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Comment by Thomas Lofvenmark on July 17, 2013 at 6:33

Jack, I understand that a sharp edge can be a goal it self and that people enjoy, even love, to just make them as sharp as possible and whittle hair - but that is very far from my life and my experiances of knifes and sharpening.

To do things just for fun increase life quality, what ever it is.

I am also retired. I enjoy precission grinding, it is my hobby today. Traditional durable edges is my interest becous I use knifes in the traditional way. For me, edge angles are most important, so we have different hobbys :-)

If I start a ketchup factory, I let you know :-).

Thomas

Comment by Jack Haskins, Jr. on July 16, 2013 at 20:30

Thomas,  I'd enjoy trying your ketchup if you ever get that going. :)

For me sharpening has become a hobby and a challenge to get sharper.  Just for fun.  For a while now I've been getting my knives sharper than I need them to be.  This is very satisfying for me.  Especially until recently I never even thought about getting a pocket knife sharper than arm shaving sharp.  Now I am whittling hairs. :):)   I also love the look on people's faces when I let them use my knife (seldome) and make the first cut then just look at the edge.  I LOVE that.

I'd like to say again I enjoyed reading your post.  It's not often anymore I've read about actual everyday use.  Normally it's videos of hair whittling, tests cutting rope with the same steel at different edge angles, stuff like that.  I enjoy that too even though it doesn't play any part in my knife life.  A good sharp knife is all I need.  It doesn't matter much what angle is on the edge.  I'm retired now and just open mail, work around the house and things like that with knives.  Oh yeah, I have cut lots of rope. :)

Jack

In Memoriam Comment by Robert Burris on July 16, 2013 at 19:31

Thomas, I see your point, but we do things a lot different, down here. There is just a few deer that are kept, for mounting, purposes, We, enjoy a very sharp knife and one that will hold it's edge, to skin and process, Whitetail deer.

Comment by Thomas Lofvenmark on July 16, 2013 at 7:44

Jack, I am sorry, I cannot help you there, I never slice tomatos. If I should use tomatoes to test my edges I must also start a ketchup factory or similar :)

Micro serrated edges are fine for many things, and bad for other things. Try to make a smoth shiny edge, very sharp, and then make micro teath on it with a diamond sharpener in about 15-25 micron, you use just the last tens of a millimeter of the edge, move the sharpener straight over the edge (only once) with a little less pressure then you use for sharpening. Now you have a smooth edge with micro teath. It works very nice in fresh meat - and probebly on tomatos also. (If you are a butcher and work 8 hour a day with slicing meat, this will not be a good edge for you).

Robert, when I skin big games I do not like very sharp edges becouse it takes longer times for me when I use them. I must be careful so that I do not damage the skin or slice thruu the gray thin layer on the meat who protect the meat from flyes and bugs. I do not hunt deer, here we mostly hunt moose, so my experiance of deer skinning is very low.

Most hunters here use three different special knifes with different blade shape during skinning and butchering - and many also use a special skinning axe with a "soft grinded neck".

The Scandinavian belt knife are famous with its edge. That is an allround knife we carry in our belts. What is not famues is that in the carpenter hut we have many other knifes, axes and so on, special grinded for wood work. 19 degree for soft wood and 22-24 for harder wood. We have carpenter axes (with flat edge) and forest axes (with convex edge), we have "Tjacklas" ho is a special axe with U shaped chissel edge, ans so on. The belt knife is there to solve minor problem, is the problem big - we go to the carpenter hut and our special knifes...

The typical Scandinavian knife is the Mora type of blade. The blade design is very old and have not change during the last 1000 years. It is perfect for our climate, type of wood, games and so on. It is not perfect for anything - but it will do for everything. I can skin games with it - but a hunting knife skin better. I can butcher fish with it - but a real fishing knife do it easyer and better. The Scandinavian knife will do - for everything - but is not perfect for anything. That is why it is a very good survival knife - in our type of climate.

Thomas

Comment by Jack Haskins, Jr. on July 15, 2013 at 10:26

Robert,

Here is how/when I learned about super glue.  I nick myself often.  Wife was the the Dollar Store and saw something called "Liquid Skin".  It came in tubes that looked like the small super glue tubes.  She bought it as a joke and gave it to me. :)  Sure enough, in a couple of days I had to use it and it worked great.  I mentioned it on another forum and about 3000 people said just use super glue.  Also that something like it is used in ERs.  Now I do keep super glue around where I sharpen. :)

In Memoriam Comment by Robert Burris on July 15, 2013 at 10:12

I have different knives for different jobs. The knife I skin deer and other large game is much sharper than the knife I cut onions with. My Woodscraft  knife is real sharp but has a steeper bevel, than that deer hunting knife. My Moose pattern pocket knife is the same way. The spear point, I use as a utility blade, has a steeper bevel than the Clip point, that I might use to skin a squirrel.

