What did you hone today? -Knife and tool edition

[cotedupy]

This is a Sujihiki I made up for a friend a couple of years ago, and it's something I see a lot when selling Japanese knives to people who might not have had one before. No matter how much you tell them about the hard steel and thin grinds, they will still try to wang it through whatever bones &c. come in their way.

I don't have many stones on me atm, but these should suffice. It'd be nice if I had something like a King 800 to slot in the middle though.

 

[Legion]

This is a Sujihiki I made up for a friend a couple of years ago, and it's something I see a lot when selling Japanese knives to people who might not have had one before. No matter how much you tell them about the hard steel and thin grinds, they will still try to wang it through whatever bones &c. come in their way.

I don't have many stones on me atm, but these should suffice. It'd be nice if I had something like a King 800 to slot in the middle though.

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Ye olde coticule wheele.

 

[cotedupy]

Ye olde coticule wheele.

Tis a gude wheele, and shyneth bright as the moone.

 

[2bit_collie]

Recently at my sister’s place and she admitted that her knives were really dull so I offered to sharpen them. Since she would need something to use in the meantime, when I returned home I dug through my cabinets looking for knives that I didn’t currently use. I’ve stayed at my sister’s house enough times to know that while she is a great cook, she treats her kitchen knives the same as her stainless steel forks and spoons - not a good place to send my carbon steel Japanese knives. Came up with two, both with badly in needing of honing themselves. A Wustof Chinese Cleaver and a “I don’t know what” from Henkels - basically something that slots in between a chef’s knife and a carving knife. By the way the good folks at Wustof were so sure that their intended audience would have no idea how to use a Chinese Cleaver that they printed the message “Only use for slicing” in both German and English on the side of the blade.

The cleaver was done entirely on stones. I started with my brand new SG500. Then moved to a vintage Norton 1st Quality Washita, followed by a ”Grecian” LI. The LI didn’t go very well - its a hard stone and the edge seemed to skate across it - I didn’t feel that I was “in the groove” with the edge angle and likely rounded the apex a bit. After one cutting session I went back to the Washita, and then followed it up with the coarse side of my “hard Washita” (SG = 2.4). That seemed to work much better - with both Washita’s I felt that the feedback made it much clearer when I had the correct bevel angle.

Then I tried the Henkels, and it was a bear. The SG500 generated a ton of swarf, and yet I couldn’t seem to generate a burr on the edge (though I did convince myself falsely once or twice that I was there). An old Norton fine India didn’t solve the issue either. So finally I pulled out my EdgePro Apex, loaded the coarsest stone, and banged away until I was able to raise a burr on first one side and then the other. Who knows, maybe another 5 minutes on the SG500 and I would have gotten there. I followed up with slightly finer stone on the EdgePro and then decided that that was enough. Other than that both knives got a quick visit from a Chromium-oxide loaded leather strop followed by a bare leather strop. Also the work on the EdgePro had left some scuff marks on the Henkels so I sanded the blade and handle to make them look a bit more presentable.

 

[cotedupy]

One for you @H Brad Boonshaft...*

Got a bit of chiselin' to do later today, and my father had put a small chip in the edge of this nice old Marples. Medium India should be alright to remove, and might put it on a Charn / Idwal / Ark after as well.

* BTW, if you have time - next time you're resorting a chisel, or possibly plane, it'd be fascinating to see some progress pics and explanation of your process. I've done it a bit, but there are always more tips and trick to learn!

 

[cotedupy]

The LI didn’t go very well - its a hard stone and the edge seemed to skate across it - I didn’t feel that I was “in the groove” with the edge angle and likely rounded the apex a bit.

Yeah - for cleavers I'd avoid harder and finer stones, and also small stones - you want something fast and relatively easy to use. I sharpen caidao quite a lot and even after masses of practice the angle control is tricky. However good you are; you're basically guaranteed to have more wobble compared to sharpening 'normal' knives, and hard, fine stones are very uncompromising with that.

 

[David]

I ended up just doing most of those on the SG500. Here's why it's awesome, even on horrid modern stainless:

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NB - not all of them would do that at the end, because most would have required considerably more effort and time put into the geometry than I was prepared to give. And knives don't really need to do that to paper towel anyway, just need to be able to do it to regular paper and they'll be grand.

