Community Sharpening Journal

[Wandering_About]

I do that on most knives that I reprofile.

[Ramonade]

Make me feel normal. Do any of you remove the little unsharpened section towards the ricasso on the Seki line? Sometimes I get it on the first sharpening. Other times, I don't have the patience or time, so a work away at it over the course of multiple sharpenings. First sharpening of a new Pac Salt. I am almost there, but will get the rest on the next sharpening. I will admit, once I got a little to aggressive removing it from a model and accidentally added a sharpening choil.

I started doing this on Native 5s.
The first sharpening is a bit rough on these, since I've found that they tend to change the angle towards the tip, especially on the show side. The back side of the blade always has an even bevel, but the other side is warfare at the heel and the tip .
Of course I'm speaking only from experience on like 5 N5s.

I use the corner of a venev stone with my WorkSharp PA. I try to protect the ricasso a bit with simple tape. To not make the rest of the edge uneven, I stay horizontal to the desk the device is sitting on. Allows me to only hit the steel that is near to the ricasso, and not the already existing edge.
Most of the time I manage to get it pretty clean, but the bevel is a bit "lower" by a really small marging. That's because there's not enough steel removed yet. It can be rectified on the second or third sharpening .


Here's the most recent, on the SPY27

[JSumm]

Here's the most recent, on the SPY27

I need to look at my Native in SPY27 and my Manix. I do not recall them having as much unsharpened steel left at the heel as the Seki's. Maybe just a little? Seki's seem to have a pronounce section left unsharpened.

[Wandering_About]

No "before" picture but this is a Para 3 that I reprofiled quite a while ago (and that has appeared in this thread before). This is probably one of the cleanest jobs I've done of taking the edge all the way back to the plunge lines. I like them this way... but to be really honest, I don't mind just having a small sharpening choil to avoid having to mess with this!

[Soanso McMasters]

Make me feel normal. Do any of you remove the little unsharpened section towards the ricasso on the Seki line? Sometimes I get it on the first sharpening. Other times, I don't have the patience or time, so a work away at it over the course of multiple sharpenings. First sharpening of a new Pac Salt. I am almost there, but will get the rest on the next sharpening. I will admit, once I got a little to aggressive removing it from a model and accidentally added a sharpening choil.

I don’t know if it makes you normal or me crazy but I sharpen all the way to the choil as well. I have been doing my first sharpening on a KME so it makes it easy to get it even with the rest of the bevel. I haven’t tried it freehand.

[TkoK83Spy]

My only knock on the Precision Adjust, definitely does not reach all the way to the choil/ricasso. Did a great job on the edge of this one though!

[JSumm]

My only knock on the Precision Adjust, definitely does not reach all the way to the choil/ricasso. Did a great job on the edge of this one though!

Yeah, that is one of the reasons I moved past that system to freehand. It's tough getting close to the choil.

That edge looks great though.

[Ramonade]

I mostly freehand but the 4" adaptator for the WorkSharp PA does wonders when it comes to bringing the edge back to the ricasso.
I just wish I bought the 6" version ^^ way more options in stones

[u.w.]

Make me feel normal. Do any of you remove the little unsharpened section towards the ricasso on the Seki line? Sometimes I get it on the first sharpening. Other times, I don't have the patience or time, so a work away at it over the course of multiple sharpenings. First sharpening of a new Pac Salt. I am almost there, but will get the rest on the next sharpening. I will admit, once I got a little to aggressive removing it from a model and accidentally added a sharpening choil.

I do that too. On every Spydie I have, I do it.

I've gone a tad far on one or two, but it evens out over time and then is, more or less, forever even.

Speaking to those times when I take just a little too much off.. I'd rather have a tad of sharpened low spot there, than that factory unsharpened area/spot/...

u.w.

[Ric]

I also remove that portion.
It annoys me at sharpening. Felt awkward with the sharpmaker rods.

It’s a quick fix.
2 minutes with diamond plates...

[Wandering_About]

Couldn't help myself and ended up getting an S110V Native 5. This one is going on an upcoming hiking/biking trip so it needed an edge tuning to get it to my preference. Maybe 20-25 minutes to get it done. Deep carry clip installed. Hope this knife is prepared for adventure, because it's going to get it. I really like the Native 5 in the short pockets of my hiking pants, the solid back keeps the edge protected from other stuff in my pocket (have had issues with Para 3 edges getting hit by keys etc.).

Triple B super vitrified stones are awesome. Main edge bevel is finished to 400, microbevel at 1000 then 1 micron diamond strop.

[vivi]

Tried something different when I put an edge on my newest Pacific Salt.




200 grit diamond stone to set the edge, a brand new 200 grit stone to apex the new edge, followed by two swipes per side on a strop loaded with very coarse diamond paste.

