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Mick123
46
Apr 19, 2018
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How difficult is it to sharpen a knife with this type of blade and what is best to sharpen it with.
Apr 19, 2018
MoonStan
220
Apr 20, 2018
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Mick123It is as easy as sharpening gets. If you're a complete neophyte you can use a small stone like a fallkniven DC4, half diamond half ceramic.
Apr 20, 2018
Mick123
46
Apr 20, 2018
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MoonStanI find it hard to maintain the correct angle to sharpen a knife. I know there must be secret tricks on how to maintain a angle.
Apr 20, 2018
shimage
228
Apr 20, 2018
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Mick123Get a sharpmaker then.
Apr 20, 2018
MoonStan
220
Apr 20, 2018
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Mick123Ah. There is no secret. As for everything else: practice practice practice. You can indeed, chose to use some kind of contraption like the simplest, cheap and decent Spyderco Triangle Sharpmaker, to the more complex and efficient Wicked Edge, to the Edge Pro and other expensive high end kits .
Apr 20, 2018
Mick123
46
Apr 20, 2018
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MoonStanThanks to both of you and your suggestions. Maybe need to practice on a WalMart special first before going to the more expensive blades........
Apr 20, 2018
shimage
228
Apr 21, 2018
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Mick123Not a terrible idea, but you have some time to practice between now and when this knife ships.
Apr 21, 2018
BARBARRIN
18
Apr 21, 2018
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Mick123Kitchen knives provide endless practice, and people who are shocked their knives can be sharp are entertaining
Aluminum Oxide, Silicon Carbide, and Diamond are the hardest sharpening materials and will cut this hard steel better. Wet or dry automotive sandpaper is a cheap option
Apr 21, 2018
Mick123
46
Apr 21, 2018
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BARBARRINThanks Mick123 Some food for thought. If I ruin a cheap knife so what.
Apr 21, 2018
Jean-da-bear
30
Apr 22, 2018
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Mick123MoonStan has a point about "practice, practice, practice . . ."; however, there is a secret that will make your practice more efficient/accurate, without getting into any of the complicated clamp-your-knife sharpening kits out there. That's to use a set of guides like Wedgek to get you used to using the correct sharpening angle in the first place; see https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4QMO7U/ref=psdc_289867_t1_B01N4VBR3W for instance. You can use these guides for each stroke, each time you re-touch a blade . . . or just until you develop the muscle memory and confidence to hit the same angle every time. Or anything in between!
By the way, since each guide gets rubber-banded to the sharpening stone/hone, and thereby shortens the effective grit surface, you need to use ones a minimum of 6" long for this to be a practical and comfortable method of sharpening. You should also alternate the ends of the stones you attach the guides to, to even out the wear on the surfaces. (Alternatively, you can easily build a jig like I did, which holds the stone/hone, and allows you to clamp the angle guide just off the end of the stone's surface, with only a minimal overlap of a couple of millimeters, so your blade glides off the guide directly onto the grit surface without catching on the end of it.)
Whether you're using these guides or one of the more complex "kits" to do the job, you need to determine the correct honing angle to aim at. For quality culinary blades, the original grind angle is often specified by the maker; much less so with knives like the one being discussed here. However, there's a fairly easy work-around for that. Cover the entire width of the blade's grind bevel with a felt-tip marker; then find the angle guide that allows you to cleanly and evenly remove the marking ink when you stroke the blade over the stone while using that guide!
Of course, this only gets you to the main, easily seen, grind angle originally used for the blade, and you're not going to need to sharpen your knife to that angle each time you need to "touch up" the edge. Your blade also -- most probably even 'out-of-the-box' -- has a "micro-bevel" superimposed on this original grind angle, of anywhere from 1-5 degrees more (per side). Turn your knife blade so the main grind bevel catches a bright light, and shows up as a (fairly) thick bright line; then tilt it just a little more, until the first bevel dims a little, and you should then see a fine hair-thin bright highlight coming off this secondary bevel. That 's what you need to restore, whenever your blade has gone from 'shaving sharp' to merely very sharp.
Apr 22, 2018
Mick123
46
Apr 22, 2018
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Jean-da-bearThis is exactly the kind of information that I have been looking for. Thank you very much for the lengthy "letter" and taking the time to write it. BTW do you have any youtube videos that could give a visual learner some help. Thanks again!
Apr 22, 2018
Kavik
5531
Apr 24, 2018
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Jean-da-bear👍 To you Jean. Very useful post
I've been sharpening for a long time (both by hand and with different tools) and I just recently picked up those guides myself. Though, I went for the set that includes the honing rod guides https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4VBR3W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Ey03Ab09E5E1J It's actually the touch ups on the ceramic rod where I have a harder time maintaining the correct angle, but figured it couldn't hurt to have both
The only thing if like to add is that not all knives use a micro bevel. If checking for this by eye, looking at reflecting light, be sure you see the same results on both sides. A rolled edge, foil edge, or burr could be mistaken for a secondary (micro) bevel by that method of inspection.
@Mick123Check out the Wedgek Angle Guide site below as well. There's some useful info there (and pics and videos) explaining sharpening in general, as well as specifics to using their guides (such as how to choose which guide will REALLY get you a 20° angle, for example, if your knife has tapered sides, like most will. Cheap set of digital calipers will be required to measure your blade thicknesses for that. Or just do as Jean suggested with the sharpie trick to find the match) http://www.angleguide.com
Apr 24, 2018
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