Master the Art of Sharpening

before i talk about the different sharpening systems that are available to us today and specifically the ones that i have in the shop let me talk for a second about what it even means to sharpen a tool there is a world of difference between the sharp and the characteristics of the edge on this axe four pound swedish axe pretty sharp and the sharpness on the edge of that little piece of obsidian now some people say that obsidian is the sharpest thing on the planet i don't know but there's even a big difference between the obsidian and the edge of that utility knife which is also really sharp and a lot tougher than the obsidian but the thing that makes these edges different fundamentally besides the material itself let's just talk about the two pieces of steel is the angle the angle that is ground onto the steel to achieve the sharp edge the zero edge that the part of the edge that actually can be defined as sharp in the case of this utility knife i think it's about 15 degrees you know seven and a half on each side in the case of this axe it's about 40 degrees about 20 degrees on each side essentially a gentle wedge with a sharp edge this has to cut while it withstands a blow the blow would love to break the edge off but it can't because it's gaining thickness fast enough that the strength of the material itself which is increasing as the blow is transmitted back into the ax is dissipated is dealt with is resisted by the strength of the material this is not made to resist any blow at all this is made to resist hand pressure in a direct usually a slicing action if you put any kind of a side load on a piece of on the end of a utility knife what happens it snaps off when a knife gets dull the very vanishing zero edge is worn back or bent back or turned into a thicker edge the only way to re-establish that knife edge is to remove material to grind material back the same amount on both sides until the zero edge the knife edge is re-established what that means is that you are removing you are making your knife smaller using some method look at these two guys okay those probably started out very similar in size because they are identical in purpose this one's got a lot of miles on him probably came out of a butcher shop somewhere or a meat processing plant this one probably came out of somebody's kitchen drawer where it's only sharpened what in my house twice a year this was sharpened 30 times a day and so in the act of removing the material to reestablish the knife edge you are in fact grinding your knife away now that we know what we're talking about when we're talking about sharp let's talk about some of the options that are available some of the systems that you can get your hands on if you need to start worrying about how to sharpen a knife the first of those is the one that i started out as a kid sharpening my knives on and that is a whetstone now wet is an old word meaning sharpen so a wet stone is is strictly for sharpening knives and nowadays most of the wet stones you buy are man-made aluminum oxide i think now that's not as important as the concept that wet stones come in different grits just like the belt on a belt sander you can get a coarser or a finer stone when you approach a wet stone as soon as you bring the knife in contact you ought to be thinking about what angle do i want if i want a very very acute angle you lay that knife back down flat and be prepared to be there a long time because you've got more material to remove if you want the knife to have a more durable edge you stand it up a little straighter and you're going to get it to that knife edge a little quicker but whichever it is it's kind of therapeutic a water stone tends to be a little softer and will work up a little slurry i mean the water and the bits of the stone and the bits of the knife form kind of a paste that speeds up the process an oil stone is harder and needs the oil frankly to reduce the sound to facilitate the back and forth and float the debris out the debris out not important the bottom line is you start to get the feel of the angle you can feel when the angle comes into contact with the stone and you start getting into the zen of a repetitive motion one of the things you do sooner rather than later is to take your knife up off the stone and see what you've been doing the act of pushing it across a wet stone will make the edge the part you're filing or grinding shiny and you want that shiny strip to be about the same width you want it to come clear to the edge of the blade and that will tell you that if you keep doing what you're doing you are actually going to be affecting the cutting edge of the knife if you're too flat it won't be touching the cutting edge and you'll clear be clear back here if you're too shallow the width of the shiny strip is going to show you that your angle is too abrupt so if you've got a modern stone with two different grits and you've done all you feel like doing on the rough side you think the blade is in shape flip it over get on the smooth side and polish it refine the edge smooth it up and bring it up very close to its final sharpness now if you've got a knife that is just totally wasted if it's been abused if it's been beat up if the edge is out of shape or if like this buoy knife it has never been sharpened this is just the way it came out of the acid etch there is nothing wrong with taking a file which after all is just an aggressive way to remove material and