Knife Sharpening FAQ

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A Knife Expert on How to Really Sharpen a Blade | Field & Stream

A Knife Expert on How to Really Sharpen a Blade
Article byT. Edward Nickens. Uploaded on January 23, 2014
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Photos by Travis Rathbone

I hold the knife in my right hand, thumb on the blade spine. My left thumb guides the edge along a sharpening stone at as close to a 20-degree angle as possible. The screech of diamond dust biting steel is like a door creaking open in a slasher film. I haven't broken such a nervous sweat since Mrs. Evans made me read a story about tarantulas to the entire third-grade class.

"Visualize the matrix," Big D says. His eyes are a little glassy, looking toward a place I cannot yet see.

"Big D" is Donavon Phillips—Nissan factory mechanic, knife maker, and the current and three-time national BladeSports International cutting champion. We're in his Mississippi shop as a cold rain patters on the tin roof. Phillips knows knives like LeBron James knows basketballs. He designs them, makes them, and competes with them in a little-known circuit that attracts some of the world's finest bladesmiths. His slash through 22 water bottles is the official world record. "It's unfortunate that cutting sports intimidate a lot of people," Phillips says. "Most sportsmen grew up hearing their parents say, 'Don't play with knives.'" But Phillips grew up in the Mississippi Delta. "A machete, a knife, and some sticks—when I was 7 years old, those were all the toys I had."

Now he peers over my shoulder, so close the overhead shop light casts his shadow over my work. I visualize the matrix, or try. Phillips described it to me earlier: A knife edge, he explained, is nothing more than a microscopic saw. The teeth are formed of carbides in the steel, which are locked in a matrix whose interstitial spaces are filled with other elements—vanadium, chromium, molybdenum—that support the carbides. "To sharpen a knife," he told me, "you bring the opposing planes of the blade together, approaching at infinity. They never touch. But, of course, they do." This is another metaphysical puzzler I've been asked to visualize.

I push the knife on another 5-inch pass across the stone, focused as a brain surgeon. My blade has a bit of belly, and Phillips tells me only a beginner sharpens the blade tip without adjusting angle for the curve. As I move the belly across the stone I lift my right elbow to increase the angle. It feels good.

Phillips cranes his neck and sends a stream of Copenhagen spittle into a 55-gallon trash can 4 feet away. It's a rifle shot. Doesn't arc 2 inches. Everything about this man speaks of precision. His shadow gives a little dip. "That ain't bad," he says. "Angle's a little sharp, maybe." I feel a trickle drip down my back.

Looking Sharp
This time of year, there's a long list of low-stress, fun stuff I could be doing. Hose mud off decoys. Clean vent ribs with Q-tips. Snatch a few prespawn crappies. Instead, I'm dodging spit and sweating bullets in the Deep South, on a self-prescribed continuing-education course to improve my skills at freehand knife sharpening.

Like a lot of folks, I own a half dozen knife-sharpening gadgets and gizmos—sticks and stones and belts and one spring-loaded contraption that looks like it could guillotine a doll-size Marie Antoinette. But D. Boone didn't need such crutches to sharpen a knife keen enough for bear. Big D, I'm hoping, can show me the way back home.

He started off a couple of hours ago, in his backyard, demonstrating the brute force and precision control showcased in BladeSports cutting competitions. Using a single 11-inch knife he made himself, Phillips chopped through a 2x4 (just a bit off the current world record of 1.21 seconds, I'd guess), slashed a fast-moving golf ball, split a drinking straw, and zipped through dangling 1-inch ropes. In the water-bottle cut, a single giant slash through a standing row of bottles, Phillips completely disappeared beneath a towering explosion of water, catapulted bottle parts, and flashing steel. And that was with just 16 bottles.

Now, in his shop, I flip my knife over to work the other side of the blade. Maintaining angle is the Holy Grail. I hold the blade at 90 degrees to the stone, tilt it to 45 degrees, then tilt it another halfway distance. I'm at 22 degrees, give or take, so I take a smidge more off. The shadow reappears.

"Now it's all about repetition and muscle memory," Phillips says. Before I even complete my first pass across the stone, he mutters, "That's too shallow."

But I don't think so. I'm not a complete beginner here. When I turn the blade over and hold it close to the overhead shop light, however, a glaring streak of fresh metal glints along the shoulder of the bevel, a paper clip's width up from the actual knife edge.

"You're pulling it off the stone before it has a chance to work," he says. "Watch what you're doing." It's third grade, all over again.

I want to get this right. A sharp knife is the one piece of gear that binds all sportsmen together, and there was a time when a man was judged on the keenness of his blade. I get it. This knife is my baby. It is with me always, there for me always. It has gone through deer, hogs, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, doves, fish, eels, turtles, frogs, ropes, Christmas wrapping, cattails for a hundred duck blinds, and at least one wedding cake.

It's getting late. I've moved from a 600-mesh diamond stone to a 1,200-mesh stone and now work the blade over a leather bench strop loaded with 8,000-grit diamond paste. Phillips checks my progress every half dozen strokes or so. He points out tiny streaks in the thin lapidary paste, made by equally tiny burrs in the blade. Keep at it, he says, until those streaks are mostly gone. I'm getting there. Running the blade across my thumb, I can feel the fingerprint ridges hang up on the edge.

Pretty dang sharp, I think. I wonder if I can get it even sharper.

