Wandering the Internet

I just started writing about sharpening and I ran across an article in Wired about sharpening.

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2013/03/knife-sharpeners-gallery/

It’s their idea of a review of sharpening stones, mostly for kitchen knives.  I didn’t see a single folder or serrated knife being used to test the sharpening stones and systems.  I liked Wired, but they are a very Yuppie techie-orientated website.  Still, if you’re interested in Japanese water stones you might find their comments interesting.

If your lifestyle is better typified by having pan-fried walleye for breakfast and following tracks in the snow you might find Field and Stream more to your temperament.  Field and Stream has come up with their list of the best 20 knives of all time.  You should take a look, some of the selections may surprise you.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos/gallery/kentucky/2008/05/20-best-knives-ever-made

I agree completely with their selection of Ka-Bar’s Marine fighting knife and Leatherman’s multi-tool, for example, the Wave.  But Busse's Battle Mistress and Marbles Ideal Sheath knife?  I’m not too sure about them.

If you believe that the right fashion accessory or brand of shirt will get you in bed with incredible hotties, (usually pictured in the sidebars) or you need someone’s approval for the beer you drink, you might want to visit Made Man.  No, it’s not an organized crime site, although I can’t see how that would be any worse than this site.  The advertisements and the all the rest just confirm my belief why marketers pander to the young.  The reason?  Simple.  They aren’t old and cynical.

http://www.mademan.com/gallery/7-knives-for-everyday-carry/

 

Still, they have a selection of 7 pocket knives that you've just got to carry to be part of the boy's club.  They may be right about that. The first was a very nice Benchmade 3150 Impel which is backed up with Emerson’s Gentleman Jim.  You might also find the other five knives interesting too.

Maybe the best thing about other people’s lists are their selections.  Assuming they just didn’t flip open a knife book and pick nice pictures and names, there was a reason for their choice.  Your job is to try to see why it was selected. What would you replace it with? Sometimes you’ll discover something different and unique about a knife.

TSA vs. the Knife Culture
So unless you’re living in a cave (How did you get internet service in there?) you know that TSA will allow small pocket knives on board domestic flights.  Here’s the poop from Yahoo news:

“Starting April 25, passengers flying on U.S. flights will be allowed to carry small pocket knives – blades less than 6-centimeters, up to two golf clubs, ski poles, as well as sporting sticks used for hockey, lacrosse, and billiards. Baseball bats will remain on the no-fly list, though wiffle-ball bats and souvenir baseball bats (less than 24-inches long) will be allowed.”

The blade has to be under 2 some odd inches, non-locking, no serrations and other silly stuff.  People are up in arms, but you can bring a hockey stick or souvenir base ball bat on board.  I don’t know, what’s the difference between a cop-on-the-corner’s night stick and a souvenir baseball bat.  Oh yeah…. The souvenir baseball bat is easier to hang onto when you swing it.

Adventures in Knife Land

It was a knifie kind of weekend for me.  I was selling knives at the Dalton, Ohio gun show.  
 

The Dalton show is a very nice venue.  It's a large open structure, well-heated with clean, well taken care of restrooms, wide aisles, excellent and reasonably priced food.  I don’t know why WRCA doesn’t want to move our show there.  We can’t stay at the Dover Armory with its tight space, limited parking and unpredictable schedule shuffling.  WRCA just doesn’t like Dalton.  It’s not Dover.

I had a conversation with a young fellow that was very enlightening, but I found him to be a bit of a dim bulb.

Him:       “How come nobody at the show carries Kershaw?”

Me:        “Kershaw is a great knife but the knives are a little expensive.  Walmart sells them and it’s hard to compete on price against them.”

He takes out his Kershaw Blur and flicks out the black, partially serrated tanto blade.  I have the identical one on the table marked at $88.00.

Him:       “You’re right about that.  I just bought this one at Walmart for $66.00.”

Me:        “So you’re the answer to why nobody at the show carries Kershaw.”

Him:       “Huh?”

I also had a left-handed M-21 from CRKT on my table.  It’s in the reduced inventory pile.  I know about 10% of the population is left-handed.  I’d sure buy a knife designed specifically for me if I was a lefty.  I would have snatched it up in a New York minute.  (This reference in no way signifies any recommendation or suggestion you should visit NY.)

I just rotated the clip.  I like 'tip up carry' even for my left-handed knives.

I was explaining to a second rocket scientist that it was left-handed.

Him:       “Are all your knives left handed (including the fixed blades)?

Me:        “Yes, we are from a mirror image universe.  That’s why I’m talking backwards to you.”

What makes it left-handed?  Easy.  The liner lock pushes to the right.  Go ahead.  Check your knife to see which way the liner lock pushes.

I sometimes speculate on used knives, oh excuse me,  previously owned knives.  It’s an expensive activity.  Mis-guess the potential resale or take in a knock-off and you could be waving good-bye to your cash.  It’s worse than Vegas.  At least at Vegas you know you’re going to lose all your money.