All with tip to heel strokes instead of heel to tip like I've done my whole life.



Then I fixed the tip with my belt sander.

I've been curious how this would affect cutting performance for quite some time, but never bothered trying it.

The sharpening motion felt a lot worse this way. I hope cutting ability is worse because I'd rather sharpen heel to tip

[TkoK83Spy]

Hahaha, excited to see how this goes! I find the sound on the stones to be different when going tip to heel, always sounds more aggressive to me. Sometimes I even get a little crazy and go all Michael Christy on it. Actually did that myself last night touching up a friends Leek on my DMT Coarse stone. That thing was all jacked up and even bent a little. Gave it my best edge with the amount of time I had. It's serviceable now, but still some chips I didn't get all the way out. When I see him this morning I'm going to tell him to just get a new knife and take better care of it haha!

[olywa]

Heel to tip is so ingrained into my muscle memory that it feels totally alien to go the opposite. However I'm slowly getting used to it by stropping from tip to heel. I'm also alternating strokes this way on SE blades because it just seems like a good way to ensure that I'm hitting both sides of the serrations. Could be that I'm just overthinking it though?

[TkoK83Spy]

Makes sense to me...for whatever that's worth

[u.w.]

hmmm...

so 'in theory' it oughta be maybe less "grabby" on a pull-to "slice" cut now? but more grabby on a tip to heel pushing in/forward / stabbing cut?
I say all that because of how I'm guessing the scratch pattern, and "teeth" will be.

For me, I always sharpen stone in hand and knife in (other) hand. I go back and forth (both ways? LOL) when I'm apexing, but then heel to tip when de-burring (on the stone of course).
If it's a particularly stubborn burr, I still go heel to tip, but sometimes I'll do some (extremely light of course) strokes tip down, some tip up, and some tip horizontal - one or two each way. So three different edge presentations to the stone. It is quite rare that I do it that way, but there are times...
I saw Cliff Stamp doing that on a video of his, many years ago. I tried it, and it got rid of the burr, so a Big Thanks to Cliff (RIP).

u.w.

[vivi]

hmmm...

so 'in theory' it oughta be maybe less "grabby" on a pull-to "slice" cut now? but more grabby on a tip to heel pushing in/forward / stabbing cut?
I say all that because of how I'm guessing the scratch pattern, and "teeth" will be.

For me, I always sharpen stone in hand and knife in (other) hand. I go back and forth (both ways? LOL) when I'm apexing, but then heel to tip when de-burring (on the stone of course).
If it's a particularly stubborn burr, I still go heel to tip, but sometimes I'll do some (extremely light of course) strokes tip down, some tip up, and some tip horizontal - one or two each way. So three different edge presentations to the stone. It is quite rare that I do it that way, but there are times...
I saw Cliff Stamp doing that on a video of his, many years ago. I tried it, and it got rid of the burr, so a Big Thanks to Cliff (RIP).

u.w.

So far that seems to be the case, which leads me to expect to ditch the idea as soon as I touch this knife up. Either way it's fun trying something new for a few days.

[TkoK83Spy]

Decided against free handing my most expensive knife. Figured it was time to get rid of that convex grind and have some symmetry at 17dps. Right where the blade starts to curve and up to the tip is taking much longer to even out than I expected. Almost there though. Not sure which grit I'll decide to stop at on this one.

[vivi]

Touched up my work knives.

Chef knife had a pretty dull edge. I keep an ultrafine sharpmaker rod and 260 grit diamond plate in my work area, and often tune the apex multiple times per day based on whether I need a toothy or polished edge. After doing that countless times during busy services the edge needed work.

Gave it about five minutes worth on the 260 grit stone, setting a fresh apex free hand in the 15 degree ballpark. Hit it once per side with the ultrafine rod to minimize the burr, then got to work making salsa criolla.



Used the same method on my pocket knife, removing the tip to heel strokes in favor of heel to tip. It was a fun experiment and the tip to heel edge worked better for some things, but overall it didn't fit my uses as well.



Planning to add an 8" chef knife to my roll and keep it polished, while the 10" keeps the coarse style edge. Not sure if I want a matching Victorinox, or something nicer....

[metaphoricalsimile]

Putting a 15 degree edge bevel on my M4 Sage 5 after I completely failed to remove the factory burr freehand. Taking it slow with the 320 grit and being careful not to form a strong burr. I'll probably take it up to 600 and strop with 1 micron diamonds and call it good. If this edge doesn't hold up how I want I'll probably try a more polished edge in the future. Also check out my dremel job for using the Sharpmaker Precision Adjust with spyderco knives. I cut out one side of it and left the other factory. The knife is just as easy to center in the jaws but being able to hold the blade like this means the bevel angle is more consistent front to back.