Did you remove the burr on the 500?

 

[cotedupy]

Did you remove the burr on the 500?

I did. It's obviously not ideal, especially on slightly clingy stainless like most of those knives were. So if I'd had a synth around the 1k mark on me I'd have gone to that, as the steel wasn't liking the Washita. But with a delicate touch and gradually reduced pressure the SG500 did admirably.

 

[rideon66]

I did. It's obviously not ideal, especially on slightly clingy stainless like most of those knives were. So if I'd had a synth around the 1k mark on me I'd have gone to that, as the steel wasn't liking the Washita. But with a delicate touch and gradually reduced pressure the SG500 did admirably.

Been meaning to ask you about this Kippington deburring method I saw.

 

[cotedupy]

Been meaning to ask you about this Kippington deburring method I saw.

Yeah it works well and is fairly foolproof once you've got a feel for it, which doesn't take long. Though I don't use it that often tbh, just very occasionally if I'm really having trouble with something. In effect it's the same thing as people call 'jointing' for razors.

Was invented / first written about by some old Japanese maker or sharpener (I forget who), Jules was just the first person to bring it to light, demonstrate and explain it on KKF.

 

[Pack line]

Had a little type while cooking a pot of trash for dinner. You know, chicken carcass, vegetable scraps...trash. anyway had 2 old blades in need of attention. Started with fine side of and india combo finished on a tsushima nagura. Hand made (by me) about a decade ago. Deba and nakiri, western grinds because, well i didn't know any better at the time. Maple and cherry handles, 1095 steel, 1/8 thick at the spine. Double normalized, triple quenched and tempered back to around 60 rockwell. Not as tough as modern steels but boy do they take a fine edge.

 

[cotedupy]

Kippington and 2 x Stainless Sabs.

SG500, Coti, RR, Grecian.

 

[rideon66]

Did a quick little touch up on the Anryu Petty using an older mined LL Coticule with the blue hair lines. I think this one was mined around 8 years ago. The knife actually had a nice edge, but I don't think it was de-burred properly by me as I could sort of see and feel. So I did a Kippington method de-burr on coti to take it off and it worked perfect. Then a few quick light passes edge leading.

 

[rideon66]

A quick test on the Frankonian with a gyuto from Jonas. Very impressed

 

[Legion]

Carbon carving knife on a Cretan hone.

 

[cotedupy]

My little sister works in the sustainability of fisheries, and yesterday brought back a gift from one of the captains... a bloody massive wild Sea Bass in a bin bag.

Being a 21st century man and keen to fight the scourge of traditional gender stereotyping; I've decided to leave the gutting, scaling &c. of the bloody thing to her. Though I did, very gallantly, sharpen one of her knives to aid in that process.

 

[Legion]

My little sister works in the sustainability of fisheries, and yesterday brought back a gift from one of the captains... a bloody massive wild Sea Bass in a bin bag.

Being a 21st century man and keen to fight the scourge of traditional gender stereotyping; I've decided to leave the gutting, scaling &c. of the bloody thing to her. Though I did, very gallantly, sharpen one of her knives to aid in that process.

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I like the blue resin in the handle. The Dalmore looks cool as well.

 

[cotedupy]

I like the blue resin in the handle. The Dalmore looks cool as well.

That was actually the very first blue-mica-resin handle I made, at her request. And quickly became easily the most popular thing I do.

And yeah - really beautiful that Dalmore too.

 

[Legion]

That was actually the very first blue-mica-resin handle I made, at her request. And quickly became easily the most popular thing I do.

And yeah - really beautiful that Dalmore too.

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What would you compare a Dalmore to, finish wise? I keep getting conflicting information about where it sits "grit" wise. One a scale of soft Ark to Translucent? Someone needs to create some sort of scale for natural stones.

 

[Legion]

Reshaped, thinned and sharpened this tomahawk. Coarse India and a chunk of Turkish, which is now, and shall ever be my go to axe stone. Never throw anything away.

The axe is now wiping off arm hair.