I push the strop to the side and pull the 1,200-mesh stone under the light. Infinity beckons on this cold Mississippi night. Beside me, Big D smiles.



Reveal the edgeTo check the sharpness of your blade, turn the knife edge up under a strong light, and look at it carefully. A sharp edge will look like a thin black line. Any reflection spells trouble. Dull spots will shine. Minute nicks and burrs will show up as tiny glistening pricks of light. If you see them, head back to the stone.

 

Interesting that this thread popped up again. I have tried over the years many of the methods and techniques mentioned in this thread. Many of them work quite well, and are a bit slow to quite slow. I have moved to using 1" x 30" belt sanders. With different grit belts and a leather belt mounted on several machines, I can work much faster than ANY other method I've seen or tried. This allows me to sharpen better than many methods, as good as some and not quite as good as a few but still good enough.

So this past Friday and Saturday at a family and friend get together, we butched and cut a bunch of hogs. I sharpened knives for everyone, we often had 12-14 cutting meat at a time. I sharpened 97 knives Friday and 87 on Satuday plus grinder blades and plates for 2 grinders and I still had time to help gut, skin, cut and even drink a couple beers. And every knife was sharp enough to shave thin curls off the edge of a sheet of cheap printer paper while holding it with one hand. (a quick test for nicks, burrs and sharpness without risking your thumb)

I had a friend who had a mobile commercial sharpening business 8 years ago and he used 2" wide modified Craftmans belt sanders. I figure I could go cheaper with the 1 x 30 sanders. Worked fairly well. When searching for some better belts 2 years ago stumbled upon a little firm called The Edge Masters who do about the same thing. They have some good videos that show all this on their website. Theedgemasters.com I think. Their sander and belts are expensive and over priced but it's easy. I have purchased a few belts.

I bought several of the Harbor Fright sanders and they are sort of ok but vibrate a bit which can show up in the edge. I have a nice little Delta sander from 6-7 years ago that is good but I'm not sure you can get them now. Some day I may work up a good knife holder and guide for precise angle control but do a few hundred knives and you get pretty good free hand. Biggest untold hint is as getting to the final edge lighten the pressure of the blade against the belt or stone to reduce burring or rolling the edge. Have fun.

AT

 

@Airtime , you might add a buffing wheel. Guy I worked with in California had a job buffing chrome for show trucks and boats. As a side job he would polish knives, and that buffing wheel would put an edge on a blade that could just about cut a passing thought in twain. Buffing wheel was about 8-10 inches in diameter by maybe 2-3 inches wide.

 

Tried a buffing wheel. Mine is 8 inch but only about 1 wide but I don't think that was a problem (still have it one of my grinders for other things). One has to be very light and careful or it can wipe out the edge. I rather like a leather belt on the sander (to strop the edge) with a light application of a fine buffing compound on the belt, more controlled with out excessive abrading of the edge. Have also used a Norton 9 micron belt (2 bucks instead of 20 for leather) and tried some interesting cork and scotchbright belts for the final polish/hone but I think the leather belt is a bit better.

AT

 

Bump. After reading this thread a couple years ago, I finally got around to finding a Japanese Water Stone, and gave it a try today. I have a couple of kitchen knives that I thought were sharp. Um, NO! at least to a serious level of sharp; until the water stone showed up. I do NOT need shaving sharp on a carving knife, but life is easier on a beef roast if they are that sharp. Another use I've put my knives to recently is making jerky from solid muscle meat. Life is WAY easier with a sharp knife on raw meat, even if partially frozen as "they" recommend.

Until that stone got here, all my sharpening was done on a carborundum stone, I think at 800 grit, which for most kitchen uses was OK. Touching the blades up with that, plus raking them over a steel, worked quite well, or so I thought. This is a new level of sharp. Now we are going to find out whether the steel of my knives can HOLD that edge. Stay tuned, will follow up an a couple months.

 

Chefknivestogo has some good kit. I need a couple more stones and some angle guides is all. Only an ol hand can just do it by eye. When your talking an edge so small you can't even see it, you must have a perfect consistency. And patience.

 

I'm no sharpening expert, but I manage to get my knives sharp. Guess I know a couple of things will form on the blade as you sharpen. And it's a good thing. You will form a burr. You can feel it with your finger. The burr can switch sides as you sharpen. When you even out your sharpening, you should get rid of the burr.

You may form a wire edge. Knife can feel sharp, the the wire edge is not good. You can get rid of it with light stropping, or even cutting lightly into a piece of wood.

This edge does not have a burr or wire edge and is shaving sharp.

IMG_6127 by Hanzo posted Jul 1, 2023 at 13:01

 

Why I like testing my edge with a hair? A hair is way more sensitive than my fingertips. Depending on what I have been doing, my fingertips maybe rougher, softer, whatever. When I drag a hair across the edge, I can feel through the hair where I did not sharpen as well. And I like a hair shaving edge.

Contrary to popular belief, this edge is not only sharp, but it stays sharp and useful for a pretty long time. This knife is a Scandi grind, but there is a slight convex at the very apex of the edge. So while not as robust as a purely convex, works for me. Almost cut the hair in half on my first pull. Had to really lighten the pressure for shave a curl.

But mainly use it to test for evenness in my sharpening. Can't be perfect by hand, so it helps me know where I may need to touch up to even the edge.

IMG_6145 by Hanzo posted Jul 2, 2023 at 17:14