The Sensuous Gadgeteer
(Page 3 of 11)
September/October 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
SHARPENING KNIVES
RELATED CONTENT
In sharpening a knife remember that the knife cuts only when the sharp edge contacts the work. Thus:
The knife will still be good for vertical slices, but it will be no good for the carving of surfaces. And carving of surfaces is the essential action in cutting materials with a knife. The knife must be restored to its original wedge shape. Get out your kitchen knives and practice.
Oil up your coarse or fine stone (whichever is needed) and place it on a table with newspapers under it. Hold the knife against the stone with the cutting edge touching the stone at an angle of about thirty degrees. Some people sharpen their knives to an even keener angle (twentyfive degrees or less) but then the blade is thin and it will require more skill to use it without denting or cracking the edge. Holding the blade steady at this angle, push the cutting edge across the stone as if to cut the surface of the stone. As you push the knife, sweep it over the stone so that each part of the cutting edge contacts the abrasive surface. Hold the angle steady. Practice so that as each part of the curved cutting edge contacts the stone it is moving in a direction perpendicular to the edge at the point of contact.
Now turn the knife over and repeat the same motion for the other side. Keep flipping the knife over and working it this way until it is sharp. If the knife has been honed down to a good edge (such as the one shown in the first picture of a sharp knife) recently, it will take a new edge right away. If it has been used and re-sharpened several times recently, it will not sharpen up so fast, and will need a thorough grinding on the coarse stone to restore the old shape and edge. In this way, the sharpenings will move in cycles—first a thorough grinding, then touch-ups, then some sharpening, and eventually another thorough grinding. After you have some practice with sharpening knives you will know the knife is sharp by the sound of the steel on the stone. Many people test for sharpness by flicking a finger across the cutting edge. If the edge feels to have a "bite to it," then the blade is sharp. Many people test a knife for sharpness by drawing the blade across the edge of a sheet of paper held up in the air. If the knife cuts the paper, it is sharp. Some people call a knife sharp only when it will shave the hair off their forearm. All are correct.
Draw the blade across your thumbnail. If it feels smooth it is smooth.
To get the blade sharp enough to shave with, sharpen it on your Arkansas stone (using oil) until the blade is as sharp as it will get on that stone. Then strop the blade on a piece of leather. Stropping a knife on leather removes little wires of metal that cling to the edge after sharpening, and it even polishes down some of the scratch marks left in the metal by the stone. When stropping a knife, move the blade away from the edge so as not to cut the leather. You can strop a knife on paper if you don't have any leather.
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