Stay Sharp in 2016

New Year’s Day calls for a roasting pan full of pork, smoked sausage and sauerkraut at my mother-in-law’s house. The food preparation is relatively simple, but conflicts do arise. 

I am convinced that my martial arts instructor got it wrong.  He once told us the Chinese ideogram for trouble was two women under the same roof.  He’s wrong.  It’s an elderly mother and her daughter under the same roof.

Despite that, everything went fine except for the knives.  I have never seen two kitchen knives so dull.  Fortunately, I had my Spyderco Sharpmaker available.  Even more fortunately, I own a pair of coarse diamond sharpening rods.

The silver diamond rod and a dull santoku

Spyderco has made diamond rods for a number of years, but the cost for diamond-impregnated rods was above and beyond affordable.  Recently breakthroughs have brought the cost down so mere mortals like myself can afford them.  A retail cost of $80 for two rods isn’t terrible.  They also make a cubic boron nitride for the same price.  

The key, Spyderco’s Joyce Laituri told me, is not to bear down hard, but to let the diamonds do the work.  It only took a few swipes on each side to get the knife which wouldn’t tear paper to one that cut paper.

I've worked through the medium and ended with the white fine stone.  Spyderco makes an extra fine, but I suspect I really don't need it.

From there it’s working through the dark medium stones and the white fine stones.  I would suggest not always starting the sharpening stroke at the back of the edge or choil, but also at the knife tip.  I find that gets a better edge faster.

Years ago I was told about another knifemaker who used his Spyderco Sharpmaker backwards.  He started down at the bottom of the V formed by the two stones and brought his knife upward as well as towards himself.  

This makes sense.  You want to draw the wire edge, where the real sharpness is, outward from the blade.  When you strop an edge on leather or the cardboard backing of a paper pad, that’s what you are doing.

You can do the same thing with a fine stone too!

That edge doesn't have a micro-serration.  It's just badly damaged.  (It's a crappy photo, hard to hold the knife at the right angle and camera.)

The little santoku knife was dull, but the little Spyderco paring knife was beyond dull.  Holding the knife upside down and staring where the edge should have been was unusual.  I’ve never seen an edge that looks like tiny polished diamonds before.  Fortunately, the diamond rods took the chips and gouges out right away and let me work to the fine stones without too much trouble.

You see the side of the blade, but the not the edge.  It isn't because I've sharpened to a sub-atomic edge, but because its sharpen enough to come to an edge smaller than the resolution of the eye. 

I’ve always enjoyed sharpening knives.  There is a rhythm that seems to resonate with me.  It’s peaceful, calming work.  I stand or sit and under my finger pressure steel turns into an edge, one of man’s oldest and most important tools.  There is a connection between me and first person who wondered if they could make a favorite tool work again.  I like that.

Have a Happy and Sharp New Year in 2016!

Spyderco 204D a pair of diamond rods or 204CBN a pair of cubic boron nitride rods:  $58 plus shipping  Contact me.  Searcher12@gmail.com

Blade Show 2013

There are two important US shows for the knife world.  One is the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show.  That’s usually in Las Vegas in January.  Most of the commercial manufacturers will have their new products on display.  A knife that doesn’t capture the interest of the retail market at SHOT will find itself circling the drain.

The next biggest is the Blade Show in Atlanta, Georgia in a few days.  Most of the commercial manufacturers will be there and use it to introduce tweaked and new knives driven by the SHOT Show.   It’s also a show about custom knife makers who may only make 20 true handmade custom knives a year.  It’s also a show about knives, blades, swords and their utility and artistry.

 

Spyderco Dragonfly ~ It's a cute as a bug! 

Like Spyderco’s Joyce Laituri say, “It’s more fun talking knives with knife people.”  I agree.

I’m leaving for the show and I’ll update my blog when I can.  I can’t stay for the entire show and there are more than a few lectures I would like to catch.  So I may not have much time for blogging. 

Tell me you’ve never attended the SHOT Show and I’m not surprised.  You need some access through a commercial endeavor.  But the Blade Show is open to the public.  Take the time and attend.  You’ll never be the same.

In The Trenches They Were Sharpening Their Knives...

It’s been ‘trench warfare’ at my house for the last month.  I’m having a garage built and running the electrical line for the garage.  This simple act called for me to crawl under my porch, move about a half ton of stone and quarter ton of sandy soil resulting in a trench from the house foundation to the garage.  It would have been a lot easier if I could have removed the full length porch from the back of our house.   If I had those kind of resources, I would just buy a new house, so it was trench warfare.  I ran into an underground retaining wall and had to drill and chisel out enough concrete to make a 6-inch depression for the rigid conduit.  I spent so much time under the porch I found I was enjoying it.  Unfortunately, mole man syndrome set in and I was eating 47 times my body weight, so that had to come to a stop. 

The knife side of this is I cut a little barrier plastic, shaved some roots and truncated cord in the digging process.  All of which took its toll on my CRKT Crawford Kasper folder.  Add a little dandelion subsurface root decapitation (I know, decapitation is the wrong word, but it always reminds a me of a guillotine).  This was followed up by lots of cardboard cutting.  My knife was soon too dull to tear newspaper.

When I need to sharpen something fast, I reach for my Spyderco sharpener.  The stones were getting a little dirty.  So, with a little abrasive cleanser, water, a rag and a little elbow grease, the residue from previous sharpenings was gone and the stones were ready.

Removing old metal helps give the stone more 'bite' and faster sharpening

I like Spyderco's system.  Hold the knife perpendicular to the ground and glide it down and back against the stone and it’s like a magic show. 

Presto-Change-O!  A sharp knife!

It’s so simple that even I can get a sharp edge in under 5 minutes.

Two medium stones, two brass guards, two fine stones and a plastic base.  It goes everywhere.

A good friend of mine recently received a long awaited fixed blade from a local knife maker.  Tim is a reluctant knife maker, so I’ll hold his name.  My friend commissioned a fixed blade in the sub-hilt fighter style and asked the knife maker to give it his interpretation.  It took awhile, but it was worth the wait.  Even the sheath was nicely detailed.

Single Edge Sub Hilt Fighter

The maker did a very nice job.  I wish my photo did it justice, but I had only minutes to set something up.  I also found out that one man’s sheath knife is another’s pocket knife.

I guess the folder in the side pocket is back-up.  Hey, one is none...