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Re: How to Sharpen things.

Author: huboboe
Date: 2011-04-14 06:02

Lordy, Lordy, I just gotta wade in on this one.

Let me start by saying that I don't subscribe to the burr approach to knife sharpening, but more on that later.

If you are going to put a burr on your knife edge, try taking a page out of the woodworkers instructions for sharpening a scraper, used for several hundred years to put the finest possible finish on wooden furniture. They take their square, thin sheet of steel, flatten it on a stone and then curl the edge with a smooth, hardened burnisher, producing the burr that does the cutting. In our case we should get a fine, sharp edge on the knife first, then use a burnisher (or the edge of your steel plaque) to curl that edge into a controlled burr in the direction (left or right handed) you prefer. It doesn't need to be, and shouldn't be, very pronounced to work.

I'm opposed to sandpaper and many diamond stones because, even if the abrasive grit size is quite fine, the distribution is such that the surface it produces is a series of parallel scratches which result in a sawtooth cutting edge. That said, I know that Bob Stevens of Stevens Reeds used sandpaper his whole life and he must have made and sold a couple of hundred thousand reeds.

I like waterstones, but any truly fine grit stone will work.

I like to sharpen a beveled edge on a relatively thin blade, like a double hollow ground blade, and have it sharp enough to cut a clean chip, like a plane. I use a wooden plaque to avoid bashing the edge on my knife, and I only use one knife for everything except cutting the tip, where I use a straight razor blade. I can make 4 or 5 reeds before I need to resharpen my knife, and I AM a sharp knife fanatic.

The major error I see in my student's (and in my own) sharpening technique is rushing to a sharp edge by steepening the angle of the blade to avoid honing the entire bevel behind the edge. And then again, and again, until the flat bevel that ended in the sharp edge is now round and requires a long session with a coarse stone to restore the original profile.

One of my teachers said to me, "Learn from everybody." This forum is a great place to use that advice. Try everything you think might work better than what you're doing now. If it works, use it. If not, don't. Or, if you're like me and perfectly happy with your techniques, share them and ignore the chatter. Drew and I can go back and forth on the merits of a burr vs a clean edge and let the sandpaper folks talk about 1200 grit vs 2000 grit wet-or-dry...

-----------------

Speaking of sandpaper, earlier in this thread Craig was talking about using a vibrating sander. I think he'll be disappointed in the results because the foam pad behind the sandpaper will allow the blade to sink slightly into the paper, rounding the edge and defeating the flat surface he was trying to achieve.

Anyone looking for a powered tool sharpening setup should start with Lee Valley Tools setup:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=48435&cat=1,43072,48435

This is a bit pricey, but you would have a flat edge and it won't heat up like a grinding wheel. Similar setups are available with diamond wheels in lapidary catalogs...

Remember the words of wisdom from Stevens Hewitt:

"The first secret of reed making is a sharp knife.
The second secret of reed making is a sharp knife."

Robert Hubbard
WestwindDoubleReed.com
1-888-579-6020
bob@westwinddoublereed.com

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How to Sharpen things. new

RobinDesHautbois

2011-04-04 23:52