Morax,
I think we said the same thing - a motorized whetstone is ok to use on blades. A grinder turns too fast and has no coolant - the Motorized whetstone runs slow and has either a coolant bath or a stream of coolant (or both). I don't call that a grinder.
As far as angles go, I was talking about blade angles not the angles that the Lansky can be used for. My own system is home built and I do more 10 degree work than anything else on my own knives. I craft my own knives because I can't afford to buy the kind of custom knives that I like to own. I have my own forges and like to work with steel. I can't do it as much as I used to because of my back but I have a young friend who is interested in learning. I may end up giving him three of my forges and maybe my big anvil. He will make his own tongs and other tools as he learns. He really wants to make swords.... some guys just love to work hard.

I use a lansky knife sharpener kit for most things. Sometimes we take them into a cutlery shop that sharpens knives for restraunts... those things come out dangerously sharp!


-DallanC

Those commercial places do a good job. I take my kitchen cutlery in every five years to have them sharpened. Last time they wanted to know if I wanted to keep the same angle on them - when I said no, they only carged me for one knife because they thought my edge was at least as good as they could do. That cutlery is going to last forever at that rate.

Morax wrote:

wow a real purist there huh..... you say you do it by feel for the degree, how long did it take for you to master the feel for it, and also about how long does it take for you to do one? i have that western hatchet that o do by hand, using a small (I am guessing) arkansaw stone and oil, and to get it to shave takes me about 5 minutes, but first hone it took a good couple hours...

Not really a purist mate, just an average bloke. I never had a "system" that would measure the angle for me, and 15-20 deg is fairly easy to estimate, so I basically taught myself how to sharpen a knife. I have the nack of looking along the edge to see if they are both even and pretty much the same angle.

I suppose it took me, realistically, a couple of years to not have to think about the angles when I sharpen a knife. I now automatically place my thumb on the back edge of the blade, just touching the stone, and "feel" the angle when honing the blade away from me and place my forefinger on the back edge of the blade, again just touching the stone, to "feel" the angle when honing the other side towards me.

I have spent some time on the net reading up on knife sharpening and find that I have picked up some good tips, but overall I have been doing things fairly well.....well enough to have my daughter (a qualified Chef) and a number of the Chefs she works with ask me to do their knives for them. Must be doing something right.

The time it takes to bring up the edge depends on the condition of the edge to start off with. If the edge is very blunt then I give it a workout on the man made Carborundum stone and that brings it into line fairly quickly. Once I have done that I clean up the edge with a steel then I hone it on the Arkansas Stone. I suppose I can bring a blunt knife to the point where it will shave hair easily in about 5-10 minutes. If the knife has a fairly good edge to start off it only takes a few minutes. I am never satisfied with an edge....I will even "sharpen" sharp knives just for the hell of it.

SavageRuger wrote:

Vince, Without worrying about the angle; do you find you get a really sharp cutting edge? I only ask this because I have used stones but for some reason cannot get the same results as my local sharpening shop. For a $1.50 they give me a blade that can easily slice paper and I have a hell of a time trying to duplicate the same with a stone.

I get a very sharp edge every time....I don't stop honing till I do. If I find that it is taking longer than it should then I stop, have a look at the blade and if need be start again. Slicing paper isn't a bad test of an edge, but it doesn't always prove much and I don't believe that it does the edge any good.

You will probably find that your sharpening shop uses a motorised stone. I remember watching a guy sharpening knives at a market some years back and he had a pink coloured stone and a whitish stone (Arkansas I think) that both measured about 6" in diameter and about 6" wide. They rotated fairly slowly, 60-90 rpm from memory, using water as a lubricant. The machine had a clamp that held the blade at a set angle. He would slowly move the blade back and forth across the stone. He would check the edge periodically and when satisfied the would polish the edge on a hard fine stone, Arkansas again I think. His edges were extrordinary. Don't know how long they lasted though as I never had him do one of my knives. Another guy I saw would use only diamond "stones". They were flat pieces of metal impregnated with varying grades of diamonds. He always finished his edge on a minimum of 6400 grade diamond and again his edges were brilliant. Personally I don't like diamond because they can be very aggressive and take off a lot of metal.

