What's new

What did you hone today? -Knife and tool edition

Are they all slates? I know the Dronfield should be the others look it like they maybe. I don't have any experience with the Dronfield just have seen labeled ones before and they said slate on them.


There's actually only two stones there (just two pics of each), but yep - they're both slates or slate-like.

Dronfield was a subsidiary brand of Marples, so sold a few different types of stone. I've had a wooden box Salmen silkstone with a Dronfield label, and then there are as you say the ones just called 'Natural Slate Hone' or somesuch, as well as others. This isn't the same as the Salmen silkstone I don't think, but I've not had any other types Dronfield stones apart from that to compare.

The other is a very fine and relatively soft stone. Possibly WoA, though again - not certain.
 
Last edited:
This is a very hard and fine coticule, and normally wouldn't be all that great for knife sharpening. But there are certain aspects about the steel and geometry of this knife that mean it will do better than most with a very high grit edge.

I will still be raising slurry, and it's still a slightly dangerous game to play. This is a heavy knife and on hard stones angle control becomes very important, it'd be extremely easy to slightly roll or round the edge if you're not pretty good at freehand sharpening. Wouldn't be the end of the world, and most people wouldn't realise, but it's the difference between a good edge and great one.


IMG-2730.jpg
 
For recurve knives and tools Wet &Dry glued to wooden dowels and PVC pipe and couplings works a treat for custom hones. Rarely go more than 1k but for large carving gouges leather glued to the other end of the dowel or pipe and a dab of metal polish will keep you carving just fine.

I also hone box cutters and razorblades used for scraping. Sometimes it is quicker than changing blades.

Makes sense. I have a 1/4” diameter hard Ark (not true hard) cylindrical file. I will sometimes wrap coarser sandpaper around this for honing concave edges. When I get fine enough I go directly to the surface of the file.
 
Quick touch-up on my go-to gyuto. Chose a vintage BBW, little bit with slurry, then with plain water. It‘s not at 100%, but its much better than it was when preparing for breakfast. I’m still getting a feel for using kitchen knives with small naturals (e.g. 2”x6”), much more comfortable free-handing on something like a 2.5”x8” Shapton 2k.
04D4F8FC-D957-40ED-B2CC-07BE7C21B328.jpeg
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
I did some refreshing of the pocket knife drawer today. These are the day-to-day grab and go knives, but some were never getting grabbed. So some items got dumped in the box I keep the rest of my pocket sharps in, and I put out some others for use instead. I think it's over a year since I last had a swap around.

20221124_034019.jpg

While the drawer was out, I went through them to make sure they all had a reasonable working edge. Most needed little more than a light "wipe" for me to be happy with them, but four needed a little more attention.

20221124_034427.jpg

CRKT Liong Mag #5
Victorinox Ranger (both blades)
Rough Rider Baby Copperhead
Case Soddie Jr

Not an overly tasking job. I'd just let them get a little further away from sharp than I should have. A small coarse pocket stone and a Victorinox sharper were all that were needed to get them back up to snuff though. I don't get the big stones out unless I absolutely have to.

IMG_20221124_035645.jpg
 
In keeping with my new philosophy that everything with an edge can be made sharper - with Thanksgiving approaching I had noticed that my old can opener was really not cutting as cleanly as it had been. None of my pocket stones were appropriate for hitting the back side of the cutter, but a brand new fine India slip stone cost less than replacing the can opener, so that is the route I went with. I clamped the can opener to my desktop with the gear engaged, held the India stone in a fixed position and then just spun the handle to rub the cutter against the stone. After a few minutes thw can opener was as good as new!😀

B3BE4FF2-A3C9-48CB-9FE2-ED59D3666274.jpeg
 

Legion

Staff member
In keeping with my new philosophy that everything with an edge can be made sharper - with Thanksgiving approaching I had noticed that my old can opener was really not cutting as cleanly as it had been. None of my pocket stones were appropriate for hitting the back side of the cutter, but a brand new fine India slip stone cost less than replacing the can opener, so that is the route I went with. I clamped the can opener to my desktop with the gear engaged, held the India stone in a fixed position and then just spun the handle to rub the cutter against the stone. After a few minutes thw can opener was as good as new!😀

View attachment 1563088
Nice one.

I can't remember the last time I had to use a can opener. All the cans where I live have self opening tops.

Come to think of it, the last time I came across a can that needed an opener I couldn't find one, and I had to use the one on a Swiss Army knife like a boy scout.
 
So recently my wife has gotten tired of the liquid-injected pre-cut turkey breast available at local grocery stores so instead I have been buying turkey breasts, cooking at home and then slicing them up. Which means that my Sujihiki has been getting more regular use. But last week I got sloppy and cut too close to the fork, as in the knife edge hit the fork and tore off several inches of edge. 😭 No one to blame but me. Given the long edge on this thing, I used my EdgePro to reset the bevel (bit lacking in confidence on holding a stable angle over a 300mm long edge), but then to get a little freehand practice I pulled out an 800 King to refine it a bit. Then I tried to polish the knife face with the King. Quickly realized that the polish level is much higher than the King. So stopped with the knife looking really ugly. I just bought a kiridashi that cost a fraction of this Watanabe sujihiki so plan to practice on that.

I will use as is for the next turkey breast and then try some finer grit stones to see what level of tooth I prefer on this knife. My gyuto and Nakiri always go much higher, but I tend to push cut a lot with those, while the sujihiki is always used for long pull cuts. So thinking that I want more tooth on the sujihiki.
652A12C7-B63F-491F-B3FB-A1589046E84B.jpeg
 
So recently my wife has gotten tired of the liquid-injected pre-cut turkey breast available at local grocery stores so instead I have been buying turkey breasts, cooking at home and then slicing them up. Which means that my Sujihiki has been getting more regular use. But last week I got sloppy and cut too close to the fork, as in the knife edge hit the fork and tore off several inches of edge. 😭 No one to blame but me. Given the long edge on this thing, I used my EdgePro to reset the bevel (bit lacking in confidence on holding a stable angle over a 300mm long edge), but then to get a little freehand practice I pulled out an 800 King to refine it a bit. Then I tried to polish the knife face with the King. Quickly realized that the polish level is much higher than the King. So stopped with the knife looking really ugly. I just bought a kiridashi that cost a fraction of this Watanabe sujihiki so plan to practice on that.

I will use as is for the next turkey breast and then try some finer grit stones to see what level of tooth I prefer on this knife. My gyuto and Nakiri always go much higher, but I tend to push cut a lot with those, while the sujihiki is always used for long pull cuts. So thinking that I want more tooth on the sujihiki.
View attachment 1566233


Just to note something...

Maybe just the pic it looks like you've been trying to use the stone to polish the blade face of the knife, i.e. the part going up to the spine...?

You don't really want to be doing that. That section you want shiny, and to do with a WnD sandpaper progression up to about 2k. Stone polishing for knives like this tends to be done on the main bevel of the knife - the area going from the shinogi line down to the edge.

(Sorry if that's stating the obvious, but just in case).
 
Top Bottom