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[nafex] Re: Knife Sharpening
--- In nafex@egroups.com, Tom Olenio <tolenio@s...> wrote:
> Hello List,
>
> I have been looking for a good means to sharpen my garden
> knives that is simple, and only uses simple resources. I
> found the following information and thought I would share it
> with the list.
>
> If anyone has any comments on how to get a good knife edge,
> suitable for grafting, I would love to hear them.
> this is my 1st attempt at replying to a letter, my ignorance of the cyber buttons is vast.......im swamped with building a house before freezup, but your sharpening inquiry hit home so ill start a reply ......my other life is producing professional woodcarving knives, mostly for instructors in scandinavian specialty woodcarving, they have to be sharpened quite beyond hair shaving. 1st off mr juranitch is an expert, perhaps, in the meat cutting field, but nothing else, keep this in mind reading his "bible". i have only grafted a few hundred trees, so am no authority on grafting, but what i have been learning is that its best to have one bevel (for me, the one underneath the knife as i am drawing it towards me in a cleft whip graft) absolutly dead flat, without so much as a microbevel on that side ( this is the side that is the guide in the cut). the cross section oof the other side is of course important, but not nearly so; IT only can follow his advise to have a bevel with a course angle different from the sharpening angle. this is in principle sound advise. a COMMON misunderstanding i find in woodcarvers (grafting is woodcarving as well) is takig a sharp knife which needs only a touch up- to one of these coarse carburundum stones and thuis wasting 10 times the steel needed to actually sharpen it. if i knew how to draw on this computeer it would help considerably this is al the time my 2 fingers have to type today...i guess a start would be... what grafting knife do you have? what sharpening stones etc do you have.? next spring ive thought of offering a couple of my modified carving knives hot rodded for grafting to serious grafters for trial, more later
> ======================
>
> Note: All the following were gleaned from the bible of knife
> sharpening called "The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening" by
> John Juranitch, published by Warner Books
>
> 1. The specific angle is not as important as keeping a
> constant angle (angle of knife edge to sharpening stone).
> The more acute the angle the sharper the knife, but the edge
> will not last as long.
>
> 2. When using the rough grit stone use a shallower angle
> than when using the fine stone. That is, grind the
> (usually) sorry factory edge to a shallow angle with the
> rough grit stone and I want to stress here that there is no
> special way to do this because you are just removing useless
> stock from the blade. Just grind one side of the blade until
> it is ground down enough. What is enough? Well enough is
> defined like this: Once you have ground the blade down
> enough (maintaining the same angle all the while) to have
> touched the cutting edge, start to test the edge on the
> opposite side of the blade by running your finger nail at a
> 90 degree angle to the opposite edge moving from the back of
> the blade towards the edge. Why? Well you are trying to find
> the curled edge (or burr) created by the grinding down of
> the first edge. Once you have this curled lip along the edge
> from tip to tang then turn the knife over and begin grinding
> the other side until you have the same curled lip for that
> side. Once you are done you should have a roughly ground
> edge with a fairly shallow angle.
>
> 3. Now take your fine grit stone (at least 400 grit or
> finer) and raise the angle of the blade you just ground down
> by just a little more and using moderate pressure make a
> single cutting stroke maintaining as much as possible the
> same angle down the stone making sure to sharpen the whole
> length of the edge on the stroke. Now after one single
> stroke turn the knife over and repeat the same process. Do
> all this slowly and deliberately. Repeat this about 6 times
> and then begin to lighten the pressure on the blade as it
> strokes the stone. At about the 10th or 12th repetition
> about only the weight of the blade should be pressing on the
> stone.
>
> 4. IMPORTANT! Do not use water or oil of any kind on any
> stone to sharpen your knife. In fact if you have been using
> some liquid on your stone, wipe it off as best you can or
> get a new stone which has not been tainted with such a
> substance. I know this goes against years and years of
> trusted advise from friends, fathers, aunts, uncles,
> grandfathers and etc.... Trust me on this one. Read the book
> to find out why this is true.
>
> 5. After step 3 test the sharpness (carefully) by cutting a
> sheet of paper or (even more carefully) trying to shave a
> few hairs off your arm. If you followed step 2 faithfully
> you should have an almost razor sharp edge. If not then
> re-read step 2 and do it again from the course stone. Step
> 2 is most important. Step 3 actually does the sharpening.
>
> 6. The more highly polished an edge the better it cuts.
> "Teeth" does not a razor edge make.
>
> ================
>
> --
> Thomas Olenio
> Ontario, Canada
> Hardiness Zone 6a
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