Sharpening a knife

[Exile65]

Knives ….where to start ! ..general purpose butchery / filleting knives ..Victorinox ..it’s what most of the butchers use , fairly cheap at just over a tenner ( last time I bought some ) easy to sharpen ,given you don’t want a finely ground super smooth finish for cutting flesh of bone .The butchers will use an aggressive sharpener then a couple off strokes with a quality steel ( dick) for a working edge ..
General purpose working knife was the Swedish AKA lock knife orange handle .Cost about £65 held a fabulous edge and easy to sharpen . Also in the working knife roll was a couple victorinox 6inch boning knives ..
Pocket knife was the opinel 7 , carbon blade , you could sharpen that on a soft turd …..or the top of the car door window …out here in Spain I carry an opinal 6 inox ..
Look good knives …I have a couple or three handmade jobs , one in Damascus , that have an edge you couldn’t believe but are so nice I don’t use them for fear of loosing them , and gralloching deer in the dark is easily done .
They require a wet stone finish , something I never had the time or inclination to sod about with , so they stayed in the gun safe barely seeing the light of day ..
Sharpening kit consists of oil stone , water stones , an electric butchers belt sharpener ( £90) and a dick steel (£110) …for the last ten years the stones only got used for chisels ..

my aka and boning knives ..
A couple of opinels that a friend customised for me using the brow tines of a fallow deer ..

 

[jackjock]

When using a wet stone a knife should be sharpened at the correct angle on both sides. A guide on the knife makes this very easy

 

[Tournamag]

Knives ….where to start ! ..general purpose butchery / filleting knives ..Victorinox ..it’s what most of the butchers use , fairly cheap at just over a tenner ( last time I bought some ) easy to sharpen ,given you don’t want a finely ground super smooth finish for cutting flesh of bone .The butchers will use an aggressive sharpener then a couple off strokes with a quality steel ( dick) for a working edge ..
General purpose working knife was the Swedish AKA lock knife orange handle .Cost about £65 held a fabulous edge and easy to sharpen . Also in the working knife roll was a couple victorinox 6inch boning knives ..
Pocket knife was the opinel 7 , carbon blade , you could sharpen that on a soft turd …..or the top of the car door window …out here in Spain I carry an opinal 6 inox ..
Look good knives …I have a couple or three handmade jobs , one in Damascus , that have an edge you couldn’t believe but are so nice I don’t use them for fear of loosing them , and gralloching deer in the dark is easily done .
They require a wet stone finish , something I never had the time or inclination to sod about with , so they stayed in the gun safe barely seeing the light of day ..
Sharpening kit consists of oil stone , water stones , an electric butchers belt sharpener ( £90) and a dick steel (£110) …for the last ten years the stones only got used for chisels ..
View attachment 13801
my aka and boning knives ..View attachment 13802
A couple of opinels that a friend customised for me using the brow tines of a fallow deer ..View attachment 13804

Eet's Got No Head!. If you have some horns spare i'l have some for Pooch

 

[Exile65]

Eet's Got No Head!. If you have some horns spare i'l have some for Pooch

It has got an head , it’s just not fixed to its body ..?
I’ll let you know when I’m back , there was always a few antlers around the farm ..??

 

[Zeb]

Another of my hobbies is woodwork and I have a small collection of whetstones, oil stones and sharpening sticks plus access to an angle grinder and to be honest, I wouldn't use any of them on knives unless the knife was really blunt.

I picked up a set of kitchen knives from someone on Freecycle who had no idea that you were meant to sharpen them. They were in immaculate condition, just stupidly blunt. I used a diamond stick on them to tidy the edges up followed by an oil stone ranging from something like 600 to 1200 to 2000 which will be fine for most but these knives were useless and wouldn't cut anything even flesh. If you feel the need to go this route, watch some YouTube videos for the best explanation possible.

If you're looking just to give your knives a sharpen, go out and get a decent honing rod. This will be like a small poker with a small hand guard and again, watch a couple YouTube videos on how to use them because there is a specific way and don't forget that after using one, give the knife a wipe off with a piece of tissue to make sure there are no metal filings hanging around.

Some knives will react very well to a honing rod and the others just need extra work. All a honing rod does is to re-align the edge of the blade back to a point rather than blunt or bent over.

If you've got a knife with some gouges in it where you may have slipped and hit something knives aren't meant to touch, you may be looking at a replacement or find someone with a set of oil/whetstones who also knows how to use them.

If you want to continuously test for sharpness, hold a piece of paper in your hand and draw the blade back over the edge until it cuts with ease. A blunt knife can be dangerous as you'll be using more effort to cut and a slip can cause far more damage than a sharp knife.