I'm down with sharpening now, thanks to...

[Buddy Thomason]

Tai. People ask me all the time how to do something, and I explain - just like happens to you all too - and Tai, probably even more-so. But Tai took the time to show me what I needed, what to do and how to do it. It took a while but I got everything together and started doing it just like he taught me and I swear, the results are amazing. I realize now I probably never really even used a truly sharp knife in the past. But now I can take any blade and take it to whatever degree or type of sharp...and I'm pumped. Thanks Tai. Ya'll see if you can guess what all that stuff is.

[Andrew Garrett]

He teases us...

[circlepknives]

Aye that he does :P

[rhrocker]

Yes, yes he does )

[Buddy Thomason]

Oh, C'mon.... OK, the three stones are from Dan's Whetstones. The longest one is Arkansas Soft, the next longest is Arkansas Hard and ths shortest one is Arkansas Black. I think of them in terms of grit as medium, fine and very fine. The 'strop' is a piece of ply-wood, a layer of cork and a topping of thick water-color paper. The powder abrasive goes on the strop for removing the burr and polishing the edge.

I informally compared Dan's honing oil with (in this case) a can of generic spray WD-40. In the end I like the 'WD 40' approach - it's neater and less messy but also a little smoother when pulling the edge across the surface of the stone.

Tai said, "Remember, the key is to raise the burr so you can feel it, all the way along the edge." And that's the hard part because it requires patience. It takes the most time to do that the first time through on each side of the blade, using the soft stone. But if you take the time to do that part right, then it takes less and less time on the subsequent stones and strop to go through the same proceedure.

Obviously what I'm describing is for re-sharpening, touching up and maintaining an edge, not for setting the bevel, profiling the initial edge after final forging etc. That stuff requires a little more cutting action that the Arkansas soft provides (I assume). No matter what though, it all comes down to getting the edge back into a straight and even state, as evidenced by raising the burr along the entire edge on one side before switching to the other side, raising the burr again etc. - back and forth, one side at a time - moving to a finer stone if the desire if for more of a slicing or shaving edge as opposed to more of a cutting (think micro saw teeth in the edge produced by the soft stone and a highly polished razor edge by the black.) I'm not very good at explaining it but it all works great in practice.

Thanks again, Tai. Now I can hold my head high amongst knife people because nobody can say about me, "Hey, he's just one of those collectors who likes knives but God forbid he should ever have to sharpen one." No sir.... can't say that about me ever again.

[toddhill]

Nice stones you got there, Buddy. And it looks like you know how to use them. Now you just need to get you a little gas forge

[rhrocker]

Also Buddy, you can get to work and sharpen up all those Scagels to any shape you want !!

That's great Buddy! I can't think of a more valuable skill when it comes to knives.

Looks like a primo set of stones! I have an 8 inch Dan's black hard that I got in a trade from Adam.
Dan's: http://www.danswhetstone.com/

Pass that knowledge along.
Like I've always said,... folks need to be able to sharpen their own knives to fully appreciate them.

Once you get a feel for it, you can tell a lot about the steel just by sharpening it.