Alternative sharpening motion

[Lukas Pop]

Just tried alternative sharpening motion with Wicked Edge. The key idea is not to lift the stone from the blade. It has two advantages: 1. better effectivity – the stone is sharpening all the time. 2. more consistent pressure – you eliminate critical moments with classic sweeping motion when the stone is starting touching the blade.

A disadvantage is that you are working with only one side of the blade at a time, so I changed sides several times with each grit. But result of the first knife is great. I will be experiencing more.

[cbwx34]

Call it the windshield wiper method haha. I’m joking, but actually curious why you’re not moving the stone vertically (up/down) anymore? You could do that and still maintain contact if you wanted.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the idea… but I’m not sure it’s really needed? Maybe in certain situations… raising a burr for example?

[Lukas Pop]

Actually I do some scrubbing vertically at first with each grit and then continue with this motion. It seems to me that scrubbing vertically is more coarse than classical sweeping or this motion. I think by the sound and browsing the edge with a hand microscope, and it was mentioned earlier on this forum to. So for raising a burr seems vertical motion better to me.

No, it’s not really needed, you can produce great edges without it. But it is fun to invent and test new techniques of sharpening 🙂

There was debate about sharpening direction also. I am curious if Clay or somebody else will test influence of sharpening direction on sharpness with BassLakeDan testing machine.

[cbwx34]

Ah… that makes sense.

If you do a search on “side sharpening”… you can find some info on this… and cool pictures like this…

… although most is related to sharpening planes and other wood working tools.

I recall a thread in another forum a few years back on the subject, and whether or not having the grind marks parallel to the edge would matter. One side debating that parallel marks would lead to earlier “edge rolling”, since the edge is theoretically weaker, and the other side debating that perpendicular marks lead to weak points along the edge, thus more prone to chipping. I don’t recall a definitive answer though. One study looked at this, and did note a failure in an edge “side sharpened” he didn’t normally see, but it’s obviously hard to draw a definitive conclusion from just one example.

It would be interesting to see if the “Sharpness Tester” notes any difference… especially since it seem capable of showing degradation over time.

Thanks for the followup.

Attachments:

• h4482787.jpg

[Lukas Pop]

Thanks for your remarks. The edges on your picture actually look quite different, and I can imagine that their degradation over time will be different also.

[Author]

Posts