    I have been free hand sharpening for so long, I couldn't tell you the exact degree of bevel I use. I would guess, one under 20 degrees and one over 20 degrees.

    I sharpen a lot of knives for people. It is remarkable how many people that don't know how to sharpen a knife. I know some that are afraid to mess up their good knife. I tell everyone, "get an old or cheap knife and practice on it".

    Jack, if you make up your mine to learn to sharpen knives, you will learn. Free hand or with a devise. Good luck. Keep plenty of Super Glue handy......lol

KnifeMaker Comment by Vance Wade Hinds on July 15, 2013 at 8:45

Super Glue!  Keeps you working.

 

Comment by Jack Haskins, Jr. on July 15, 2013 at 8:40

I would love to sharpen knives for some extra $.  I wouldn't know where to start though.  I thought of it when I first started to see a sharpness improvement in my edges a few years ago.  Now that I have improved 10 fold I'm really glad I didn't start then.  It's a matter of knowing how sharp is sharp and thinking your edge is as sharp as a knife can get.  That comes from not seeing an edge sharper than you can get.  Sharpening for extra money would be nice because I enjoy it. Also, I would be able to see different knives and blade steels.  I would need to buy additional bandaids and a turnikit, tournaquit, (WHATEVER :)) to add to my sharpening supplies I bet. :)

KnifeMaker Comment by Vance Wade Hinds on July 15, 2013 at 8:32

Two excellent posts. Much knowledge to be gleamed.  I agree that sharpening is a lost art.  We live in a disposable society that that is losing its ability to repair and maintain its own basic tools. 

Yet, I make some money on the side because of this.  :)

 

Comment by Jack Haskins, Jr. on July 15, 2013 at 7:19

Thomas,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your theory of sharpness of knives.  I (in my limited experience) agree with you 99%.  I say 99 because even though I agree with you I just LOVE to get any knife SCARY sharp.  I've gone my whole life getting my knives sharp enough to shave my arm and was happy and the knives never failed me.  However, in the past few years I have learned what a very sharp knife edge is.  I never even THOUGHT of getting a pocket knife that sharp before.  The most important thing I think you hit on is knowing how a given knife is to be used and what it will be cutting.  If you put a super sharp razor edge on your steak knife the tip area where it touches the plate becomes useless for cutting after the first bite.  But, if the edge is just sharp enough to cut a tender juicy steak it may be dull according to some but the edge for cutting steak will last the entire meal and then some. :)  Tip I like for sharpening steak knives is get the edge as sharp as you want.  Razor sharp if you want.  Then draw the knive across the top of you stone VERY lightly as if you were cutting a steak.  This will "take the edge off" where the blade will be touching the plate and not get any duller during your meal.  A light stroke or two to remove the burr you just created and you are done.

I love sharpening.  The thing I love most is being able to get the edge as sharp as I need it to be.  If I need razor I can get it.  If I don't need razor, which is most of the time, it just saves me time.

One thing you didn't discuss and I'd like to get your thoughts on is the toothiness or smoothness of the edge and the difference in performance of each.  My understanding is something like this.  A super sharp toothy edge is better for cutting tomatoes than a super sharp smooth edge.  The toothy edge will breat the skin immediately while the smooth edge may need a little more force when slicing.  This may be unimportant to most people but chef's seem to care about things like this.  Especially if the extra force causes a food to "bruise".  A super smoothe edge on the other hand is better for push cutting wood.  So in addition to how sharp you get a knife there is also the consideration of how smooth the edge should be for the tasks required of that knife.  The super smooth edges are optained by using super high grit (6k or 8k and higher) sharpening stones.  A toothy edge can be optained by not going higher than 600 grit stone.  The grits are examples only and not written in stone.

When you said the children learn how to sharpen a knife as a normal skill like dressing themselves I thought how different that is than a lot of people I've known.  One guy I worked with (about 30) had never sharpened a knife.  I found this hard to believe.  I learned at the age of 8 or 10 I think.  There are so many different lifestyles in America the "normal" tasks learned can change from block to block it seems.

Thanks for the read.

Jack

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