May need something for setting bevels

T

Thumber

Joined
Dec 8, 2015
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72
I currently have a sharpmaker and 3 japanese water stones (400, 1000, 4000). I use the water stones for my kitchen knives and am learning how to get good edges with them. I would rank myself semi-competent amateur.

The sharpmaker is pretty cool but I see why people say it's a sharp keeper. I just touched up my recovered pm2 (see general about lost pm2 for that drama). Used sharpy to check and went fine until I had a burr, switched sides then UF. Set a 40 micro bevel after with UF then stropped on a leather paddle and its sharper than factory.

All this to say, I need a reliable way to set bevels. I tried touching up some water stone sharpened paring knives on the SM and I struggled. I am assuming I had a convex edge and I wasn't apexing.

Should I add a guided system? Should I just get better with my stones? Do I need a $500+ EP apex or is a lanksy ok?

I can't figure how to get a consistent bevel with the stones. I can get sharp , but not even bevels. Uneven, usually wider on the right side.

Thoughts?
 
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Thumber said:
All this to say, I need a reliable way to set bevels. I tried touching up some water stone sharpened paring knives on the SM and I struggled. I am assuming I had a convex edge and I wasn't apexing.

Should I add a guided system? Should I just get better with my stones? Do I need a $500+ EP apex or is a lanksy ok?

I can't figure how to get a consistent bevel with the stones. I can get sharp , but not even bevels. Uneven, usually wider on the right side.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
even bevels are overrated :) but they're not hard to do with a stone
use a clamp, clamp to knife, rub on stone
use a wedge
wedge on stone, knife on wedge, thats your angle reference
stone on wedge, stone tilted to maintain angle, you keep knife horizontal or vertical
stone against wedge, the stone is the hypotenuse

you can buy these or make these or ... some don't even require making

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jig2.jpg

Midrange-Knife-Sharpening-Jig

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Guided systems are great for setting initial bevels if you want to use a sharpmaker or strop for touch ups. The only problem with the handheld, smaller clamp systems like the lansky/gatco/dmt aligner, is that it's hard to set your own sharpening angle; you have to go with whatever angle you get from the combination of your blade depth in the clamp, and the preset angle slots. The bigger guided systems like the edgepro/kme/wicked edge; allow you to set whatever angle you want, besides some extreme angles.
 
Thumber said:
All this to say, I need a reliable way to set bevels. I tried touching up some water stone sharpened paring knives on the SM and I struggled. I am assuming I had a convex edge and I wasn't apexing.
Click to expand...

It's entirely possible that your bevels from the waterstones are wider (bigger angle) than the SharpMaker's 40 degrees inclusive (20 degrees per side) setting. Or your blades were more dull than you thought. Use the sharpie technique and the reflected light technique can help answer these questions.

I can't figure how to get a consistent bevel with the stones. I can get sharp , but not even bevels. Uneven, usually wider on the right side.
Click to expand...

Uneven bevels on a single side normally means that either your pressure or your angle control aren't consistent. Angle control includes moving the blade as it goes through the curve to follow the curve and maintain the angle.

Wider bevels on one side of the blade might be due to a factory condition. Many blades are delivered with uneven bevel widths from side to side. You have to work these out over time, by spending more time on the shallow side. If this is something you have introduced, it simply means that you are holding the right side lower then the left, as that produces a shallower bevel angle, and a wider bevel.

Most people sharpen with one dominant hand. Usually the right hand, which holds the handle of the knife. That means that as you sharpen the left side of the blade, the spine will be facing you. When you sharpen the right side of the blade, the edge will be facing you. It can take some time to figure out how to hold the same angle in these two positions, because the view looks so different. This is ONE reason that I sharpen with both hands. When I sharpen the left side, I hold the handle in my right hand. When I sharpen the right side, I hold the handle in my left hand. This means that the spine is always facing me, and my view is more consistent. I think it helps, but my bevels are still not perfect. I need work on my left handed side.

