Just got this (I may have forgotten the spring stoppers), and can't wait to get it out of the box. Any tips? The Venev stones I got are double sided and a little different thickness than the strop stuff. Any issue finding the right stropping angle with the fine tuning adapter? Any thing else I should know?
If you don't have the spring stoppers, just be careful not to run off the end of the stone and scratch your blade or slam into the edge. You can use some small rubber o-rings as stoppers to start with.
Some quick tips to get started :
1 - If you want to keep the angle the same as the factory angle, use a black sharpie to mark the edge and adjust your angle until you grind off the sharpie ink. Measure the angle and take note of it for the rest of your sharpening & future reference. I really recommend
not going with factory angles as they are almost always off. Pick a decent edge angle (depending on the use of the knife) and re-grind the edge to this angle. Initial edge bevel setting / regrinding with your coarse stone will take a while but it's worth doing. For most modern steel knives with good heat treats and for every day use blades used for
slice cutting - go for around 15 degrees sharpening angle per side of the blade. For chopping blades or more hard use edges, go for a higher angle.
2 - Always try to clamp your knives in the same spot - take a photo and keep it as a record for future use. Try to clamp the blade with the heel-to-tip line
approximately perpendicular to your clamps (as far as possible).
3 - Make sure the insides of the clamps are clean, so no grit particles from previous sharpening scratches your knife when clamped. It's normally not necessary if your clamps are clean inside but if you want to be sure not to leave any scratches / scuffs on the blade then use some painters tape on your blade. Make sure the knife is
securely clamped and does not rotate up and down at all inside the clamps. As far as possible, use 1 clamp on the flat ricasso area or a flat part of the landing on the spine if the knife has a flat section. This will stop any up and down rotation of the blade. Use the second clamp closer to the tip (about an inch back) to stop any up & down flex of the blade. If the knife has a thumb stud, remove it if possible or clamp the knife off to one side of the clamp bar so you miss the thumb stud while sharpening.
4 - Use a digital angle cube and
always measure your sharpening angle on the
same side of the blade and in the same spot of the blade and with your stone touching the blade on the same spot.
Make sure the angle cube is perpendicular to the clamps / sharpening plane.
Regular digital angle cubes cannot measure the correct angle if they are angled & rotated at the same time. If at all possible, use the middle of the rotating clamp unit as the line of measurement, not the extreme sides. If you're off to one side for whatever reason (knife clamped off to the side) then make sure the angle cube is perpendicular to the sharpening plane. This is very important. There will almost always be very slight differences in primary bevel angles / clamp asymmetry / bar asymmetry etc. Don't be too overly concerned about the slightly different angle you'll invariably get when measuring the opposite side of the blade.
Don't re-measure and re-adjust the angle every time you flip the clamp bar around or you'll be chasing your own tail down a rabbit hole. I typically always measure my angle with the knife handle facing to my right and with the middle of the stone resting in the centre of the blade. Only ever measure and adjust your sharpening angle using the same consistent spot and same side of the knife.
5 - Use lubrication when sharpening with any stone, even if the manufacturer states it can be used dry. Soapy water works perfectly fine in most cases. Just a couple drops of plain old liquid dish soap and water in a dropper bottle will be fine.
6 - Don't use force when sharpening, just the weight of your hand is already almost too much. When finishing on your final stones and strops - don't use any pressure at all, just the weight of the stone and stone clamp bar is about enough as finishing stokes.
7 - Make sure you grind all the way to the very apex of the edge, especially on your coarse stones when setting a new edge bevel. Check and feel for a burr on the opposite side of the blade. Use a magnifying lens / USB microscope / loupe and a good light source if you want to visually keep and eye on it too.
8 - Don't grind down one side of the edge to much more than the other side, or your edge bevel will be wider on one side than the other side of the blade. This also means your edge will be out of alignment with the centre of the blade. If your edge bevel is smaller on one side of the blade, spend more time with your coarse stone on the narrow side until it is even with the opposite side.
9 - Before swapping stones, flip the knife over to the start point again, slide the burr off with a light pass of the coarse stone and re-measure your angle. Wipe all the previous stone particles and metal swarf off of your blade with a
clean part of a
damp cloth and be careful not to scratch your blade -
loose diamond / abrasive particles wiped over the blade with a dry paper towel can easily scratch your blade. Swap stones to the next finer grit you want to use and adjust the angle to hit the same angle as before. With stones manufactured the "same thickness" - even with diamond plates there will mostly be a tiny difference in stone thickness that will affect your sharpening angle if you don't adjust for it.
10 - After initial bevel setting you won't need too many passes of your finer grit stones when you progress up. The Venev stones cut well and will remove the scratch pattern of the previous stone in no time at all.
11 - At the
end of every stone use and before progressing to the next stone, flip the blade back and forth and do a few
very light push strokes on each side (push strokes / leading edge strokes work well for burr minimisation during progression in my experience). For final finishing - edge trailing does a good job, but for progression and burr minimisation I find edge leading final strokes best.
12 - If for some reason you have a blade that struggles with microscopic edge chipping (and I mean microscopic - only visible under magnification), then raise the sharpening angle by about 0.2-0.5 degrees for the last while of sharpening with your final stone. Using very light strokes and creating a microbevel will often finish up a "challenging" steel quite well. Some people adjust the angle up a fraction every time they go to the next finer stone - this is also worth experimenting with and tends to speed up your sharpening a lot.
13 - Always strop with trailing edge strokes or you'll cut into your strops. When stropping with a soft substrate like leather, its worth dropping the angle lower by a tiny bit (up to 0.5 degrees sometimes) in order not to round the edge. If you're using loaded strops then only do very few light stokes. Start with only 5 strokes or so. If you do too many stokes, your edge could start to dull again.
14 - For an EDC edge, I personally prefer finishing with the Venev F400 grit and no stropping. It leaves a screaming sharp and very "sticky" edge on EDC knives.
15 - When you're done, clean up your Venev stones with a nylon brush / old toothbrush with dish soap and water. Rinse properly and let dry before storing them. After
many sharpening sessions if you feel your stones are starting to load up or drop in performance, then use a conditioning stone to rub over the surface of the stones under running water for a minute or so until the surface is nicely reconditioned and clean again. I find the "King Nagura" #8000 stone works very well for this purpose.
16 - Don't obsess too much about stone "flatness" with your new set of Venev stones. They are good to go just as they are (brand new) and they don't really require any preparation when new. There are a lot of rumours about initial preparation but this has more to do with old generation Venev stones. After hundreds of sessions, you might want to flatten your coarse stone again with some silicon carbide on a flat surface, but it won't be necessary for a long time. Your finer grit stones will likely never need flattening unless you're a professional sharpener using them every day.
Hope this helps!
