Sharpening Knives -- Best so Far

floating doc · September 03, 2015, 03:16:14 AM

I found this interesting discussion as my wife is ordering the Spiderco set I put in her Amazon order basket this week. I'll see how that works.

Here's a cool video about Master Bladesmith Bob Kramer. In the video, he makes a Damascas steel chef knife, starting from a piece of iron ore. The source of the ore (probably more for the "wow" factor) is a meteorite.

Shark Hunter · September 03, 2015, 05:44:00 PM

My Carry Knife is a buck 3 blade stockman. 371.
I picked this up at a gun show years ago for a few bucks. I use it for everything.
From opening packages to prying off side plates.
I have a big Kershaw like the Boss has, but its just too big to Carry.

humboldtdan · September 03, 2015, 09:18:32 PM

Thank you for the Bob Kramer video. Great stuff. My father was a pattern maker. He taught me how to use a stone and finish the sharpening with a leather strop, a leather boot in the field, or a rouged polishing wheel. My pocket knives were always the envy of the other kids and not too infrequently, I was to blame for my friends going home with bleeding fingers after sharpening their knives. Once they learned to appreciate what a sharp knife could do, they quickly learned caution. My father always said a dull knife or gouge was more dangerous than a sharp one.

I have to admit my ability to sharpen knives more than once got me introduced to single ladies with a drawer full of dull knives

. Cheers to this site, I learn something new every day!

LTM · September 04, 2015, 02:12:34 AM

Fred and floatdoc thanx for the videos, I highly appreciate them. I have to admit Im a bit of a knife collector and enjoy knife topics. Knives are an integral part of fishing and deserve discussion here for after all they are edged-tools as reels are tools which we maintain so why not knives as well. I have to bring attention to when Bob Kramer stropped the knife on the leather and then did the push cut on the paper and you could barely hear the paper "scream" in a high pitch. For anyone who has spent time sharpening knives that sound is the ultimate; what ever you do dont let that blade fall against your body.

There are several good knife posts floating around on this site. I know there may only be a handful of knife posts however, it would be nice to have them in a central location if its not too much trouble for Alan for just a few posts.

Meanwhile · September 05, 2015, 10:08:39 PM

This is the system that I use on my fillet knives. It is easy and fast.

http://www.worksharptools.com/sharpeners-12/power-sharpeners/work-sharp-knife-and-tool-sharpener.html

Dominick · September 07, 2015, 02:17:40 AM

Hey Daron I used to carry one of the old style Bucks and before that Case. This is what I carry now. It is small and light weight and stays razor sharp. Dominick

SteveL · September 07, 2015, 04:15:48 AM

Inflation, I suppose.

Quote from: Dominick on September 07, 2015, 02:17:40 AM
Hey Daron I used to carry one of the old style Bucks and before that Case. This is what I carry now. It is small and light weight and stays razor sharp. Dominick

Shark Hunter · September 07, 2015, 05:37:17 AM

That should get it Done Dominick. I just like the three blade pocket knives. I carried an Old Timer before the Buck. I have a lot of knives. When I was stationed in England. I bought every Swiss Army knife that was made at the time. The biggest one is ridiculous. It even has a clock.

It was called the Super Timer. Pardon the revolver, I had to take it out to get to the knife.

floating doc · September 09, 2015, 03:41:07 AM

I like the little Buck 283. Mine replaced a similar sized Buck 425 that I thought was lost. I also have a 284 and 285. They're inexpensive knives, but very light weight/easy to carry, work well and hold an edge.

SacFly · September 11, 2015, 02:26:01 PM

Thanks so much for posting this. I don't have any really high end knives, but I do have 2 nice Henckels chefs knives in the kitchen and a handful of various Dexter high carbon steel knives for cleaning fish.

I've been trying to improve my skills on a stone for the last 5 years or so. I have a bunch of different stones and a ton of various gadgets (the gadgets are all garbage). I can get my knives more or less where I want them, but sometimes it takes forever. I think this is due to both my lack of skill and using too fine a grade of stone for the stage of sharpening the knife is at. My next purchase was going to be an extra coarse diamond stone, something that would aggressively remove steel from a truly dull knife, but I think I'll pursue the sander instead. The diamond stones I was looking at were all around 50$ anyway.

I do my best not to let my knives ever get that bad, but that doesn't help me when I get my parents' knives or my girlfriend's knives to sharpen. The long, thin bladed, flexible filet knives have also always been a pain in the butt for me.

One thing that has really helped is keeping a steel handy and giving a couple of swipes before and after each use. The Henkels especially need the stone far less frequently if I use the steel with each use. The Dexters are much softer, dull quicker, but also take an edge much faster than the stainless.

Newell Nut · September 11, 2015, 02:59:33 PM

I still have a few really nice pocket knives but for the past 20 years of flying a lot and working on nukes you learn not to carry a knife so I got out of the habit and never carry one anymore except for hunting and fishing. I am glad that I grew up in a time when all the boys in school had a pocket knife and it never created a problem and was not against the rules. We really have a messed up society now.

Dominick · September 12, 2015, 12:03:57 AM

I made a short video of my knife sharpener. I'm the handsome guy sharpening the knives.

Dominick

http://s1220.photobucket.com/user/lmdl4law/media/SHARPENING%20KNIVES/Sharpening%20knives%20001_zpsrimnohom.mp4.html

foakes · September 12, 2015, 12:18:12 AM

Very nicely done, Counselor!

Was there someone else in the video I couldn't see?

Guess I'm confused -- You said you were the handsome guy???

Good video skills.

Did you take that with an ipad, iphone, video recorder, or?

Best,

Fred

Dominick · September 12, 2015, 12:26:42 AM

Fred, I should have given a panoramic view of the garage. I might just do that on the next video. The camera is a Hi Def Panasonic Lumix with a Leica lens. It is a fine camera for its size. It shoots a16 mega pixels image. I really like it. It is a point and shoot camera with video capabilities. Dominick

Rancanfish · September 12, 2015, 03:23:37 AM

Hey, good job Dom.