MSCantrell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2005
- Messages
- 1,213
Tutorial: Using the Lansky ® Sharpening Kit Effectively
The Lansky kit was my first introduction to sharp knives. I grew up in a dull-knives-only household. We squished our food apart, or reached for the serrated knives to shred things apart. I think I can honestly say I never experienced a sharp knife until college. Now dont laugh, youve all visited places like my house.
Then I decided I wanted to own a pocket knife. Well thats not exactly accurate. I decided that very early on, but my parents werent too excited about it. They never said, NO, YOU SHALL NOT OWN A POCKET KNIFE, but they did make that face that says I dont really like talking about this so Im going to ignore it till you go away.
So in college I remembered that I wanted to own a knife, but now no one was looking! So off I go to Ace Hardware and shell out thirteen hard-earned dollars for a Schrade SP3. Plastic handled lockback, combo-edge... to this day Id call it a pretty good knife. Used it and used it hard all summer long, mostly cutting string for the string trimmer (I was oddjobbing around, and apparently I was the best string trimmer operator in all of Columbia, TN). Never sharpened it. How would I? I had only ever used those pull-through scraping sharpeners! So it got duller and duller until it was hardly useful anymore, a perfectly normal thing for a knife to do in my experience.
Then, for Christmas break between semesters, I went back home to Texas. I got to thinking about gifts. About knives. About sharp knives. So I hopped online and started searching for knife sharpeners. Reviews, testing, ratings, that sort of thing. Discovered Bladeforums. Man, I didnt know what I got myself into. But I digress. I read here that the Lansky kit was fine at $25 or the Sharpmaker was good at $40. Choice was easy: can I spare $25 for something I dont necessarily need? Yeah, I guess, probably. How about $40? Not a chance.
Off I go to the Cheaper Than Dirt store on the north side of Fort Worth, and purchase a brand new Lansky kit. Brought it back home, opened er up, and started sharpening like a madman. After reading the booklet, I thought, Yeah, Id like strong, durable edges on my knives. Ill sharpen at 25 degrees per side. Now believe it or not, I was pretty pleased! These knives cut things! On my Schrade SP3, I decided to kick it up a notch and sharpen at 20 deg per side. Holy crap. I owned a knife that could honest-to-goodness shave arm hairs off. Not pull them out or scrape them off, but really cut them. Where I come from, thats positively MYTHICAL.
For a year or so, I never touched the 17 hole. The instructions say thats for x-acto blades. No good for pocket knives. When I finally tried it, it became obvious that 17 is the right way to go virtually every time.
But I was asked to write an explanation of how I use the Lansky kit. I decided to go one step further and make a tutorial out of it, in case anyone else has the same question and is too shy to ask. Without further ado, heres the technique.
First, this is the basic kit. Three hones, coarse (red), medium (green), and fine (blue). One clamp, with holes labeled 30, 25, 20, and 17. Three rods, all identical, and one bottle of oil.
One question not addressed in the instructions is how do put the rod into the hone? I lay them both flat on the table, then screw it tight. That means the surface of the stone is in line with the rod. Note that you may have to tweak the rods a little- if the elbow isnt 90 degrees, naturally, it wont line up.
Then clamp the blade into the aluminum clamp. For small blades like this Victorinox Secretary, I slide the spine in just to the cutout area. This leaves room for the hone to reach the edge, over the clamp itself. Youll see what I mean in a moment.
One problem you can run into is that the hone wont hit the edge. Either the rod bumps the red knob as shown below, or the hone hits the aluminum clamp itself. Notice how the clamp is clamped. Nice, even distance between the upper half and the lower half. Looks good, but causes problems, as you can see.
The solution? Just spread them a little farther apart. If you can see in the picture, now the hone hits the edge and the rod no longer hits the knob. To do this, first you loosen the red knob. Then you unscrew the metal screw, probably a half turn. Maybe just a quarter turn. Then you retighten the red knob. Easy as that.