bringing the knife up to the bevel to the shape to the angle that's appropriate for the knife in this case a little steeper than i would have on those skinning and boning knives this stone is an arkansas stone actually mined out of the mountains in arkansas and it is they are sort of reputed to be the finest whetstone outside of japan that is readily available this is an oil stone at least i think it's an oil stone which means that what you're doing is lubricating the stone you're lubricating a stone that is already a very fine stone maybe i don't know really fine but what i'm doing at this point is polishing the edge that was established on the rougher stone with the intention of changing it from a microscopic serration serrated edge to a microscopic smooth edge you can while away a lot of hours like this it's soothing and every once in a while you check it and let me tell you it's sort of a relief when you realize all of a sudden oh that thing's sharp i put this stone in a wood you know plywood case you do that so your fingers are away from the stone you can clamp it down it's worth doing that if you buy a nice stone and it doesn't already come in a wood holder make something to keep it in one spot so you can really bear down and not worry about it sliding or turning over this is known as a steel or a honing steel and it removes almost no material at all it's for maintenance you keep one in the kitchen you keep one where you're cutting meat and if the edge of your knife just sort of if you lose a little bit of the edge if the edge itself has gotten you know folded over just a little or you know what it's not quite right you can touch it up you can kind of stand the edge back up and improve a knife that is dullish but not totally dull you're going to be disappointed if you ever pick up a really dull knife and work on this because it won't solve that but it'll keep a knife working better for a little longer this is sort of a an adaptation of this this thing takes some practice i mean you feel like you can cut your fingers and a butcher a real meat cutter can just really do that so this is the same idea you put your knife in there and you push it down and you pull it through and i have not used this enough to know if it's even a good idea a better version of this a modern adaptation and i know i like it is something like this now you've probably seen these they come in all shapes and sizes and configurations with finger guards and big handles and the idea is there are three carbide blades in here that are physically scraping the edge of your knife down they're not grinding they are scraping away in the way that some machining processes scrape away the edges of your knife down to that angle it really works good i like to hold this on the edge of a table so you don't end up slicing your fingers and with just moderate pressure you pull the knife down through those slots and what happens is you are physically scraping away the edges of your knife down to that angle can you see those little ribbons of steel they have physically been scraped off the edge of that knife see how it's clinging to the cutting edge right there now these tools will wear out a knife in a hurry they're so much faster than a wet stone but hey they're faster than a wet stone so the next class of sharpening systems is wonderful and dangerous it is power sharpening systems electricity spinning a wheel of some kind that has some sort of an abrasive in contact with the wheel in my shop at least up until recently what i was talking about was either a grindstone a dry grindstone or my 2 by 72 grinders belt grinders and frankly that's really all i use because it's fast but with the fast with the speed comes risk there are at least two ways that a power sharpening system dry sharpening system can ruin your knife the first way you can wreck your knife in seconds or fractions of a second is by ruining the profile of the blade for instance this knife you may not be able to see that was being used on a system that we just got that we're going to show you in a minute and was a little too much time was spent in the midsection of the blade until uh oh not straight anymore so now it doesn't come into uniform contact with the countertop now that can be fixed but it happens so fast so that's item number one be careful you don't change the straightness of your blade the second profile exposure that you have when you use a power sharpening mechanism is ruining the point for instance this i think is about a hundred and fifty dollar pocket knife this is a nice pocket knife it is so easy on a power sharpener to lose the tip of that thing i mean that comes to a very fine point it's a very elegant taper it fits into the case perfectly and if you're not careful what you're going to have is a butter knife when you start putting this on a power grinder of any kind so you've got to go slow because irreparable damage can happen in the blink of an eye here's the next thing to be careful of you've probably seen me temper blades as part of the heat treating process in here when i've made axes or knives and if you haven't you will but heat treating is a very specific process that turns high carbon steel into something remarkable the last step in heat treating is tempering here's the danger with any sort of a power sharpener a dry power sharpener and that is grinding is based on friction friction develops heat and heat will take the temper right out of the edge of your knife