I had a chance to purchase a classic Italian switchblade in mint condition.  It was a limited edition production (no. 1 of 100) with polished mammoth ivory handles.  It was incredible.  It was also $500.

Pass. 

I sent him to my friends Dale and Mike.  They took a pass too.  If you want to make money buying and selling you need to remember the golden rule, “Buy low and sell higher.”  It’s very hard to do that above the 500 bucks range.  The owner needed to find a collector, not a seller.

But it wasn’t a completely wasted weekend.  I settled on keeping the left-handed knife for my left pocket.  It was my best deal of the show!

Dover Knife Show Postponed!

The March 2 and 3, 2013 Knife Expo hosted by Western Reserve Cutlery Association has been canceled. 

 

Fear not.  

We will be holding the Knife Expo later this year, April 6th and 7th at the Dover National Guard headquarters.  Same place as before, same times, different calendar page, that’s all.

I don’t know what happened.  It was suggested that the National Guard’s plans changed, or the old business manager forgot to tell the new business manager, or maybe somebody with rank just wanted to throw their weight around.  It doesn’t matter.  

The new show will be April 6 and 7.  The weather should be nice and everyone will have a good time.

If you show up in March, I'm not sure what you'll find, but it will not be the knife show!

Chisel Sharp

I discovered I needed my chisel for a woodworking project.  I’m taking a course in hand-cut dovetails.  I need a special saw, which I have courtesy of my grandfather.  The chisel I have courtesy of myself.

I bought it maybe 30-35 years ago.  It’s a Stanley 5/8 inch wood chisel made in the US.  The steel?  Beats me.  I bought it at a time when Stanley stood for quality and that was enough for me.

I took it once to a community theater when I did technical theatre.  We were building a set with lots of doors, so that mean lots of passage sets (aka doorknobs and locks).  I looked up and found a co-volunteer using my chisel to hammer small nails out of wood.  

I’d like to say that he was able to use his hands after a few years to therapy but I’d never hurt anyone that bad over tools.  Fortunately I put a halt to his activity before too much damage had occurred.  I just took it home and kept the damaged edge as a reminder never to lend any tool I cared about. 

Now it was time to rehabilitate that tool.  So I got out my stones.

Just in case you don’t know, most wood chisels are sharpened on only one side.  Hence the term, chisel-grind.  The flat edge lets you cut straight through the wood, while the beveled edge clears the wood away from the cut.  If you sharpened both sides, yes it would be sharper, but it would drift away from the cut line.

I have a nice Norton combination coarse/fine stone I bought years ago.  It’s 11.5 inches long and 2.5 inches wide and I really like that size.  It’s hard to get the right angle for each stroke, but once you get it, 11 inches gives you a lot of sharpening distance.

I oiled it up and started on the coarse side, but it wasn’t taking the metal off as fast as I wanted.  So I switched to my little DMT combo diamond stone.  These stones use water as a lubricant so it’s easy to clean up and store.  I bought the DMT so I could touch up an axe or knife blade in the field.  The coarse diamond worked great, but the relatively small size made the job tedious.  I also thought the ratio of diamond material to open polymer made the effective sharpening area significantly small and reduced the metal removal efficiency.

On the left the Norton combination stone; the red is the fine grit. The EZE Lap, and the right is my diamond DMT Combo.

I pulled out my EZE Lap, a six inch long fine diamond stone.  That really took the edge down.  Before long I had worked out all the edge damage and had a nice wire edge. 

Now it was back to the Norton stone.  I continued on the coarse side, which made finer marks than the fine diamond EZE Lap.  I guess it makes sense.  The coarse stone is less abrasive than the fine diamond.

I first flat polished the wire edge away on the back of the chisel and did a second uniform one across the chisel’s edge and moved to the other side of the Norton stone, the fine side.  ("Come to the fine side Luke!  I am your father…") Again I removed the wire edge and repeated the sharpening until I had a third wire edge.  I carefully polished the back of the chisel and was finished.

It's a pretty good edge, but the right tip isn't perfect.  I suspect its part of the way I put pressure on the chisel during sharpening.

Did I get it sharp?  I think so.  I shaved a few curls from a block of yew wood I had in the basement and was very happy with its action.

I shaved a few small shavings with my chisel.  I wanted to see how thin I could make them and how much effort it took.

Could I get it sharper?  Maybe.  Depends on the steel.  I could have gone to an ultra fine polish and left the face mirror shiny.  But would the edge hold up?  Steel for chisels is selected for impact and bending properties not necessarily hardness or even edge retention . Some woods are so hard the best you can do is to slowly remove a 32^nd inch thick shaving at a time.  Most woodworkers would rather have to resharpen more often than break a chisel.

I’m happy with the way this sharpening project turned out.  I got a uniform edge at about 25 degrees, with a straight, sharp cutting edge.  

In the spirit of complete honesty I used a little wheeled gismo that holds the chisel at a constant angle.  I don’t have any idea where I bought it, but for sharpening a chisel or wood plane blade, it’s the bomb!!!