Spent some time last night touching up a couple of our more heavily used kitchen knives. This knife in particular (great knife btw) was developing a bit of a rolled edge from the factory grind. I brought the angle up a hair on the stones and finish with some edge trailing strokes and stropping. I've got a pile of chicken to go through tonight, so we'll see how it holds up compared to before.
Been a bit too long between updates! Here's a buddy's v-toku delica that I got a chance to play around with. Before and after.
Do you have a certain type or criteria for picking out stones to sharpen with? Or is it just "mostly flat and harder than the knife"?
You got it right there, you will get a feel for it pretty quick. It will never be quite as good as the real thing but, pretty good for Field Expedient.
I'm going to have to try that out one of these days. I tried a cinder block once, and the results were awful.
The River is your friend, sandstone is good if you can find it. Also the top edge of your car/truck widow can touch up your edge some what. I use my leather belt as a strop. Stay with it and remember it was done this way for many years. Good Luck, it is handy to have a way to sharpen in the field without humping more gear. Edit to add: I like your choice in Kitchen Knives............
Making my own stones is definitely on the list of cool stuff to try. And thank you much! That knife was a gift from my girlfriend. It's one of my absolute favorites now.
This is in S. America is what I'm told. These "jungle guides" have found and use several stones in a given area, one at each River. There might be multiple people using these stones, apparently locals know to look for a stone with the seen wear at river crossings. . It's a cool idea, you don't have to carry sharpeners, they are there for everybody in known locations. ( OK admittedly it wouldn't work in the U.S. Too many locations and some thieving sob would steal, move, or vandalize the stone. )
That is the kind of info that I like to hear. It validates my desire to use primitive methods while navigating the wilds,while carrying less gear. Good one...............
I have no doubt I could find/ utilize a puck looking stone from a river bed, a light touch circular motion would produce a very nice edge. The still popular Arkansas stones were "discovered" when Indians ( Sorry, Native Americans in new age speak) showed off their stones to traders and trappers in that area. I absolutely positively quarantee you they were using water on them. Oil or animal fat would be too valuable for other uses and would be messy trying to carry it, and our forefathers did not have a handy recycled eye dropper bottle of mineral oil in their packs...water, on the other hand,would be available in every clear running creek. ( just an uneducated opinion mind you)
So I see comments all the time along the lines of, "a few passes on my strop and my blade was back to shaving arm hair sharp." I'm good enough with my wicked edge that I can sharpen my blades to shaving my arm hair sharp. My issue is, I had an esee 3 that was shaving sharp as of a few days ago. Yesterday I used it to clean a whitetail, and today I used it to skin and butcher said whitetail. While the blade is still field sharp, it can no longer shave arm hair. So, I sit down in front of the tv tonight, pop in a movie and for 2 hours I strop and strop and strop. While it is somewhat sharper it will not shave. So what magical, fairy strop are these people using that only a few passes brings a blade back to shaving sharp? I understand stropping and angle vs. pressure and all that good stuff, but I dont know if I'm doing something wrong. I usually use light pressure at an angle where I feel I've moved from the shoulder to the bevel and am reaching the apex. Like I said, it is definitely sharper than when I started, but not shaving sharp. Is some people's definition of a "few" passes quite different from mine? Because I've spent 2 hours stropping.
2 things.. 1. Too much of a good thing probably. 2. That much use on a 1095 blade probably dulled it to the point of needing an actual sharpening. I use a ceramic rod that Edge Pro sent me after field dressing and skinning a deer. I do 10 swipes on each side of the blade, then 7, then 5, then 3, then 1. Throws hair off my arm. But that’s with D3V steel that doesn’t even roll the edge when I split the rib cage of a deer. Different steels act different under different levels of use. Esee’s 1095 is tough, but isn’t particularly hard so it will dull out. It will keep that field sharp edge for a good while depending on what angle you use and your level (grit) of finish.
That's what I thought too. To clarify, I'm not stropping continually for 2 straight hours. I'll stop every 10 passes or so to check sharpness. And while it is definitely sharper than when I started stropping, it just never seems to get back to shaving. The bevel does get pretty shiny too. I typically finish at 600 grit on the wicked edge then use one of Flexx's strips with green compound
Try even loss pressure and go with less and less strokes per side as you go. Also, try the black compound after 600. I found that to be the best results for me.
I used to do that, but my black compound is pretty much gone. It's all but bare leather on that side now
One last thing and I’ll shut up lol. Scrape that green off and reapply it. See if fresh compound or a little less of it helps. I struggled for a long time and then it all clicked for me at once it seemed.
I tried doing that last night but I can't find my green compound. Guess I'll hit up Lowe's on my day off on Wednesday. How do you go about removing and reapplying compound?
Use the blade of a butter knife and just scrape it off. Heat up your strop and rub a little on there.
Good advice. I do that periodically and it works for me. Usually i only do 10 passes on each side and its shaving again. This is also on an esee 3