I say this every time...
Knife Sharpening Thread
- Thread starter cotedupy
- Start date
@cotedupy GS 500 or the 500 extra thick? Will the extra thick be passed down to my first born?
Tis that time of year! Removed a chipped edge from the last oyster 
roast.
roast.
Cleaned up a couple of field knives. Ready for another hunting season.
- Thread starter
- #105
I have the regular size. But like everybody else I know who has the same... I regret not getting the double thickness version.
Not because it wears quickly (like the rest of the range it's very slow wearing), just that you'll want to use it the entire time!
(It's also particularly excellent for single bevels and crisp shinogi lines. And by the sound of it you do a lot of breaking down and filleting fish...)
I am really temped to add this stone to my selection of stones. Most of my knifes are made from soft stainless steel. I usually over sharpen my knifes. By that i mean they loose some of the bite too soon. I seem to get the best result if i start with a 1k stone, and jump to something in the 4-6k range. The trick seems to be to avoid spending too much time on the fine grit stone.
Would it make more sense to use a 500 grit shapton and finish on a 3k shapton or a 2k Naniwa pro. The goal would be to have some of the coarser serrations left when you finish to improve the slice cutting ability, and maybe get a little extra edge retention.
How do you get the most out of these softer steels?
Maybe i just need to get some better knifes. I have a couple of AUS 8 steel knifes that is nice to sharpen and an upgrade from the softer german steels. I am struggling a little more with VG 10 steels. I feel the added wear resistance is not worth the extra sharpening effort (stubborn burr).
Nice stone size for those blades and good looking. What are they, washita?
Beautiful vintage folding knives.
I used wet/dry to work the handle surface and put some new oil on.
Reshaped the front lower area of the handle by removing most of the bump there that I don't like.
Now the grip is really nice for me and I like the knives.
Also sharpened and ended on this Chinese stone.
Fiskars( Finland) and Knivman Eskilstuna.
Reshaped the front lower area of the handle by removing most of the bump there that I don't like.
Now the grip is really nice for me and I like the knives.
Also sharpened and ended on this Chinese stone.
Fiskars( Finland) and Knivman Eskilstuna.
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- Thread starter
- #109
I'm also a big fan of this kind of 'hybrid edge' - using a low grit stone to jump onto basically kinda deburring or putting a microbevel on with a much higher grit. And the SG500 is a very good stone for it.
In general also - softer traditional western steels seem to do better with low grit edges. You'll probably know more about the physics of this than I do, but something to do with a combination of being tougher, and having larger carbides. Even with perfect angle control, taking them to high grit stones will often make a knife objectively blunter. So again - I think an SG500 would be a very good option.
I don't believe I've ever sharpened VG10 (to my knowledge), though I've heard it can be tricky. I'm lucky that most of my sharpening is of Hitatchi carbon steels, and they're very easy to get insane edges on. Other steels sometimes make me feel like a complete amateur!
I was having this issue yesterday, trying to sharpen the main blade on a Victorinox SAK. I got it pretty good using a Turkey stone, then when I was trying to take it a step up on a small translucent Arkansas the edge seemed to go backwards. It might be user error, but it didn't make sense.
- Thread starter
- #111
I've probably written about it before on this thread, but here's a little more in depth look at polishing kitchen knives...
When people talk about using stones to polish knives this isn't really anything at all to do with sharpening them, it's an entirely aesthetic thing, usually done on the main bevel of a knife to achieve a desired finish. Most (though not all) of the fancier Japanese knives are made with 'san mai' construction, in which the harder cutting steel at the edge is sandwiched or clad by softer steel, iron, or sometimes stainless. Which means that if you put the main bevel of a knife on a stone you'll get a two-tone effect, with the finish looking different on the soft cladding to the hard core steel. This is called a 'kasumi' (haze) polish, with the ideal being to highlight the contrast between the two, without any visible scratch marks on either.
This is where Japanese stones really come into their own. The very poshest, most expensive jnats aren't really used for sharpening or honing - they're for polishing knives or katana/swords. I have a couple of very good polishing jnats, but something else that works remarkably well for this, and in fact puts many Japanese stones to shame, is Belgian Blue Whetstone.
The knives below are my collection of old yanagiba that I've resorted from old, rusted and chipped/damaged blades and made smart handles for. I'm going to polish them just on BBW, with some touched up after using a small piece of Mikawa nagura, a stone originally used for polishing katana.
The act of polishing a knife bevel involves nothing more than laying it flat on the stone and rubbing with light pressure. It's usually desirable to have a stone that's soft enough to slurry to some extent, or raise mud before, with will avoid scratching or burnishing the cladding. Different stones will affect the cladding (jigane) and core steel (hagane) in different ways, with the best putting an even, cloudy haze on the former, and polishing the latter to a bright, near-mirror finish.
So let's see how we did...
(TBC)
When people talk about using stones to polish knives this isn't really anything at all to do with sharpening them, it's an entirely aesthetic thing, usually done on the main bevel of a knife to achieve a desired finish. Most (though not all) of the fancier Japanese knives are made with 'san mai' construction, in which the harder cutting steel at the edge is sandwiched or clad by softer steel, iron, or sometimes stainless. Which means that if you put the main bevel of a knife on a stone you'll get a two-tone effect, with the finish looking different on the soft cladding to the hard core steel. This is called a 'kasumi' (haze) polish, with the ideal being to highlight the contrast between the two, without any visible scratch marks on either.
