OK, I have NO experience with sharpening knives and would LOVE to do this, but with all the freakin choices out there to sharpen a knife, I'm not sure which one is best to get--I'd like to make this a "one time purchase" and just learn how to get it right with what ever system I end up with. Having said that I am leaning towards a DMT diamond stone system-one coarse stone and another fine stone-but there are so many other choices, I am not sure of its quality and ability to put a good edge on a knife
I've looked at the Lanskey and other similar systems, but really like the simplicity of having just a stone.

So, am I way off base here?

Thanks

Dave

Unless the sharpening system you use can raise a burr, it is a waste of your time.

I believe that most of the sharpeners that are sold actually harm the knife and make it harder and harder to sharpen the next time.

I believe in having a fast sharpener in your pocket while in the field. Anything you can use in a few seconds just to put a fast edge on your knife.

However for sharpening your knives when you get home you want something that can raise a burr so that you are fixing any dings that you might have gotten in the edge while in the field.

I strongly disagree with the use of the V rod sharpeners. I believe that they just sharpen the flaws in the knife-edge. The same trouble is found with all the other knife sharpeners that are drawn down the knife blade. Their problem is that if you knife-edge has a ding or nick in the blade, this type of sharpener will follow the ups and downs of the blade in an effort to sharpen them too.

I prefer the use of a stone. The stone will allow you to sand the edge true. By grinding only one edge at a time against the sharpening stone, you true up the whole edge as you produce the burr you are looking for. Then when you have a burr all along the one edge, you can then flip the blade and grind that side for a while. When you have a burr on the other side you know that you have ground flat both sides of the knife. At this time you can then start the, draw-flip-draw-flip normal sharpening motion that we all see done on TV all the time.

As you work the knife in this way you can start to check the knife edge a few times looking to see if the burr has fallen off yet.

Soon you will notice the burr starting to disappear. At this time you draw the knife softly across the stone to get rid of the last of the bur and true up for a last time the cutting edge.

Your knife is now sharp.

If you wish to go more into sharpening, at this time I move to my sanding belts and get rid of the scratches left from the stone, then on to my buffer to put a mirror finish on the blade.

Here is the deal with sharpening....

If you ever tell anyone that you sharpened your knife, some guy will hear this and hand you his knife to sharpen.

This is because the skill of sharpening a knife is becoming lost. Our grand fathers knew how to put an edge on a blade, but our generation is starting to lose this skill.

The guy will hand you his knife because he heard you might be able to sharpen it, and so this makes you a "KNIFE GOD" is his eyes already.

This is also the problem I have with the many jigs and electric sharpeners on the market. While they work, they also take away the chance to really impress your friend by being able to sharpen the blade with a stone right in front of him.

What we all want to be able to do is say, "Hey there is no trick to it" and then use a whole bunch of secret tricks and with only a stone and a bit of work, hand him back a sharp knife and watch him spend the rest of the summer trying to use that same stone and not understanding how you did it.

What we all don't want is to have to say when handed a knife, "Oh, sorry, I have to take it home because I need my jigs and power sharpener"

That just makes you look like a girl.

Once you understand the tricks of working with a sharpening stone, you can use ANYTHING, even a river rock to make a blade razor sharp.

Man I wish I could make just a "one time" sharpener purchase!

If you haven't sharpened before, and want to do a good and proper job, get one of the lansky type systems. It doesn't have to be diamond, the regular stones work just the same, and maybe cut faster depending on the quality of the diamond matrix.

If you want to learn how to sharpen a knife on a stone buy a cheap washita stone, make sure it is 6X2 inches at least, and has a good base otherwise it will slide. If you buy just a plain stone you can use contact cement to glue it to a wood base. I won't repeat how to learn to sharpen, do a search in the forum to find it. Japanese waterstones are great, but don't get one off the bat as you will gouge it badly learning how to use it. I like to use a diamond coated something or other when I'm in the field, either a rod or small 4" stone.

Hope this helps,

Mark

The lansky or similar systems are good for beginners because they can keep a consistant angle. I would try one of these first.
Next step up would be a good stone. I greatly prefer waterstones because they cut faster, finer and water isn't as messy as oil. You can get a combo 1000/6000 grit waterstone from woodcraft or japan woodworker for about $25. Just be careful at first because waterstones are more easily damaged than others.
Lastly find a good peice of leather, glue it to a flat board and with the right compound ($5-10) you can make as fine an edge as anyone.

I own the lansky sharpener.....it sorta works.

if my knife is not that dull.....if my knife has no deep chips in the edge.....if the knife is thin enough and short enough,,,,then it works fine.


However when I make my knives, the knife starts out that first time on a stone with a cutting edge about as thick as a dime. this is well past the abilities of my lansky to deal with.

the ability of the lansky to hold the correct angle is good. as the blade and stones clamp and slide there is no way to mess up the angle. However I have come to believe that holding the same correct angle is not as important as getting a burr. Holding a blade so that you have the correct angle with every stroke is nice, but without first getting the burr going, on both sides, then grinding it off, you will never have the knife as even and trued up as you may want.

