Sharpening new or slightly used knife
- Thread starter divebuddydave
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DeadManWalking said:
Great minds think alike.
-Kevin
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- Dec 28, 2002
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HoB - unfortunately, it seems the few knife manufacturers who use A2 tend to run it kind of soft. IIRC, Mission made a selling point out of running theirs at maybe 55-57 Rc, and I think Chris Reeve only a little higher on his A2 blades. I think this is why Jerry Hossom and others have remarked that A2 doesn't have very good edge retention.
I'd love to try a knife that got the same heat treat as Hock's plane blades.
Dave
I'd love to try a knife that got the same heat treat as Hock's plane blades.
Dave
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2001
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- 454
Howdy, Gentlemen...
i haven't "met" any of you on this thread, yet. i usually hang out at the Busse Forum. The Sharpening thread caught my eye.
i make knives in A2 Tool Steel and in D2 Tool Steel, (D2 i keep around 62 Rc, with Triple-Tempering; A2 a bit less.) and haven't gotten them so sharp as to "shave translucent" peelings off oak... So share with us here what their techniques are to do that, if you will.
Thanks!
Clif, always willing to learn more...
i haven't "met" any of you on this thread, yet. i usually hang out at the Busse Forum. The Sharpening thread caught my eye.
i make knives in A2 Tool Steel and in D2 Tool Steel, (D2 i keep around 62 Rc, with Triple-Tempering; A2 a bit less.) and haven't gotten them so sharp as to "shave translucent" peelings off oak... So share with us here what their techniques are to do that, if you will.
Thanks!
Clif, always willing to learn more...
Climber said:
When I refered to "those guys shaving wood" I was refering to woodworker types in general. The secret is super fine grit stones, low sharpening angles, and years of practice to give one the finest polished edge one can get. An edge this fine is not very durable and needs constant attention. One would probably only use such a blade when what you want to do is remove just a whisp of thickness of wood.
In general one can shave wood much thinner with a plane to start with as compared to a freehand blade since a plane lets you set a depth that will stay constant.
Hi Climber,
try the forum at Shaptonstones.com. It is a very small forum, so it won't take you much time to read through the threads. Woodworkers have it in many respects both more difficult and easier to sharpen their tools. First of all, there are a number of jigs that help to maintain bevel angle to less than a degree and none of them really work for knives as knives usually have handle that gets in the way and don't have a straight edge like a chisel or a plane blade, on the other hand, the "woodworking guys" usually have to remove much more material, since they have to hone the entire bevel and have to take care not to round the edge. The rest is basic shapening routine, which in theory is quite simple. Use a very small angle (such as 25 deg included, which might not live all that long cutting hard wood), hone a consistent edge first on a coarse stone (90-220 grid), move up to 700, 2000, 5000 (all approximate numbers) and finish off on a finishing stone (anywere between 6000-30000, yes one 3 with four zeros).
The catch is, that you have to maintain the angle VERY precisely on EVERY stroke and that you have to know when you have honed an edge to the full potential of the grid you are currently working on and when you are ready to transition to the next grid (you shouldn't over hone one a given grid because you are going to build too much of a burr, which, dependend on the steel might not so easy to get rid of [usually steels with high toughness]. You have to cut [hone] the burr away instead of simply breaking it off. Otherwise you have to start over again.) For that reason I personally prefer not to build really a burr at all by changing sides frequently (every 10 strokes and even more often when I think I am getting ready to go to the next finer grid).
So ok, that was the theory, in praxis I have a hard time following my own advice. I practice maintaining an angle free hand, by "shadow" honing on a piece of wood cut to the size of my stones (nothing to screw up) while checking the angle with wedges of wood which I have cut to my preferred angles of 12, 15, 17, and 20 deg. I use these wedges for my actual honing as well. To save a little bit of time, I use the "shortcut" of a micro- (secondary edge-) bevel by honing first on say 15 deg and doing the final polishing at 20 deg. But even more difficult I find to figure out just when exactly to go to the next grid.
For final refinement, I strop only a few strokes on leather with Veritas green (I just want to clean up the edge and try to avoid "drawing out a burr" as I do for my straight razor).
Please note that I am hardly an authority and that there are many guys out there on this forum who have much more experience with sharpening than I do, some of which have already posted on this thread and others were mentioned in this thread. So this post is probably pretty redundant.
Mmmh, long post, sorry.
try the forum at Shaptonstones.com. It is a very small forum, so it won't take you much time to read through the threads. Woodworkers have it in many respects both more difficult and easier to sharpen their tools. First of all, there are a number of jigs that help to maintain bevel angle to less than a degree and none of them really work for knives as knives usually have handle that gets in the way and don't have a straight edge like a chisel or a plane blade, on the other hand, the "woodworking guys" usually have to remove much more material, since they have to hone the entire bevel and have to take care not to round the edge. The rest is basic shapening routine, which in theory is quite simple. Use a very small angle (such as 25 deg included, which might not live all that long cutting hard wood), hone a consistent edge first on a coarse stone (90-220 grid), move up to 700, 2000, 5000 (all approximate numbers) and finish off on a finishing stone (anywere between 6000-30000, yes one 3 with four zeros).
The catch is, that you have to maintain the angle VERY precisely on EVERY stroke and that you have to know when you have honed an edge to the full potential of the grid you are currently working on and when you are ready to transition to the next grid (you shouldn't over hone one a given grid because you are going to build too much of a burr, which, dependend on the steel might not so easy to get rid of [usually steels with high toughness]. You have to cut [hone] the burr away instead of simply breaking it off. Otherwise you have to start over again.) For that reason I personally prefer not to build really a burr at all by changing sides frequently (every 10 strokes and even more often when I think I am getting ready to go to the next finer grid).
So ok, that was the theory, in praxis I have a hard time following my own advice. I practice maintaining an angle free hand, by "shadow" honing on a piece of wood cut to the size of my stones (nothing to screw up) while checking the angle with wedges of wood which I have cut to my preferred angles of 12, 15, 17, and 20 deg. I use these wedges for my actual honing as well. To save a little bit of time, I use the "shortcut" of a micro- (secondary edge-) bevel by honing first on say 15 deg and doing the final polishing at 20 deg. But even more difficult I find to figure out just when exactly to go to the next grid.
For final refinement, I strop only a few strokes on leather with Veritas green (I just want to clean up the edge and try to avoid "drawing out a burr" as I do for my straight razor).
Please note that I am hardly an authority and that there are many guys out there on this forum who have much more experience with sharpening than I do, some of which have already posted on this thread and others were mentioned in this thread. So this post is probably pretty redundant.
Mmmh, long post, sorry.