This is where Japanese stones really come into their own. The very poshest, most expensive jnats aren't really used for sharpening or honing - they're for polishing knives or katana/swords. I have a couple of very good polishing jnats, but something else that works remarkably well for this, and in fact puts many Japanese stones to shame, is Belgian Blue Whetstone.
The knives below are my collection of old yanagiba that I've resorted from old, rusted and chipped/damaged blades and made smart handles for. I'm going to polish them just on BBW, with some touched up after using a small piece of Mikawa nagura, a stone originally used for polishing katana.
The act of polishing a knife bevel involves nothing more than laying it flat on the stone and rubbing with light pressure. It's usually desirable to have a stone that's soft enough to slurry to some extent, or raise mud before, with will avoid scratching or burnishing the cladding. Different stones will affect the cladding (jigane) and core steel (hagane) in different ways, with the best putting an even, cloudy haze on the former, and polishing the latter to a bright, near-mirror finish.
So let's see how we did...
(TBC)
I'll be interested in how you think my suita type stone stacks up as a polisher, when it arrives to you. I've only used it to finish razors, for which I really like it. But I have a feeling it might be a good polishing stone.
- Thread starter
- #113
This is exactly what we're looking for, it's taken a really nice finish, with good contrast, quite easily:
Because these are all old, beaten up knives that I've restored - none of them are completely perfect, and this next one is certainly the least so. Though it's probably actually my favourite; it was the first one I did, and apparently the way the kanji are written show that it's a very old knife, at least pre 1945.
While it takes an excellent edge, the main bevel and wavy 'shinogi' line mean that it's never going to be best looker in terms of polish. Though has a certain charm I think:
Like the first this one came up very well indeed:
This knife was surprisingly difficult to polish, and took longer than the others. I don't know what this is clad with, but it was somewhat tricky to get to get looking nice:
And saving the best for last... this yanagi loves stones, and shows something that can be highlighted on certain knives with certain stones, which is the 'banding' or layers in the cladding steel. In some ways this is similar to a true 'damascus' finish, though it's more subtle, and has been done naturally on stones without etching the blade. Which is quite desirable, and means that all in all it's a very classy polish on this knife:
Because these are all old, beaten up knives that I've restored - none of them are completely perfect, and this next one is certainly the least so. Though it's probably actually my favourite; it was the first one I did, and apparently the way the kanji are written show that it's a very old knife, at least pre 1945.
While it takes an excellent edge, the main bevel and wavy 'shinogi' line mean that it's never going to be best looker in terms of polish. Though has a certain charm I think:
Like the first this one came up very well indeed:
This knife was surprisingly difficult to polish, and took longer than the others. I don't know what this is clad with, but it was somewhat tricky to get to get looking nice:
And saving the best for last... this yanagi loves stones, and shows something that can be highlighted on certain knives with certain stones, which is the 'banding' or layers in the cladding steel. In some ways this is similar to a true 'damascus' finish, though it's more subtle, and has been done naturally on stones without etching the blade. Which is quite desirable, and means that all in all it's a very classy polish on this knife:
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- Thread starter
- #114
Tis that time of year! Removed a chipped edge from the last oyster
Forgive my ignorance, but what's that used for? I've never seen one...
Oyster knife. Basically a little pry bar to lever open oysters. That one looks forged out of a rail spike.
- Thread starter
- #116
Trans arks can be very difficult to use on knives even at the best of times, it's incredibly easy to round an edge. But certainly on less posh steels - high grit stones can often be detrimental. I tend to find the best results come from finishing at a lower grit (500 - 1k) and then spending a bit more time and attention when stropping. I still strop on cardboard, but maybe just with a bit more care!
Yeah very much looking forward to giving it a spin! If it is a suita then they can be amazing polishers... and I might never give it back
.- Thread starter
- #117
Oh right... I've never seen one that looks like that before. Cool!
Cleaned up the edge on my trusty Case knife. Case knives occasionally have QC issues, but this one is a keeper. I love how well their steel takes an edge without any fuss. Others complain it rusts too easily, but I take it any day for a pocket knife.
I'm not a big user of Japanese knives (only own a Tojiro Santoku and a paring knife) so I can't really comment but I find on Western, softer, carbon steel kitchen knives there's little point going over 1000 grit (JIS) or even stopping at something like a really well executed Fine India edge. When I was a bit more of a sharpening noob I would try take kitchen knives to crazy, polished edges but I found that they actually didn't cut too well and became dull incredibly fast. One of the best investments I made to go along with those types of knives was a totally smooth steel to just tweak the edge back into line without any abrasion. Works exceptionally well.
- Thread starter
- #120
I'm slightly the opposite in that I sharpen mostly Hitachi paper steels, but my experience when I do sharpen western steels is exactly the same. 1k or below to finish, with anything above about 2k actually often making the edge notably worse, King 800 often seems to do well for me here. You're more of a steel expert than I am...why do you think that is? In my mind I have it down as something to do with the carbide structure, but I've no idea really!
Certainly one of the things I tell people most often if they're starting on stone sharpening for knives and ask about it, is not to spaff a load of money on increasingly fine grit stones; a good 1k ish, and something in the mid to low 100s would be all one ever needs. (And frankly: $20 on a Coarse and Fine India would probably do it, as you say.)
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