Sharpening knives?

[butcherboy]

I sharpen knives every single day. Well, not really sharpen, it’s more like a touch up. I actually sharpen them about once a week. The rest of the time I just have to touch them up on a medium stone then a fine stone and all day with a polished steel. I like to sharpen knives, fletch arrows, and tie flies. It’s almost therapeutic for me in a way.

 

[mphysgr]

I appreciate this thread, I have never gotten very good at this skill, useful to see the perspectives here.

 

[KChunter71]

@6mm Remington like to sharpen! He also sends bandaids back with the knife.

 

[6mm Remington]

I never could sharpen a knife worth a darn until I got the Lansky guide rod system and after using it and learning the ins and outs I can get edges scary sharp. I really enjoy sharpening knives and it's similar to loading my own hunting rounds. I spend two hours doing it (on multiple knives) and it feels like 20 minutes has gone buy. My wife has become a sharpness queen now and will let me know when our butcher knives or her favorite paring knife needs work. She can't stand a dull knife in her kitchen now!

I sharpen knives on the side to make a few bucks and I enjoy doing it. I get a lot of satisfaction out of folks being extremely satisfied with how sharp their knives are now and saying that they have never been that sharp before, ever!

 

[6mm Remington]

@6mm Remington like to sharpen! He also sends bandaids back with the knife.

There's been more than a few who have been required to use the bandaid after I finished sharpening their knives.

 

[goathunter]

I hate it, and am awful at it. I use a worksharp, which I still don't like to use. But I do like a sharp knife

 

[Dukhtr3]

I hate it too. I like the lanske guide rod but it takes forever. I have a work sharp and edge just doesn't last as long as the lanske. I just bought this hoping to take the forever out of the equation.

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[Idaboy]

I never could sharpen a knife worth a darn until I got the Lansky guide rod system and after using it and learning the ins and outs I can get edges scary sharp. I really enjoy sharpening knives and it's similar to loading my own hunting rounds. I spend two hours doing it (on multiple knives) and it feels like 20 minutes has gone buy. My wife has become a sharpness queen now and will let me know when our butcher knives or her favorite paring knife needs work. She can't stand a dull knife in her kitchen now!

I sharpen knives on the side to make a few bucks and I enjoy doing it. I get a lot of satisfaction out of folks being extremely satisfied with how sharp their knives are now and saying that they have never been that sharp before, ever!

Which Lansky system are you referring to?

 

[fisherman983]

I hate it. It's very time consuming and I'm not very good at it. I dislike dull knives. If I was good at it, and I didn't feel like I was making things worse more often than not, I'd probably enjoy it and speed up in the process

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[Yoder]

I second this.

I hate mine. It always screws up the point and I can never get it as sharp as with a stone.

 

[CB4]

I hated it for the longest time. Then I got a Work Sharp Professional Precision Adjust and it is amazing. Super fast and easy to use.

 

[Speaks]

Don't watch many of his vids anymore but this was worth it for me:

Ive been playing with this method vs the one I had used for years. There was a lot of similarity, focus on full length bur etc, but I was doing push vs pull and tang to tip vs tip to tang. I have been liking this so far.

 

[Choupique]

I have a question for the experts here.

The belt sander style sharpeners do a really good job. They make a convex edge. Seems a steel or stone would make a straight edge. I feel like i have a harder time touching up my belt-sander sharpened blades with a steel than I do the ones that have never seen the sander. Is that in my head or a real thing?

 

[intunegp]

I have a question for the experts here.

The belt sander style sharpeners do a really good job. They make a convex edge. Seems a steel or stone would make a straight edge. I feel like i have a harder time touching up my belt-sander sharpened blades with a steel than I do the ones that have never seen the sander. Is that in my head or a real thing?

You're correct. Steels or stones typically make a very slightly convex edge just due to the human input and motion you're making as you slide across the stone, but typically that would be considered a flat/v edge rather than convex.

If the bevel is set to a convex on a belt sharpener, you'd have to make sure your angle on the stone/steel was high enough to reach the cutting edge rather than higher up on the bevel. If you set your belt sharpener to 20 degrees per side, it wouldn't surprise me to have to go at least a few degrees higher on the stones to touch it up. You could also attempt to rock the blade on the stone to follow the convex.

