I have lots of sharpener systems Ken Onion belt Spyderco and Warthog. They all have their plus/minus I am not in love with any of them. I select depending on the knife itself.
I did buy these for SIL's Christmas gifts

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L...dt_b_product_details

For the money and for the average knife sharpener, it would be my recommendation

This message has been edited. Last edited by: downtownv,

Lanky Knife Sharpening kit. You can get a set of 3,4,5...
https://www.sharpeningsupplies...baZamWRoCGYIQAvD_BwE

I would never use a belt sharpener on a good knife I cared about.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
I have lots of sharpener systems Ken Onion bet Spyderco and Warthog. They all have their plus/minus I am not in love with any of them. I select depending on the knife itself.
I did buy these for SIL's Christmas gifts

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L...dt_b_product_details

For the money and for the average knife sharpener, it would be my recommendation

This is what I have and use. As a complete novice when it comes to knife sharpening it can put a great edge on a blade. The most difficult part is getting the blade square in the jaws. If not square your angles will be off when sharpening and if not caught soon enough your in for a decent amount of work to correct.

I use it to sharpen my EDC and hunting knife and have had great success when doing so. I haven't ventured into sharpening our kitchen knives yet as we have a cheaper set and the steel appears to thin to be able to work successfully.

You can also get a blade grinding attachment for the Ken Onion Worksharp, which makes short work of sharpening larger tools, like chisels, plane irons, blades for the lawn tractor, etc.

I have a Worksharp, but it only comes out for heavy duty sharpening jobs. Unless a knife is really dull, usually just a few minutes with a Spyderco Sharpmaker does the trick.

You need to know the basics of sharpening first, or the only thing a power sharpener will do is ruin a blade much faster than doing it by hand.

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:
Lanky Knife Sharpening kit. You can get a set of 3,4,5...
https://www.sharpeningsupplies...baZamWRoCGYIQAvD_BwE

I would never use a belt sharpener on a good knife I cared about.

Why? It’s how the knife was actually made. This seems like an uninformed position.

(And I make knives that sell for up to $2500 apiece)

The Lansky is fine… Lots of people enjoy great results with it. Just because you’re afraid of a power tool doesn’t mean it’s not an effective sharpener for other people.

It’s really not about the tool. It’s about your understanding of how to make an edge. Again I know people that use a cinder block and a piece of cardboard box to make an edge wicked sharp. My son uses the bottom of a coffee cup and then cardboard (kaolin coating does the trick)

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:
Lanky Knife Sharpening kit. You can get a set of 3,4,5...
https://www.sharpeningsupplies...baZamWRoCGYIQAvD_BwE

I would never use a belt sharpener on a good knife I cared about.

Why? It’s how the knife was actually made. This seems like an uninformed position.

(And I make knives that sell for up to $2500 apiece)

The Lansky is fine… Lots of people enjoy great results with it. Just because you’re afraid of a power tool doesn’t mean it’s not an effective sharpener for other people.

It’s really not about the tool. It’s about your understanding of how to make an edge. Again I know people that use a cinder block and a piece of cardboard box to make an edge wicked sharp. My son uses the bottom of a coffee cup and then cardboard (kaolin coating does the trick)

I use old phone books as a strop. They are fantastic.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

Why? It’s how the knife was actually made. This seems like an uninformed position.

You're a professional whom knows how to use one properly.

New owner is likely to screw up a nice blade. Kind of like handing a dremil tool to someone for the first time.

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:
I use old phone books as a strop.

What's a phone book?

Is that like the manual that comes with your iPhone?


()

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:
I use old phone books as a strop.

What's a phone book?

Is that like the manual that comes with your iPhone?


()

That’s pretty funny. We just received a phone book about a month ago… Blew my mind.

Took a photo of it and send it to my adult children who have never seen such a thing.

OK here is my turn to toss out a good tip.

Like I said above, I can sharpen the dickens out of my wood carving knives, but that's a different animal, it's different than kitchen knives, etc.

If you don't have a leather strop, no big deal.

FLAT carboard makes a really good strop. By FLAT cardboard, I don't mean corrugated cardboard.

FLAT carboard is like the inside of a cereal box. Flat. BTW you can also fine flat cardboard inside the boxes for your beer or canned sodas, etc.

And it MUST be uncoated, bare cardboard, no coating on it. Period.

Take a scrap piece of wood, I like to use a 1x2 or a 1x3, flat as you can get.

Cut out a piece of the flat cardboard, sized to fit perfectly or perfectly enough to fit, and place it on the wood. Leave enough wood for a handle. You can glue it down, it doesn't take much to hold it well, a glue stick works well.

You WILL need some Rouge, I use White Rouge, it works really well. You can buy Rouge pretty much anywhere. Home Despot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc.

Take the rouge and rub it well, covering 100% of the Flat cardboard.

Then you can go to town, so to speak, and strop your knives.

