How to sharpen the very tip of a knife?

[Joyal Taylor]

Do any of you have 400x magnification photos of the very tip of your knives after sharpening?

The very tip of my knives (0.25mm) don’t look so good at 400x magnification:

Here’s some more knife tips after sharpening at 20 degrees through the .6um ceramics and even putting a micro bevel at 25 degrees.

Let’s see what some of your tips look like.

If your tips look better than these, how are you doing it?

[Joyal Taylor]

Somehow I got one right but I don’t know how I did it. Just lucky I guess.

[wickededge]

That looks really good.

-Clay

[Mark76]

You’re getting better at it 😉 . Chad Ward describes this problem for freehand sharpening and other guided angle systems like the Sharpmaker. His solution is to divide the blade into two sections: the area near the tip and the remainder of the blade. Then he sort of sharpens the two sections separately and uses different strokes for the different sections.

I usually try to go slow on the tip, so I make the same consistent movement on the tip as on the rest of the edge. Sometimes I use additional up-down movements to sharpen the tip (as well as the area near the heel) in case I think I didn’t finish my strokes properly.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Joyal Taylor]

Thanks Mark76

I got another one right

I think I’ve got this down. When I sharpen the blade, especially when I make heel to tip strokes, I stop short of the tip. Then I work on the tip separately and slowly. Also, if there is even the slightest flex in the tip, I reposition the knife to get the tip closer to the vise, to stabilize it.

This is an on-going learning experience, isn’t it.

[cbwx34]

I think you have a couple of issues. Some of your photos look like you weren’t hitting the very tip, others look like the tip may have been “off” to begin with. But the 2nd contributes to the first… in other words, if the tip is “off”, then it’s hard to reach and sharpen properly, so it’s not necessarily true that you’re not reaching the tip… the stone may just not be hitting it properly.

Instead of working the tip separate, (not including flexible knives, which you may have to), I would consider spending a bit more time with a coarse stone, making sure the tip is properly set. Then as you go through the rest of the stones, the tip should sharpen fine.

Just to emphasize what Mark said… a little extra time at the tip and heel may be needed to get it right.

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