Tool Sharpening Basics

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And he's studied dry- and wet-honed edges under 10,000-power electron microscopes. He says oiling a stone just creates an abrasive grinding compound on top of the stone that can actually dull a blade. Me? I figure if an expert like that doesn't go for oiling, that's a good enough excuse for a beginner like me to take the easy way out and not do it either.

Another big dispute I've run into is double-edging. Juranitch says to put a low secondary , or relief, angle on the sides of the blade with a coarse hone and then put a steeper primary edge on just the tip of the blade (Fig.12). However, none of the people I talked with consistently do this. (Underhill: "Someone who looked in my tool chest would find tools sharpened all sorts of ways; I do what it takes to make a tool work.") Since this is a beginner's article, I'll just go into the more common single-edge sharpening here.

If you want to move onto double-edging after you master basic sharpening, read Juranitch's book. Feud number three: What kind of sharpening stone should you use? Parrish likes Carborundum; my editor swears by his Japanese water stones; Underhill likes Washita or even Belgium white clay pieces he finds at the junk dealers. Best as I can figure, it doesn't much matter. What is important is that you have two abrasive surfaces: a coarse one to get the hard grinding done faster and a fine one for the finish sharpening. A coarse stone wears material away quickly until the blade angle is what you want it to be, but if you continue to use it past that point, it'll take off your sharp edge rather than finish it. The fine one gives you that final keen, smooth edge.

If you want to use natural stones for these jobs, remember that a soft stone is more abrasive than a hard one. (The fine, glasslike surface on a hard stone is for finishing.) Seems to me, the easiest thing to do is drop by your local hardware store and get a two-sided (one rough, one smooth) Carborundum stone. They work swell. What ever stone you use, do get a big one, at least six inches long, so you'll have enough room to do a full sharpening stroke. (A seven-inch Carborundum runs around $12 in our area.) A couple more things and we'll be ready to begin. One, fasten your stone in a vise or clamp, secure it within a small wooden frame—do something so it won't move around.

You'll have enough trouble getting a consistent sharpening angle with only the blade moving. Don't make things worse by letting the stone wiggle around as well. Two, for your first practice sessions, get hold of an inexpensive high-carbon knife. They wear away a lot more easily than your stainless steel Swiss Army or kitchen butchering knife, so you can see results (good and bad) a whole lot faster. (Besides, with one of those you won't mess up a really good knife while you're learning.) I practiced on a flea market set of kitchen knives. Enough preamble.

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