Knife Sharpeners

[Forensic Jim]

Can anyone recommend a good knife sharpening system. I have zero skills at putting an edge on a knife and would probably do more damage than good. I've heard the Lansky is a good kit to buy.

[Classic Case]

i've had good luck with the lansky.i find it alot easier to maintain the blade angle with it, rather than freehand.

[jonet143]

lansky... work very well.

[Ringmaster]

I use the Lansky "most" of the time, even tho' I can sharpen a knife with a stone. Especially the first time, for a new knife. Touch-up is a lot faster with a good Arkansas, of course.

[Hukk]

I splurged on a Lansky diamond set and also bought a sapphire stone. I use these to reprofile knife edges.
I do plan to make some guides for my Bader at 30, 25, 23, 20, 17, and 15 degrees angles. To protect the temper, go slow, cool often and don't be in a hurry. They do have belts that you can load up with a very fine buff. I figure for some grinds, that this is the fastest and best way to get the proper angles when the knife gets it's first edge.

They work well and I recommend them for D2, CPM154, ATS-34, and metals like CPM S30V. If you don't do a lot of sharpening, these are great and I believe an absolute necessity. I am sharpening knives daily so I often just use bench stones. Even though I sharpen knives all the time, occsionally I will use the Lansky to make sure the knives have a proper angle. Just because it's sharp doesn't mean a knife has an optimum angle.

I also have a rather huge collection of bench stones from Arkansas Stones (Soft and Hard Surgical), Carborundum, Diamond and a few others. That hard stone will put one heck of an edge on a blade.

[marcinek]

Hey Jim...I use a Spyderco Sharpmaker...if I can get stuff really sharp with it (and I can!)...then, trust me, it's fool proof.

[knowtracks]

I too use a Lansky. I use to sharpen all knives freehand but not anymore. I get a much more uniform edge with no roll over the edge just when you're almost finished.
The only problem that I've had with the Lansky is with small blades. I had to rework the clamp to hold them square. On other fourms there has been quite a squawk about the clamp.
I still strop in between sharpings freehand.

Dave

[Duffy]

You guys mean there is something besides rocks to sharpen a knife with???? This is all news to me... .

[Hukk]

I gotta agree with you on those clamps Dave. They are a pain in the rear. I would like to try something different clamp wise, I don't exactly know what yet as far as clamps go. I did make one clamp at 23 degrees, same design. The guy was insistant that he wanted 23 and I would say that it's not a bad choice for his drop point.

A good system for me is to take the flat platen of my Bader and make some clamp on rests with all the different angles. Still muling it over, I have other projects going.

Might make sense to buy a 1 x 42 from Grizzly for about $40 or so and buy the correct belts and make some clamp on knife rests, all at the different angles. All the angles I listed earlier were the different requests I got from customers.
In general it broke down like this, with a couple exceptions. It's their knife, what do I know. A couple I do disagree with. It's not my knife.
15 to 17 for fillet
20 to 25 for skinners and slicing
23 to 25 and some to 30 for hunters
30 for chopping like a french Chef's knife, but I have had a request for 30 on a skinner. Couldn't talk him out of it. I wonder if he thinks I made a lousy knife. Everyone has their own idea of what's right.

I made a knife for my brother Gene in Oregon from 01 tool steel and he's quite strong. He split the chest cavity of a Bull Elk with one chop. I got 5 orders out of that and probably a few more coming. Well, I got to next November to get them done with sheaths.