For whatever reason I can't seem to sharpen a knife to save my life! Bought a spyderco sharpmaker many years ago. No joy. Recently bought a one of the work sharp sanders still not getting it sharp enough. Is there a superior product or video I can learn to do it better?

Feel free to post any videos that may have helped you? thanks

Wicked $harp is pretty good. Until recently I’ve always hand sharpened my own knives and honed with a steel. I bought one of the Wicked $harp Pros and like it. You do have to figure out your bevel angles. After that it’s not bad.

If you aren't getting a knife that can shave the hair off your arm with ease, then its your technique, not the system.

I suggest trying this.

Buy a cheap tripod, 20 bucks on amazon or walmart and a cheap 8 inch kitchen knife, maybe 10-12 bucks or less if you have an old one that is junk laying around.

Remove the angle guide from your worksharp and rotate the belt so that it has the belt perpendicular to the the ground. I use the tripod to achieve the 90 degree. Put the coarse belt on and adjust the rpm to max.

While the worksharp is off, hold the knife edge against the belt perpendicular (flat is parallel to the ground). That's 90, half that is 45 and half again is 22. You will get an understanding for the angles with practice but it's not really important, 22 is fine especially for learning.

Remember that angle in your head and the distance between the spine of the knife, and your hands, from the belt. Get that mental image.

Remember that when you start sharpening, the straight portion of the edge, by the heel, will look like the angle you just set, but as you hit the curve of the edge, the angle of the edge against the belt must remain the same, which will make you move your hands further away from the belt and what will look like a different angle. The appearance is miss leading, because in order to keep the edge of the knife on the belt at the same angle as the rest of the edge, you must move the knife differently.

Remember to not push hard against the belt, remember to keep the leading edge of the knife down so that you don't cut into the belt and remember never to let the tip of the knife slide off the belt, either reverse your motion or pull off of the belt when the tip hit's the center.

Don't switch sides until you can feel a burr across the entire span of the edge. It doesn't always come evenly, some times you have to focus a portion of the blade to work the burr when other parts have already developed one. This is especially true on mangled knives. For learning don't stress, but in the future after you developed some mastery, remember that you can reprofile a knife if your to heavy handed on working one area of an edge.

Once you can feel the burr by dragging your finger or nail down the flat of the knife towards the edge has developed along the entire edge then switch sides and repeat. Once that side had developed the burr (typically much quicker) then switch to the next grit up and repeat.

You should have a hair whittling edge when your done with the ultra fine grit.

You can inspect the knife after a few passes and notice that the tip is rounded or thin, or the scratches from the belt are further up the profile then just at the edge and get an understanding of how the curve of the edge changes how you need to hold the edge against the belt when it begins to curve into the tip.

If you follow these instructions, you will learn to get a sharp knife from the work sharp in less then an hour.

Then you can practice at maintaining angles and get some better belts from micromesh to get mirror polished edges.

Hope this helps you.

I had a number of threads a few years ago with the results of my wicked edge systems. Including images from under 600x scope. I have one image of a knife that split a hair.

I’ll second Wickrd Edge!

If your just set on getting a simple, perfect edge sharpener then forget everything and buy a tspro sharpener.

It takes all the guess work out and is more robust then the other systems. The construction is solid with no slop like the wicked edge and kme.


It is expensive for most people ranging from 400-700.

Watching that video has made me much more appreciative of my ability. To produce a acceptable edge with a hand stone and keep it that way for a long time with a steel. I simply don't have room for such.

There are a lot of details that go into putting a really nice edge on a knife. It isn't easy.

However, putting an OK edge that will cut pretty well on a knife IS easy. A coarse stone, used sloppily with way too much of an angle, will produce an ugly edge, but it'll produce an edge that will cut just fine.

The two small flat surfaces on either side of the blade that intersect to produce the edge of the blade are the bevels.

When a knife gets dull, what happens is that the intersection of the bevels gets rounded over.

When you sharpen a knife, you're basically grinding the bevels farther into the body of the blade so that you remove the rounded off part and get a nice, crisp intersection again.

If you don't remove enough metal from the knife, or if you use too shallow an angle, so that the metal you remove comes from where the bevels meet the sides of the blade, rather than from where the bevels intersect, you'll never get the knife sharp because you aren't actually touching the edge.

That's pretty much the bottom line. If your knives aren't coming out at least pretty sharp, you aren't sharpening to the edge of the blade.

If you have good eyes, you can see this with the naked eye under bright light. A magnifying glass makes it easier. The best way to look at the edge and see where you are removing metal is with an inexpensive loupe.

You can also do it by feel. When you sharpen right to the edge of the knife like you're supposed to, you produce a wire edge on the opposite side from the one that you are sharpening.