I kid you not, this works really well, a bunch of us local woodcarvers use this, as well as use a traditional leather strop, works fine.

Many times I have taken some wood, cut it to size, and attached some flat cardboard, and gave them, along with a small piece of white rouge, for them to use.

If you need to get fancy, maybe you have something with a curve, like a Gouge, you can shape the wood base into the matching shape and attach the flat cardboard. Works great.

White abrasive compound is super common for polishing knife edges. The most fast, bad ass technique I’ve ever seen uses an 8 inch Diameter MDF wheel on a bench grinder with lapping compound all the way around the edge.


Something not being discussed here though is how sharp should your knife actually be?

Does it make sense to have a polished edge on all knives especially if you need to do fast, decisive work like emergency cutting lines on a boat, etc. often times a “toothy edge“ is better for these kinds of situations. Grips and cuts positively.

For kitchen knives it’s all about the blade thickness, primary and secondary bevels, the type of edge and the angles. IMO, Polished edges for these knives are fine.

But I’ll also add you absolutely can use corrugated cardboard with no lapping compound. YMMV

^^^^ The way I heard it, from a knife maker, was to sharpen your knives only to the degree you need it to be to get the job done.

If you oversharpen to the degree you can shave with it, big deal, you only need that blade to be sharp enough to cut the meat, etc, well enough to give a satisfactory result.

It's fine and dandy to be able to get an edge razor hair cutting sharp, but that's a thinner edge that bends over easily or can chip easily.

Just enough to do the job required is the goal.
.

^^^ well said …

I have one and only one knife with a 14° edge.

My EDC‘s are at 25° or higher. Although when people learn you’re a knifemaker, they expect your EDC to be hair poppin’ sharp… Not terribly useful for me.

Most of my personal knives are pulled across the “sharpening” steel once a week to straighten the edges, and check for flaws.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
You WILL need some Rouge, I use White Rouge, it works really well. You can buy Rouge pretty much anywhere. Home Despot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, etc.

Stropping is used for two different purposes.

One is removing the wire edge/burr on the edge created by the sharpening process. You don't really need rouge or other abrasive on the strop to accomplish that, although it certainly won't hurt anything.

It's also used for polishing - basically as an extra-extra-extra-fine sharpening stone. There, obviously the rouge or other abrasive is a critical part of the process.

quote:

Originally posted by GrumpyBiker:
I use a TSProf Kadet.
I have been sharpening knives for $$$ for a short while & it’s almost idiot proof.
Not the cheapest option but an amazingly simple way to sharpen knives to an amazing degree.

I started with a spyderco sharp maker and it worked ok. I then went and learned how to use sharpening stones and it requires a lot of practice to get good at it. I moved on to the ken onion sharpmaker and it is excellent for convex edges. Very fast and very good.

I then got a wicked edge system for 700 dollars and was let down by it.

I moved on to the tspro full system and it is a winner. Just over 1k for it but being able to quickly sharpen any knife, even machetes, to a specific degree is worth it to me.

I also use their aluminum blanks to put different sand papers on it. I run 80grit to 120k grit. Mirror polish isn't a problem.

^^^ 120,000 grit? For real?

20k is ridiculously fine …

Mirror polish happens at 1.2k aka 1200

Yeah its ocd and just the hobbyist in me. After 12k I cant notice a difference without magnification.

quote:

Originally posted by Nickelsig229:
Yeah its ocd and just the hobbyist in me. After 12k I cant notice a difference without magnification.

Surgical!

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
^^^ 120,000 grit? For real?

20k is ridiculously fine …

Mirror polish happens at 1.2k aka 1200

I occasionally go up in progression to .025 micron emulsion 640K grit on a Kangaroo leather strop when going for the crazy sharp mirror edge. CPM M4 steel takes that mirror finish very well.

My favorite strops are Basswood and Kangaroo leather.

While I prefer a polished toothy edge for my EDC knives, many of today's better steels will take a very fine mirror edge w/o any risk of rolling over. As well as have better edge retention with steeper angles. I believe there's merit to taking edges as far as the steel allows, further from being dull.

Another TSProf user, excellent sharpener.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
I have lots of sharpener systems Ken Onion belt Spyderco and Warthog. They all have their plus/minus I am not in love with any of them. I select depending on the knife itself.
I did buy these for SIL's Christmas gifts

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L...dt_b_product_details

For the money and for the average knife sharpener, it would be my recommendation

mine as well. I also suck at sharpening, could not get the hang of the Ken Onion Workshop and gave it away here as a karma. This poor mans Apex/Wicked Edge/TProf does a more than adequate job for my knives and it is idiot proof. I am the proof of that. There is no learning curve and it just works.

Minuses- there are not any additional grit stones you can add to the system, and the whole unit is plastic so while it is reasonably sturdy, you need to secure the base with one hand while sharpening with the other. Old leather belt with some paste to strop.