 

[Undrcoverrednek]

I don’t love sharpening knives but I do like using a sharp knife.

I had/have no desire to spend the time to learn to freehand, depend on someone else for sharpening, or have enough nice knives to keep in rotation between use and being sharpened.

I wanted something that was mobile enough for a truck camp. What I came up with was:

1. A chinese adjustable angle fixture that used the wicked edge style stones.

2. Diamond stone set from Chef Knives to Go. After getting the initial new blade edge with the rough stone, I only ever really have to touch up with the mid stone and then use the polish stone.

3. Piece of leather and some Harbor Freight polishing compound for a strop

I use inexpensive Dexter beef skinning or Victorinox paring knives – they are not hard to sharpen and usually last a couple whitetail before needing a touch up. Re-sharpening typically takes 3-5 minutes.

I store all this in a shoebox size storage container and it cost less than $100 including one knife when I purchased it.

 

[6mm Remington]

Which Lansky system are you referring to?

Get the 3 stone standard sharpening system with Coarse, Medium, and Fine stones. Buy an Ultra Fine stone and a Medium Diamond stone also.

Get the Super C Clamp as it is a must have. Makes it faster, safer, and much easier sharpening knives.



Last thing to get is replace the standard/Phillips head screw in the blade clamp with a Hex head screw and get an Allen wrench to fit the screw as shown below. Get the same length & diameter obviously as the screw that comes in the kit but just with the Hex head screw. Get an Allen wrench to fit the screw and put that into your sharpening kit on the blade clamp. Get a couple of the screws, nice to have an extra. Then get a couple Hex head screws just the next length longer. Sometimes on thicker blades the longer screws come in handy so you can manipulate the blade clamp to get the most bite/holding power on the knife blade. You'll figure it out once you get the system. The Allen wrench makes it a lot simpler and easier to use the system and the wrench fits easily in the kit when not in use. Way more so than a stubby screwdriver. Get all of this and start sharpening.

A first time knife that I have never sharpened before and so it doesn't have perfect edges on it takes me about 25-35 minutes on average to get to an ultra razor sharp edge. Knives that I have sharpened previously and take care of and aren't in bad shape take at most about 10 minutes to 15 minutes to get to where the edge is perfect in my mind at least.

 

[Choupique]

I just ordered myself a benchmade adamas. Trying to decide if I'm going to use the belt sander rig on it or not.

It seems like maybe if I plan to be touching it up often with a steel or ceramic block or whatever else I have around it might be best to stick to using a stone all the time? My current knife has a D2 blade and I find it a little hard to sharpen. I imagine that sooped up cruwear stuff will be even tougher to sharpen.

 

[roosiebull]

I did these yesterday start to finish in 30 minutes. Half only needed touching up with a fine belt while half needed a little work on the medium then fine belts.

All will split frogs hair 4 ways.

What I'm working on and not very successful this year is field sharpening of the hunting knives, specifically the orange handled benchmark. I can get it decent with a ceramic but it just won't last.

I've been using a havalon for many years so I've lost the art in the field.

View attachment 807832

That guided field sharpener is a good tool for the job, it’s just so hard to keep meat and fat from fouling the diamond. Need to get the blade really clean before you start, because when the sharpener gets fouled up with meat and fat, it’s not going to get sharp, the diamond stone won’t cut consistently through the stroke. If possible, touch up often because it’s a lot easier to touch up than completely sharpen because it’s dull

I despise field sharpening, because there is never a good spot to get my knife clean so I can sharpen it… I need more time to prove it, but that’s why I think the day six dragonfly is the perfect hunting knife

I have used almost exclusively havalon and tyto for over 15 years, that’s how much I like field sharpening.

I know s90v won’t stay acceptably sharp for me through a whole elk, so the dragonfly is my last chance for a one knife solution

 

[Choupique]

s90v won’t stay acceptably sharp for me through a whole elk,

I can get a whole whitetail done with my pocket knife but it's on the struggle bus by the end, and it's too small to split the sternum. Hoping the adamas is more up to that job.