Have a look on the net for articles on sharpening, there are plenty out there. Here is one to get you started:

Knife Maintenance and Sharpening

To me knife sharpening is not a chore.....it is like reloading, an enjoyable past-time. It is not uncommon to find me sitting in front of tv surrounded by knives and sharpening implements merrily honing away to my hearts content. I really enjoy doing it, although I'm not allowed to do it when my wife is there; she hates the "whisk" sounds of the blade on the steel.

Cheers, Vince

Well you can grind on a dry normal grinder knifes without losing the tempur of the metal as long as your careful. Its alot like grinding HSS, just keep it cool by dunking it in water alot and it generally is ok in my experance.

Dimitri

Thats ok Dimitri, I will stick to using fine stones to get knives sharp.
A lot like politics and religion - each has his own way and as long as it gets him where he's going then it's ok by me - not necessarily FOR me but by me.

I use Ezy-Lap Diamond stone both on field and at home.
Been using it for a long time already, and like Vince did, I find that
the more you do it, the better you could do it with the angle and
sharpness.

I am one of those knife nuts, have a specific knife for every use and sharpen or straighten every edge before use. X-father in-law was a meat cutter who owned a meat market. Taught me about knives and sharpening. I use Dexter Russell knives, same as just about every commercial meat processor. I have a triangle oil stone set (3 grades of stone in one block with an oil bath at bottom of holder), a motorized triple cutter whet stone, a sharpening steel, a straightening steel, a triangular two piece ceramic stone setup, a ceramic steel and a neat little diamond steel rod set in a plastic holder. I use all of the items at times. But 90% of the time I use a big sharpening steel and just go to the learned hand/blade positions.

When we have visitors that want to help in the kitchen, a warning goes first, before they put a knife in hand, be careful with the knives of the house, they are sharp.

On a gut hook, see attached site:
www.dmtsharp.com/produ...linary.htm
Ed

I used a two Arkansas stone set for years, with a drop of light machine or mineral oil. but it disappeared when I moved a couple years ago. I recently bought a diamond sharpener and I go very very light with it, barely touch the blade to the stone. I'm with Vince, I kind of feel for the angle, different kinves were honed differently at their respective manufacturers right? Recently sharpened my cheap ass little Winchester pocket knife to where I could throw a piece of letter sized paper in the air and split it on the way down (the hard part was hitting the paper when it was floating all over the place, do not attempt this with other people anywhere near by LOL) anyway I figured that was about sharp enough.

I'm still wanting to go back to the Arkansas stone system though, I think over time those diamonds will take too much off of the knife.

I find knife sharpening kind of therapeutic. When I've had a crappy day I'll go sit in a quiet corner and sharpen knives and just kind of zone out. I watched my older brother one time, years ago, sharpen a wood splitting axe til he could shave with it, all he used was a bastard file. I guess that's where I get it from

I use Tracker's wit to sharpen my knives

She has some awfully dull knives

yea will i do work alot with them. speaking of my bowie needs sharpening

Sidenote: if you find yourself in Orlando, a visit to Randall's knives is worthwhile. You can watch the knives being made from start to finish, each process. These are craftsman.

The final phase is the sharpening and they have oil bathed long stones in various grades for the task. It doesn't take long for a fine edge to appear.

They have a little museum, too, that portrays knives from various periods along with styles and non catalog items.

ya know, i lived in south florida for a few years, worked in orlando for a few months, and never knew they were there.. talk about frosting my cookies... now i do know case/zippo is north of me in Bradford, Pa, and it is like a 5 minute walk from my uncles house up there, and i never been there either