Thread: knife sharpening

Suggest you contact Derek Cohen. See members list above. He is the guru.

Hi Lola,
The best jigs are those that hold the knife while a stone is passed over the cutting edges at precisely the same angle each pass.
Tpo get the idea ,you ight check out any place that sells lots of knives.
King of knives is one that comes to mind.
I tried to write a description to make one, but it timed out.

Whatever you do stone the blighters,never grind they are easily ruined by a powered wheel.

Grahame

Originally Posted by lola

am keen to make a knife (kitchen,pocket,etc) sharpening jig
grateful for any help

The trick is to get the knives keen
Personaly with a good knife I will only use an oil stone but that is a last resort I keep mine sharp with a steel . was shown by a butcher once and always use the steel before putting away . and only wash by hand.
but if they are too far gone put in some elbow on an oil stone

I have got a Lansky Sharpener which I use to sharpen my pocket knife/s.

The Lanksy sharpening jig works ok ,but is limited to small blades.

Its cost in Australia is prohibitive for just ocassional use. Its basic design and method of sharpening could be upscaled in a larger model that should not be too hard to fabricate. A little bit of imagination and its possible to knock up a usable model in a home workshop. The action of the stone on the blade is like one is filing the blade, but with a fixed and constant angle.

The down side may be the difficulty in obtain stones of the correct dimensions ,ie ! narrow enough and long enough to sweep around the blade length. That is the flaw in the Lanksy design with the stones being too short.
Some of the cheapy chinese diamond sharpeners may suit the purpose.

Grahame

Have a look at the knife sharpening jig on the Tormek, and make a copy of that.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I dont profess to know much about woodwork but I worked as a butcher for 12 years and a boner for 2 years of that. I can get a reasonable edge on a knife. Good enough for my wife to nick herself everytime I sharpen them anyway. The secret is to flatten the blade first. Get rid of all of the old bevel full stop. Be ruthless any old rounded bevel is going to make the whole job pointless. This means placing the blade flat on the coarse side of the (flat) stone with lots of watered down detergent and working away until its flat. This will take a long time in some cases a waterstone is a good way to inisialy flatten. From then on a few strokes each time you resharpen is all it will take.
This done flip the stone over clean it and the knife. Work out 8-10 degrees of bevel angle and how you are going to run the blade edge across the stone at that angle with one smooth stroke finishing at the point. 3-4 strokes is all it will take. Forget about lots of wire edge. Our knifes cost $40 or more each and lasted 2 weeks in the abatoir so we couldnt afford to waste steel. 3-4 strokes on each side ensuring NO variation in bevel angle and you have a sharp knife. Remember the more times you stroke that smooth side of the stone the greater chance you will round over the bevel so keep it to the minimum and put some elbowgrease into it. Practise is a good master

thanks very much steve its always good to receive some helpful advice for us newbies instead of being told to do a search. hope i can help you out one day

cheers mate