Next, a dollop of oil on the hone. How much is a dollop? About this much.
The Lansky kit was my first introduction to sharp knives. I grew up in a dull-knives-only household. We squished our food apart, or reached for the serrated knives to shred things apart. I think I can honestly say I never experienced a sharp knife until college. Now dont laugh, youve all visited places like my house.
Then I decided I wanted to own a pocket knife. Well thats not exactly accurate. I decided that very early on, but my parents werent too excited about it. They never said, NO, YOU SHALL NOT OWN A POCKET KNIFE, but they did make that face that says I dont really like talking about this so Im going to ignore it till you go away.
So in college I remembered that I wanted to own a knife, but now no one was looking! So off I go to Ace Hardware and shell out thirteen hard-earned dollars for a Schrade SP3. Plastic handled lockback, combo-edge... to this day Id call it a pretty good knife. Used it and used it hard all summer long, mostly cutting string for the string trimmer (I was oddjobbing around, and apparently I was the best string trimmer operator in all of Columbia, TN). Never sharpened it. How would I? I had only ever used those pull-through scraping sharpeners! So it got duller and duller until it was hardly useful anymore, a perfectly normal thing for a knife to do in my experience.
Then, for Christmas break between semesters, I went back home to Texas. I got to thinking about gifts. About knives. About sharp knives. So I hopped online and started searching for knife sharpeners. Reviews, testing, ratings, that sort of thing. Discovered Bladeforums. Man, I didnt know what I got myself into. But I digress. I read here that the Lansky kit was fine at $25 or the Sharpmaker was good at $40. Choice was easy: can I spare $25 for something I dont necessarily need? Yeah, I guess, probably. How about $40? Not a chance.
Off I go to the Cheaper Than Dirt store on the north side of Fort Worth, and purchase a brand new Lansky kit. Brought it back home, opened er up, and started sharpening like a madman. After reading the booklet, I thought, Yeah, Id like strong, durable edges on my knives. Ill sharpen at 25 degrees per side. Now believe it or not, I was pretty pleased! These knives cut things! On my Schrade SP3, I decided to kick it up a notch and sharpen at 20 deg per side. Holy crap. I owned a knife that could honest-to-goodness shave arm hairs off. Not pull them out or scrape them off, but really cut them. Where I come from, thats positively MYTHICAL.
For a year or so, I never touched the 17 hole. The instructions say thats for x-acto blades. No good for pocket knives. When I finally tried it, it became obvious that 17 is the right way to go virtually every time.
But I was asked to write an explanation of how I use the Lansky kit. I decided to go one step further and make a tutorial out of it, in case anyone else has the same question and is too shy to ask. Without further ado, heres the technique.
First, this is the basic kit. Three hones, coarse (red), medium (green), and fine (blue). One clamp, with holes labeled 30, 25, 20, and 17. Three rods, all identical, and one bottle of oil.
One question not addressed in the instructions is how do put the rod into the hone? I lay them both flat on the table, then screw it tight. That means the surface of the stone is in line with the rod. Note that you may have to tweak the rods a little- if the elbow isnt 90 degrees, naturally, it wont line up.
Then clamp the blade into the aluminum clamp. For small blades like this Victorinox Secretary, I slide the spine in just to the cutout area. This leaves room for the hone to reach the edge, over the clamp itself. Youll see what I mean in a moment.
One problem you can run into is that the hone wont hit the edge. Either the rod bumps the red knob as shown below, or the hone hits the aluminum clamp itself. Notice how the clamp is clamped. Nice, even distance between the upper half and the lower half. Looks good, but causes problems, as you can see.
The solution? Just spread them a little farther apart. If you can see in the picture, now the hone hits the edge and the rod no longer hits the knob. To do this, first you loosen the red knob. Then you unscrew the metal screw, probably a half turn. Maybe just a quarter turn. Then you retighten the red knob. Easy as that.
Next, a dollop of oil on the hone. How much is a dollop? About this much.