I was a Beginner until I started using a Straight Razor to shave with, Now I can use a sharpening stone like a pro!
You need to take your time to recontour the angle of the blade to your particular style, and this takes time and the removal of the Blade steel to do this. You then put the final edge on the blade and finish off with a peice of leather treated with "FLITZ" same angle but drawing backwards this polishes the edge and gives it that final hair-popping edge.
The main problem is that people get into a rush and look for a shortcut or gadget, you cannot shortcut the removal of the steel, the harder the steel (read Quality), the longer it will take and the longer it will retain the edge (I Recently bought Two new Razors to shave with that have required several days of nightly work to bring the edge to fine shaving sharpness).
I agree that the "V" rods which are round make flaws worse, you need a Flat, True, Quality Stone, I use Norton Water-stones, they are expensive but you get what you pay for.
Most of all, Take your time, it's easy to touch up a sharp blade, it can be along frustrating journey if the blade is dull. Good luck with your efforts.
Hansel

When you say "make your knives" I think that implies an ability beyond mine already.

But one thing - the Lansky DOES raise a burr. I have reground the edges of most all my knives to a different angle. In fact the instructions state to grind one side until you feel that burr on the opposite side, then to work the other side until you raise a burr on the first side. Then switch to a finer stone and work each side equally. Once you get the edge done with the finest stone you can strop it. I bought a nice American something or other brand bench strop for my convex ground Marbles and it works just fine to put that last touch on the straight angle knives as well.

Just this past Friday I reground the bevel on a Buck Duke that I got used on eBay. The NIB ones are fetching upwards of $50, so I bought one for considerably less that had scratches on it and had definitely been used. The edge was fairly dull and had some of those tiny nicks in it. I took the bevel down to 17 degrees as I want to use this for fine work.

I'll admit it took quite a bit of work with a coarse stone to redo that bevel - could definitely have used a super coarse to start but I only have the three that came with the kit, coarse, medium and fine. You could see where a lot of metal was being taken off and that bevel was extending up the blade quite a bit. But after about 15 minutes of elbow grease it got that burr. Then back and forth for another fifteen minutes with the medium and fine stones, then a final stropping on my leather strop. Today I was amusing myself my carving leetle tiny strips about 1/8" wide off of the edge of a sheet of newspaper, or pushing the blade - not pulling or stroking, but pushing the edge straight down onto notebook paper and letting it cut through.

Anyway, like I said, my hat is off to you guys who can sharpen a knife that sharp freehand. I don't clam that the Lansky is the be all and end all of sharpening. But I just have to speak up for it as a valuable aid for us "less than artiste's in steel" types, as it will regrind bevels and gets a knife just super sharp.

Yes, like I said, I own a Lansky sharpener and it works, sort of works anyway.



If the knife is thin enough, and by this I mean a normal blade is less that 1/8 inch thick. But the trouble is that I make a using Field Knife based on the design of Ed Fowler. He advices that working knives have a spine in front of the guard that is a minimum of � inch thick. The Lansky sharpener has some real trouble hanging on to a knife this thick.



The Lansky also can sharpen most all flat ground knives, however this also is a problem for my knives. The problem is that I prefer a "Convex" grind on my knife. This means that the bevel to the knife starts right up at the spine and then gradually slopes down to the cutting edge. I believe that the convex grind gives the knife cutting edge the support needed to keep it from flopping over when used. The design of the Lansky sharper is aimed more at the flat grind, and at least in my case, I have never been able to reproduce the pure convex edge.



Now when I told a guy that also owned a convex edged knife that needed sharpening, that he needed to get a burr going before flipping the blade to sharpening the other side, he stated that he could never get a burr with his Lansky.



So on that weekend I went over to his house and tried my hand with his Lansky. Now he had even the diamond stones and the Norton Fine India stone attachments of his Lansky.

And yes, the use of both of such stones was able to produce a bur eventually. However due to the lack of pressure you can use with the Lansky it took forever. The next problem I had was that due to the length of his blade being about 10 inches, the Lansky was not sharpening the whole length evenly. We had to do a reposition of the Lansky clamp thingy, and start all over doing the tip area.



This took a long time. Yes we did get the knife sharp, but we learned a lesson about this sharpener too.



If I were to give the Lansky sharpener a review for a Knife magazine or website, I would say that it seemed to be a sharpener aimed at pocketknives. As I have used mine on a few smaller knives I would say that based on my experience with the Lansky, that it works as well as other clamp sharpeners that exert a minimum of force on the knife. That's also the main problem I had with it, being you cant lean over the sharpener with your weight and bare down on it to speed up the sharpening. The Lansky clamping device also seems more aimed at grasping the sides of a flat ground blade and was difficult to control on his wider convex grind.





I also own a lot of sharpeners. the fact is that every time of go to a sports store I look in the knife section to see "Whats New?"



I have never found, nor even heard of, an "All-in-One" sharpening system yet.



Right now I use a 10 inch long Norton Fine India stone, and I love it , but I still have to take the blade from the Norton to my sander and sand out the scratches, then on to my buffer to buff out the little scratches from the sandpaper.



Yes I make knifes , no big deal, I dont really sell them, I just sort of hand them out to my co-workes for the money it took to make them. I have had to learn how to get a "hair-poppin" edge because thats what the guys like to see.



When I sit down to sharpen one of my blades that first time, the thickness of the future cutting edge is well past the thickness most people will ever have to deal with. The edge is blunt and right around as thick as a dime, (give or take a bit)



I really grind the edge into my Norton stone at first. I bring my weight over the blade as I work just one side to get the burr, then flip to grind and grind on the other side. The 10 Inch Norton can cut a lot of steel fast and gives me the toothy edge.



Anyways, thats what I think and what I have found true...But I still look in the knife section of the store for the "newest thing".

I use a fine stone no name on it. Then I use a piece of leather with some jeweler's rouge I got from Sears to get the blade sharp as a razor. As far as the angle goes, it depends on which knife I am sharpening.