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Re: Knives

Author: mschmidt
Date: 2011-08-27 05:28

Sometimes when I am not making reeds or practicing I do blacksmithing. I haven't finished my own knife yet, but one thing that toolmaking teaches you is that nothing is magical--all knives are steel that can, and must be, reshaped at their cutting edge regularly. So the only thing an expensive knife might get you is better steel, and maybe a "nicer" handle. If you go cheap and get cheap steel, you just have to sharpen it more often. I bought a "Albion" double-hollow-ground knife from Forrests that goes dull faster than my old, old Spratt flat-bevel, but it's hollow ground so it sharpens up quickly. I think someone learning to make reeds and sharpen knives would benefit from a knife that requires more frequent sharpening--you get more practice and it's easier to repair your knife after you've mis-sharpened it.

(The Charles-brand flat-bevel knife I got as an emergency knife once goes dull extra fast and, being a flat bevel, requires a lot of work to resharpen--you have to take off a lot of steel. Of course, you could make a microbevel on the flat bevel to speed things up, but it seems to me one of the main advantages of a flat-bevel is the rigorously consistent angle--which you lose when you make a microbevel.)

I use 800, 1200 and 8000 King waterstones from Lee Valley Tools. Given my toolmakers perspective, I would say its more important to get multiple stones of different grit than it is to get an expensive knife or an expensive stone. If you have coarse to fine grit, you can remake the edge of any reasonable knife into a good scraping knife. If you don't go coarse enough, it will take too long to really take off material when you need to. If you don't go fine enough, it will be hard to get the really fine edge you need. (Although I got by for years without the 8000). A 1/4" piece of flat glass and some 100 grit silicon carbide (also sold by Lee Valley) will keep your stones flat--although your diamond stone might too, if it's big enough.

If you find yourself a grinder (a hand-cranked one will do) you can make any old piece of tool steel into an oboe reed knife....

Mike

Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore

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WoodwindOz

2011-08-26 18:47