meaning it will soften the edge of your knife to where it will no longer hold an edge the first clue you get that you've gotten that thing too hot is when you see a little bit of bronze or purple or blue color show up at the cutting edge you've wrecked it here's how you avoid that keep dipping it in water keep it in water like after every pass to the water every pass to the water the second thing is don't do this with gloves on you've got to be able to keep your hand in contact with the blade at all times without cutting yourself to be sure that you've not overheated the blade and turned it into a conversation piece now there's another type of system that i've seen but i've never handled and that is a miniature belt grinder they just sit on your bench or on your table and they're narrow and they have jigs and the angles are set and they just work they look like they work so good but anything that has a spinning belt that has sand on it is going to raise the ugly possibility of hurting your knife in one of these two ways either you're going to ruin the profile and grind off the tip or you're going to stay on it too long and develop enough heat to wreck the temper so practice practice practice i've got one more knife sharpening system in the shop to show you it's only in the shop because i had to go over and swipe it from nate's place he's had it for six months i haven't played with it yet it's a system that i think addresses every one of the shortcomings of all of the systems that i just showed you the only downside is it's expensive but you know nothing's perfect and these guys the manufacturer have loaned it to us but i'll just let you know right now boys i'm not sending it back i'll pay you for it okay but sorry it's not leaving my shop ever so let me show you what this thing will do as far as i know and then in a few months i'll be able to actually put it through its paces [Music] so well here it is this is a tormek t8 i don't know much about it but i'll tell you what i do know it's a water-cooled complete sharpening system it comes with this really nice heavy stone that's bathed in a water bath it's got a leather strop attachment right next to it it's got two boxes of jigs and attachments and accoutrements it comes with wood half what would have to be i think considered the the knife sharpeners bible right i mean this will sharpen anything and it's got the jig and the attachment to make sure that in the process of sharpening anything you're sharpening it right so how cool is that tormek this is awesome you know let me know what i owe you or at least we'll talk about how to how i can keep this in my shop with a clear conscience because i intend to learn how to use this i've always sort of wondered how do you sharpen scissors how would you sharpen a gouge look at this there's a picture on there of a gouge that's being sharpened essentially perfectly i don't know there's more information here than this old head is going to be able to hold on to but but i intend to give it a bit my best shot i built this stand because next week i'm going to a hammer-in up at size i think every blacksmith in this part of the county is going to be up there having a good time and they've all got a pocket knife and they all have an opinion about what it means to be sharp and how what it is that means success and heat tempering so i'm going to take this up there and those guys will play with it and they'll be intrigued by it we'll have conversations about what part of this is vital and what part of this is just handy so before we sign off on this i want to talk to the dads out there dad get your kid boy or girl a wet stone and a knife i mean how bad can they hurt themselves sitting at a table with a knife they can't but they can learn what it feels like to change the angle they can learn what a wire edge is they can learn how to use their hands to accomplish something worthwhile and for the rest of their life when they walk up to something to sharpen whether it's a chainsaw or a wood chisel they're going to instinctively know how to get it at least sharpish because they learned how to get a pocket knife sharp thanks for watching essential craftsman and keep up the good work [Music] did you meet ford's heart he said this myrtle would radiate the sound just unbelievable [Music] it turns out that that was this is my little toy knife some sometimes if i want it sharp i'll come to this flat rock or a different flat rock just any road will work but i rub it back and forth on the rock that gets it sharp sometimes i give it a point and that gets the knife kind of dull and so then i sharpen the point let's see it you can definitely tell that it's sharp [Music] definitely give someone a scratch

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 1,581,882

Keywords: anvil, forge, blacksmith, forging, craftsman, mentor, trades, tradesman, career, smith, carpetner, builder, wisdom, workbench, fabricate, tools, tool, tips, trick, hacks, protip, knife sharpening, whetstone, sharpening steel, honing steel, heating treating knives, tempering knife blades, knife sharpening grinder, kids knives, metal grinder, Tormek T8, Tormek knife sharpener

Id: -I004etmBMc

Length: 18min 44sec (1124 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/BoomBoomDoomDoom]

Just popped in here to say this guy’s YouTube page is incredible.

He quite literally built a spec house from nothing to provide how to and behind the scenes content.

Definitely worth a follow.