WHY YOU CANT GET A RAZOR EDGE

being a custom knife maker craftsman and outdoorsman sharpening is pretty much my job at this point I sharpen all the time so I figured I might be able to share some of that knowledge with you guys who are having trouble with your free hand sharpening so let's get started so I have a lot of sharpening videos online if you want to check some of those out click that length it's under top corners of the screen there now and you can go through a whole backlog of sharpening videos over the years now because I have so much content online like that I get a lot of questions almost on a daily basis a lot of emails and Facebook messages asking me to identify certain problems with their sharpening and basically it comes down to two main questions those two are why can't I get a razor sharp edge and why doesn't my edge last so I'm gonna address those two issues what are the common mistakes people make and how you might be able to identify what you're doing wrong and get a better edge so for demonstration purposes we're going to be using one of my customs here I just finished up but let's get started out the most basic part and that is stone choice now this happens to be a sharp pebble stone this what we're gonna be using in today's video it was a gift from sharp pebble if you want to check them out go for it I'll throw a link to their to their site in the description I guess they didn't ask me to review this or anything they just sent it along as a gift so thank you very much share pebble for providing the stone for this video it's a stone choice the most important thing is grit rating so you want to start out with a grit that's effective now I started out with sharpening with a 1000 grit stone that's fine if your knife is not in very bad condition but if it's in rough shape you're gonna want a course or stone 400 is a beautiful grit you see this is a 400 and 1,000 grit combo of stone so we get both grits with this one stone it's a fairly thick stone as well you get a lot of life out of it but a 400 grit works well 1000 important an important thing since we're talking about grits here is that you don't want two biggest steps between your grits or you're likely not to get out the scratches from the previous stone so if you went from say a four hundred to a 3,000 you're gonna have to work really long on that 3000 grit stone to remove all the scratches from the 400 because the 3000 grit stone is just not coarse enough to cut away the material so going from 400 to a 1000 and 1000 to a 3,000 and then three up another few thousand grit those increments are small enough that you're going to efficiently remove those scratches and ensure you get a good edge now we're about to start sharpening and we get to a few main questions one is can I do forward and back strokes absolutely do cutting strokes and strapping strokes you don't need to lift off the stone to reset each time that'll give you an issue with maintaining your angle now angle we're going to talk about is the most common issue I see with people sharpening is holding that angle that is the whole skill and difficulty with freehand sharpening is that your angle is not fixed for you how do you find your angle when you start sharpening so I recommend laying you blade flat on the surface notice that shadow under the blade you're going to watch closely as you tip that blade up until the shadow disappears once the shadow disappears you know there is no gap between your apex of the stone and that's your sharpening angle now you need to hold that as good as possible while sharpening if you need to keep checking what I found is a good good reference is to get up to that point and then just fit my finger under there how much space is there under the spine of the blade so I should be able to fit my finger in just about a quarter of an inch there okay so that's a good reference point and you just try to maintain that all the way up along your edge and that'll help you maintain the angle but be cautious be mindful when you're sharpening don't just start sharpening wildly then and not paying attention to your angle you need to constantly be be watching the distance between the spine of the knife and the stone that shadow on edge check constantly now like I said holding that angle is difficult that is the whole scale with freehand sharpening and I just want to briefly mention another issue I often hear and that is people complaining about why their edges are not are not great so yes your age is probably not great because you aren't holding that angle consistently enough but don't expect yourself to get there overnight I spent a lot of hours sharpening and getting poor edges just because I could not maintain that angle well enough I've gotten lots of emails from people who have had their new stones for a couple days and they're wondering why they still can't get a razor-sharp edge it isn't that easy it takes time takes consistency and you need to like I said be mindful while you're sharpening what mistakes am I making am i holding that angle consistently next tip picture a knife edge okay so this is like a cross-section of a knife blade so here's your apex here's your bevel on the opposite side of the knife okay here's a piece of Steel the face of your blade with a lovely KN stamp okay awesome no your sharpening with 400 grit now that's going to create scratches on that blade like this picture this on a microscopic scale we have these big 400 grit scratches now what happens is when you go over to a finer grit stone you need to replace these scratches so that's a 400 grit scratch now you're moving over to a 1,000 grit and you