used to "reading" those.

Bam Bam, just trying to help.
The old saying "a dull knife will hurt you worse than a sharp one" wasn't penned by anyone around this shop.

At the risk of....
 

...sounding completely bone (dumb), I use a kitchen devil for knives and on my multitool...it doesn't get a knife or blade razors enough for shaving, but its certainly good enough for government work, and it takes ten seconds to use.
Or would that be like cheating or something?
I'm all for the easy option...

Harsey here, "Lightly edited by me for the delicate ears that may inhabit this place".

[QUOTE=inbredyokel]...sounding completely bone (dumb), I use a kitchen devil for knives and on my multitool...it doesn't get a knife or blade razors enough for shaving, but its certainly good enough for government work, and it takes ten seconds to use.
Or would that be like cheating or something?
I'm all for the easy option...

Good Sir, What is the Kitchen Devil? I may have some thoughts on this.

Its a small knife sharpener I bought in a supermarket from the area that girls buy all of their recreational toys from- you know where you find the rolling pins, irons, cooking utensils and the like.
It has a small U shaped plastic handle with two metal spokes in a cruciform at its top.
It looks a bit like this:

X
U

Hold in left hand, place knife in the point where the metal spokes cross and pull across till satisfied.

I've never had to use more than a few steady strong wrist actions to achieve a good end result. :)

inbredyokel,
I found it via Google. If I'm reading correctly, the actual sharpening surface of the sticks are steel(s)?
Those look good for light touch up work on thin ground blades.