Knife Sharpenrs

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Reese-Mo
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Knife Sharpenrs

Post by Reese-Mo »

This is gonna be long, but if you like sharp knives, maybe worth it.

Maybe I put too much thought into it, dunno. But, I've been looking at knife sharpeners and I'm picking them to pieces, so decided to "invent" my own.

For a long time, decades, I used a modified Lansky sharpener. Modified because as they come the little lip that holds the blades is woefully inadequate. I put mine on the Bridgeport and milled off the old, milled in a new ledge. The Lansky has done sort of ok, and I've put razor edges on knives with it. I like the four angle approach, depending on the knife and its usage, but.... the Lansky has drawbacks.

First drawback is that whatever the angle is you choose, you need to place the holder in the _exact_ same position on the blade every time you sharpen. Moving the point of reference for the stone will change the angle. The other thing is for short, straight or convex blade edges, its fine. But if you get a longish blade, like a kitchen knife, or a nice Tanto the angle becomes smaller the further the edge is from the "reference" point of the Lansky guide. Can't be helped (its geometry), even for short blades, but for long blades its really noticeable and can be an issue. Second thing is that the Lansky stones come in cheap-o plastic and where the nice brass ferrule is (for the lock screw) the plastic always breaks. You can glue and reinforce 'em to death, and they still let go someplace else.

If you have a long blade, or a blade with a concave belly like a Kukri, then the Lansky just won't do.

I considered a belt grinder type of sharpener, and there are a few models to choose from, but while they address the long blade issue, they don't really address the concave blade issue.

Then there are V sticks. Any length or shape of blade will work if the sticks are round, not triangular or square), but V sticks take a lot more effort if you're profiling the edge. Plus, V sticks come at a "fixed" angle for the most part, or have two very close angles - one for the basic edge, slightly wider one to touch up that basic edge.

Well, I got a new Kukri, a beast of a camp knife, which I intend to use for everything from kindling making to root chopping. I thought and thought about a sharpener, and here's what I came up with -

A re-settable, variable angle, V-stick sharpener, with diamond, and alumina-ceramic rods.

Its a DIY thing for a few dollars of parts, plus the cost of the rods (which will add considerable expense over the DIY part if you go for high quality and long length rods).

A little wooden frame, three cabinet knobs, a few screws, some glue, a little piece of all thread, some nuts, bolts and washers, including one T-nut. The "hard" part is making the wedges in the angles you want to use to "set" the V angle. The more industrious can mark some points on the sharpener instead of using wedges.

If anyone is interested, I'll post some pics as things progress. Rods and knobs are inbound, so I should be able to get things all done by next weekend, good Lord willing.

If someone's got a better thought/plan/intent.... feel free to bonk my noggin', because this old thinkin organ has been out in the sun way way too long lately to really congeal around more than simple concepts. ;)
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Re: Knife Sharpenrs

Post by Archer »

Picks and details would be nice.

I admit I'm a bit old school. I started out using an aluminum oxide pocket stone. Back when I was growing up they were pretty common and the old plastic rain bonnet pockets could be repurposed to hold one of the stones. I tried a larger composite AO stone and found it to be almost useless, even for heavy or rough blades like hatchets or axes.

I ended up using a Smith's Arkansas stone set for a decade that had a hard stone the size of the pocket aluminum oxide stones and a somewhat larger soft stone. The quality of the Smith's product has IMO gotten poorer over the years. More porous stones and their 'sharpening fluid' they started putting out in place of the mineral oil simply did not work.

I ended up getting a couple 8" Lansky stones that were pretty good and eventually picked up a Black Hard and Translucent stones in decent sizes. Those large stones are what I use for most decent knives. I still have a couple pocket sized hard and soft stones that allow me to get some shapes that don't do well with the larger stones. Ceramic rods for final edges on some knives although I don't typically have a V stand but use them hand held. Honestly, rather than a small diameter 'rod', I prefer an oval cross section that doesn't have flats but I've rarely seen those anywhere. That cross section works well for just about any blade shape except serrations.

Over the years I've seen a lot of different methods. I've got a pig sticker around here somewhere that started out as an Old Hickery butcher knife that somebody ground down by using the old back of the can opener sharpeners until it is about 3/8" or so belly to back almost from end to end.

I've tried some of the diamond hones but never been that satisfied with them. Had friends with the Lansky and seen several variations on that theme. One of my friend bought an electric abrasive belt hone that looked like an invitation to screw something up. I think he paid as much for that as I paid for all four Arkansas stones I bought.

I have a couple pocket gizmos. A friend gave me a V sharpener with a couple carbide plates and a couple extra small ceramic rods. It sits on a shelf as I'm not generally a fan of the concept.

The biggest problems I have involve getting a decent bevel/edge on a knife that the factory didn't get a good section profile on the blade to begin with. As an example my sister had a set of 3 Oneida kitchen knives that were a cast iron pain in the rear to get an edge on because the factory edges were simply wrong. Same basic size/shape knives from Trimontia required less than 20% of the effort in order to get a razor edge on them.
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Re: Knife Sharpenrs

Post by Reese-Mo »

The belts - slack belts - do a great job, but it takes more than average skill to get a good edge.
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Re: Knife Sharpenrs

Post by Reese-Mo »

Almost everything arrived. Have ordered some alternate pre-cut wood parts. 50 units for $8 on Amazon! :)

I tried to think of a way to make wood disks easily and safely on my router table. The only way that seemed to do well would have gotten my fingers too close to the cutter for my own tastes. I could have made a jig, but jeeze, not for only a few pieces, hence the Amazon route. Even then I'll need to laminate 11 disks together to make one of the parts. And four of those are needed! Big bottle of Titebond III at the ready.

Hopefully... some pics real soon.

The ol' lady has me doing wood molding all thru the den, and our front bedroom. I'll be ripping up flooring in that bedroom too. Ugh. She wants tile, she's getting laminate. She also wants me to make her a bed frame with rustic cedar head and foot boards for that bedroom. Someplace in the middle of all that, I think I can find time for a knife sharpener or two. Thing is, I'm not a finish carpenter. I can do it, but its not my fun thing. I did spend more than a few years "making" the wooden pieces that finish carpenters use. Molding, archways, banisters, doorways and doors, flooring, etc. But that's the metal worker in me, just working with really soft metal ;) I was always the idiot at the abrasive plane with my calipers. The mill workers laughed, but the carpenters loved the consistency. Bit I digress.....
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