Knife sharpening??

Question

I just recently bought a nice knife. Mid-grade Buck knife. Mostly a hunting knife i guess. Nothing to fancy or expensive. I don't know much about keeping them sharp. Is there a proven sharpener? Proven strategy? Just looking for some suggestions.

Answer 1

I use a good piece of leather with jewelers rouge applied to it. Place your knife at 20-25 degree angle and then slide the knife blade accross and then the other side. Repeat this 10-12 times and you will be able to shave with it when you are finished.

Answer 2

There are many very good and yet expensive methods of knife sharpening. One of the best I have found is with ceramic or auto glass. Just turn a ceramic cup or saucer upside down. Put your knife at about a 23-24 degree angle on the rim with the blade facing you. Pull it to you as if you are trying to cut the ceramic making sure you maintain the angle. Then flip the knife over and cut away from you. Flip it back over and repeat the process. Keep moderate to mild pressure on the blade. When it shaves the hair on you arm or leg or will slide through a sheet of bond paper, you then need to find an old leather belt and use it as a strop to remove the very tiny invisible burrs on the blade left from sharpening. You can maintain the sharpness of your blade with your strop also. Don't use the cutting into method like you do for sharping however. Pull the blade with the cutting edge facing away from you on the leather. Hope this helps. I have found this method to be as good or better that any commercial or store bought sharpener.

Answer 3

I use a big diamond stone the little ones are too hard to work with. A wet stone is fine also. Then I look at it with a magnifying glass (I use a jeweler's loop). Decide what needs to be done, run the knife across the stone a couple of times and then look again run it across the stone and look again. Eventually you get where you know the angle and you cover both sides and the whole length of the blade equally without the magnifying glass. I still use the magnifying glass though

I have recently tried something else. Take a marker and run it along the sides of the blade. then run the blade over the stone. Look at where the marker rubbed off and adjust your angle and stroke accordingly. This seems to work.

Answer 4

Get a Lanksy knife sharpening kit. They do a perfect edge and once you have the angle set for your knife, it takes only a minute or so to touch it up after using it.

I have used Lansky kits just about since they came out with them. ( maybe 15-20 years).

Follow the directions and you'll have no problems. Kits can run up to $70.00 for diamond hones or you cab get regular stones for somewhat less. Replacing the stones can be costly but unless you sharpen alot of knives or make knives as I do, you wont need to get stones for quite some time.

Answer 5

Get another knife (can be a cooking knife) and use it to sharpen it. Or ask a store like target if the have a knife sharpener.

Answer 6

Sporting good stores usually carry a good set of knife sharpeners complete with manuals on how to use them...
Spyderco offers a good quality whet stone angled to perfection... Getting the tip sharp enough is the trick though...
Good Luck.

Answer 7

Mjrsje and pjerry summs it up very good,those fandang dangled lumps called sharpeners at stores are O K in a jam but U want to maintain your knife .

Answer 8

you send the knife back to buck and they will sharpen it for free

Answer 9

get a wet-stone, it's the best for hunting knives.

Answer 10

might consider this:
http://www.lansky.com/products/systems/standard.html


works for me...