need this now what happens and what I've seen happen on different blades I've had come in to me to be sharpened is people aren't spending enough time on each stone they're jumping to other stones I get it you're a little bit excited to get to the finish and see what your edge looks like and you end up with a whole mix egg of scratches on that blade so you have some nice 1,000 grit scratches and then you might have missed a patch there then you might have a few nice scratches and your miss Apache and you end up with this spotty ugly will complete with not a nice finish and your edges really inconsistent so you have little little pieces and stuff scratches pieces of her along your edge and it's just not a nice finish take your time take some pride in your work and pay attention to what that edge is looking like feel very lightly along your edge and see if it's grabbing in certain places and where you might need a little more attention now let's say you've sharpened all the way up through your grits and you're getting to the very last steps or the last strokes I always advocate your final strokes on a stone to be cutting strokes all throughout the process yes you can do forward and back strokes but you're going to draw a little wired edge bird edge the bird is what people call it in the sharpening community and I find strapping strokes tend to really create that burr cuz you're pulling metal out to the edge a little more so I like to finish with only cutting strokes just like that pressure should lighten as your process goes through so here now finishing on the 8,000 you shouldn't be using just as much pressure as you were using when you started on the 400 or even when you started on the 8,000 I like to lighten my pressure constantly throughout the whole process okay so we're assuming we've created a very beautiful edge here now at this point up to an 8,000 grit which is a very high grit now a lot of people stop here and they check their edge I'm still not buttery smooth shaving hair sharp I'm gonna tell you do not underestimate what a strop is capable of I've had so many edges that just weren't quite there from the stones that with just a half dozen passes on a strop a leather strap with some polishing compound just brought it to an a level just to that buttery smooth edge a strop with some compound like that it's less aggressive than the stone it's soft on your blade and it's going to convex a little and make sure to even out that edge where there might be those little inconsistencies that you left with your stone a strop is really going to clean that up now if you remember at the start of the video I said there are two main issues people have with sharpening one was that they're not getting that razor-sharp edge and to the edge doesn't seem to last now let's address the second one about their age not lasting first off an age that comes to an absolute razor point is not gonna keep that fine of an edge of that long you've created a very fine delicate edge there and you you just can't expect it to say hair shaving sharp if you're stripping the wires with it and and even cutting on cardboard people don't realize the abuse that an edge takes when you run through a cardboard with that a grace of abrasive granular within cardboard has I believe like at like a type of clay material through it which is very coarse and sandy that's just brutal on an edge so don't expect to be cutting up cardboard boxes and still coming and shaving your face at the end of the day shaving your 5 o'clock shadow it's just not going to happen so I think a lot of times people have unrealistic expectations of their knife and the steel that they have one other thing I think when we talked about that burr earlier people are finishing the edge with that little burr left on there and if you imagine that fine little wire of Steel hanging off your edge now burr feels really sharp and grabby when you slice through a paper it might even do a beautiful job of dicing off that piece of paper but as soon as you go against something a little bit hard like a piece of wood or you come down even on a wooden cutting boat cutting board you just you flatten it that burr or it breaks off and then you're left with either a rolled edge on a very microscopic level or you're left with a little crumbly edge or a rough edge so that's what's happening so make sure you get rid of that burr and make sure you have realistic expectations of your knife steel so that's it for this video guys if you liked it please hit the like button to comment down below if you have any other ideas other than what I address here in this video of course there are lots of things to go around but I just address what I think are the most common yeah you guys that have some experience in sharpening or if you're stuck on your issue as well comment down below I'll dress your comment maybe we can help you help subscribe to my channel if you haven't already hit that like button if you are real kind you'd share thanks for watching we'll see in the next video

Channel: Kyle Noseworthy

Views: 1,643,935

Keywords: sharpening, how to sharpen a knife, professional knife sharpening, worlds sharpest knife, the sharpest knife in the world, razor sharp knife, professional tip, pro tips sharpening, mirror polish edge, professional sharpening, how to make your knife razor sharp, pro tip, freehand sharpening, best freehand sharpening, free hand sharpening, whetstone sharpening, easy sharpening tricks, sharpening tips, sharpening tricks, knife sharpening hack, knife sharpening tricks

Id: WDmmxkn8t0c

Length: 11min 54sec (714 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2019