You should explore using a two handed stroke also. The most popular version of this is "the Japanese stroke", where you put pressure on the side of the blade with your off hand fingers, as your handle hand moves the blade back and forth on the stone. This technique completely changed my sharpening and increased my control and results DRAMATICALLY. The Japanese stroke is one of the 7 secrets of sharpening.

Brian.
 
The Japanese stroke is one of the 7 secrets of sharpening.

Brian.[/QUOTE]

Brian...now I'm curious. What are the other 6 secrets of sharpening?
 
I don't want to hijack this thread. If you want to discuss the 7 secrets, I should start another thread. These are the secrets according to ME. Not anyone else. They are:

1. Feeling the bevel on the stone.
2. The Japanese stroke.
3. Following the curve of the blade.
4. Observation.
5. Selective grinding.
6. The burr.
7. The coarse stone.

Brian.
 
Good tips. I will look up the Japanese stroke.

One thing I considered was getting two course dmt plates I could clip to the SM stones. The reviews I see on the diamond stones for the SM weren't great.

I touched up the edge on my pm2 last night. First stone work. Just stropping before. The bevels were almost perfectly 30 degrees. Raised a fine Burt on the fine stone, switched sides, proceeded to UF, did same thing. I then put a 40 microbevel on with the UF (about 7 very light passes per side). Stropped on bare leather paddle to finish. It is sharper than the factory edge was. Sharper than anything I have produced to date.
 
bgentry said:
I don't want to hijack this thread. If you want to discuss the 7 secrets, I should start another thread. These are the secrets according to ME. Not anyone else. They are:

1. Feeling the bevel on the stone.
2. The Japanese stroke.
3. Following the curve of the blade.
4. Observation.
5. Selective grinding.
6. The burr.
7. The coarse stone.

Brian.
Click to expand...

:thumbup: This should go into the sticky at the top of the page.
 
That's an interesting technique Brian. I will try it the next time I pull out the water stones. Much thanks
 
Aren't all hand sharpening on stones convex to some degree?

Not sure why anyone should lose sleep over it so long as the general angle is close to where you want it to be.

For the record, I use a belt sander on the slack part to sharpen, so all of my edges are at least slightly convex. I figure your hands would have to be insanely steady to maintain precise angles over multiple strokes.
 
They'll all be convex, but the more precision one can manage at their best, the better their average will be. This can make a big difference in diagnosing warps in the blade, fixing uneven grinds, grinding out damaged regions, getting the job done rapidly, removing burrs. It also comes into play when doing touch-ups on an edge that's been righted with a good level of precision as follow ons will take less time and steel.

Is not essential to making a sharp edge, but it really helps with consistency. A lot of it comes down to the mechanics. There are many ways to get it done, but when it comes to precision that is not dependent on inherent individual skill, the options seem to shrink and this is true of many manual dexterity tasks. Eg Some people can shoot handgun fine using the old Charlie's Angels grip, but is way easier to bring someone up to speed using a straight thumbs-forward grip.
 
I bought a piece of 1x2" PVC molding board at the home store, and used a chop saw to cut guide wedges from it. Works like a charm, and doesn't warp with water or oil. I just used the angle guide on the saw. Checked it later with a protractor, and most of them are dead on, a few are +\- one degree. Big deal. I have everything from 6 deg for carving knives up to 20 deg. I use 15 most often. Just be sure you rest the blade on the wedge on the ricasso, NOT the primary blade grind. Otherwise, you'll be adding several degrees, enough to make a difference.
 
bgentry said:
I don't want to hijack this thread. If you want to discuss the 7 secrets, I should start another thread. These are the secrets according to ME. Not anyone else. They are:

1. Feeling the bevel on the stone.
2. The Japanese stroke.
3. Following the curve of the blade.
4. Observation.
5. Selective grinding.
6. The burr.
7. The coarse stone.

Brian.
Click to expand...
All sound interesting so please start another thread and post the link here.
Thank you.
 
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