This is a very good video. You can skip the information about how to sharpen on a whetstone, but he gives a great explanation (with good diagrams) on what actually happens to the edge of a knife as you sharpen it and about the wire edge and how to feel it.

He's also interested in sharpening kitchen knives - you may want to use a different sharpening angle if you're sharpening pocket knives or something.




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWYIU1L_8vA

I use this:

great info..keep it coming.

wicked sharp looks really good but not sure I can drop that kind of coin.

I was all set to buy the veff sharpener but it appears to be discontinued and cant find one anywhere on the web!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
great info..keep it coming.

wicked sharp looks really good but not sure I can drop that kind of coin.

I was all set to buy the veff sharpener but it appears to be discontinued and cant find one anywhere on the web!!!

I have them here:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...620048244#9620048244

Skills are FAR more Important than tools!

The wicked edge is a great tool but is expensive and still requires a basic knowlege of what is going on.

The Apex sharpener is less expensive slightly more versatile if slower than the Wicked edge but still requires a bit of skill

A King 1000/6000 grit waterstone can be found on amazon for less than $30. Murray Carter used the same basic stones to win a Sharpening competiion against people who used stones costing 10x as much!

I personally would recommend the inexpensive King stone and Murray Carter YouTube Videos. For not much money you can develope awesome skills. If you don’t have time or patience to develope basic skills maybe it might be best for you to send them to a pro-sharpener like Seattle Sharpening etc etc........

I agree with a lot of that, djpaintles.

A more complicated sharpening system can reduce the amount of skill required for sharpening, but you still have to know what stones or belt or paper or whatever to use, how to tell when to move on to a finer one, how to match the existing bevel on the knife or grind a new one, etc.

Some of the knife and knife sharpening guys whose videos I watch on YouTube have videos where they sharpen knives with just a brick and get a good edge. To do that, you need excellent technique and a lot of patience because it takes a lot longer than with good equipment, but it can be done.

I’m in the same boat as you, Ronin. I actually kinda gave up on being able to put a nice edge on a knife. I think I may have to go ahead and order one of those King 1000/6000 stones, swing by Goodwill and buy some ratted-out knives to practice on, and watch Murray Carter videos until there’s either a hair-popping edge on those knives, or there’s nothing left to sharpen.

I have a Lansky set, and I can get ok results with it, but I would prefer to be able to freehand it worth a darn.

It's all about the bevel angles and your ability to run that line evenly.
Practice in a shitty kitchen knife use the permanent marker as Tom Veff out lined, then fine tune it with 800 grit wet dry. You should have an extreme edge.
Several members bought these and did very well with them.
To me the best part is it's compact to go anywhere with you in it's carry case.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
It's all about the bevel angles and your ability to run that line evenly.

See, that's the key. It's apparently an ability or skill that doesn't come inherently to me that I'm going to have to develop.

I like the suggestion about blacking out the edge with a marker to track your progress. I'll definitely be trying that.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I’m in the same boat as you, Ronin. I actually kinda gave up on being able to put a nice edge on a knife. I think I may have to go ahead and order one of those King 1000/6000 stones, swing by Goodwill and buy some ratted-out knives to practice on, and watch Murray Carter videos until there’s either a hair-popping edge on those knives, or there’s nothing left to sharpen.

I have a Lansky set, and I can get ok results with it, but I would prefer to be able to freehand it worth a darn.

An Opinel knife is inexpensive and easy to sharpen and useful to boot. Victorinox kitchen knives are another good choice.

When you are working remember to work each side until you can feel the burr on the opposite side the complete length of the edge before moving to the other side, rinse and repeat with finer grits. It's easy to overthink it all and just not do the entire side properly. If there's not a burr it's probably not done properly.......

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
It's all about the bevel angles and your ability to run that line evenly.

See, that's the key. It's apparently an ability or skill that doesn't come inherently to me that I'm going to have to develop.

I like the suggestion about blacking out the edge with a marker to track your progress. I'll definitely be trying that.

Re Watch Tom's Video 6:24 mark
Use the "File" method. you can do a smaller area on a longer knife you will maintain your bevel angle better and get a really nice edge.
Also a Reminderthat the one side is round but the Back side of the Veff Sharp is FLAT!
No water
No Oil.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:





Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWYIU1L_8vA

This is a very good video. Knowing what you are trying to do is the first step to doing it right. This video is also good about how to get there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jhe888,

I really like his channel.

He's a normal guy, never done culinary school or anything, but he does all kinds of cooking stuff, some of it simple, some of it complicated, and explains it all in a very accessible way. Not being formally trained, he has to learn how to do it all like a normal person, so he can explain it like a normal person, too.