A Bone for Leslie
This week I made a bone awl for my friend Leslie who lives in North Carolina. I also worked on sharpening my knives but I can’t seem to get a super sharp edge no matter how many times I run the knife along the sharpener, nor the angle that I hold the knife. I don’t understand why I can’t get these effing knives sharp. It would make sense if the knives themselves couldn’t hold an edge because of shitty forging, but I’ve tried even my best knives. Why can’t I get it right?!?
Last Week’s Personal Goals:
1. Mail bone awl to Leslie
I made the bone awl, but didn’t mail it. I’ll do that this week.
2. Sharpen my knives
Still trying to figure this one out.
3. Finish film grant
I finished the online grant application and this week I must turn in all the stuff for it.
Last Week’s Rewild Camp Goals:
1. Keep doing it?
Had another fun rewild camp. Going to change locations and hope that it makes it easier for people to get to. Certainly I’ll have an easier time.
Next Week’s Personal Goals:
1. Mail bone awl to Leslie.
2. Keep trying to sharpen my knives.
3. Finish film grant final form.
4. Sew a bag for my bone tool kit.
5. Make a pine needle basket to snap some photos of.
Last Week’s Rewild Camp Goals:
1. Change locations, see how that effects attendance.
My local farmer’s market has a knife sharpener that I will sometimes take my knives to. Often as not I sharpen them myself, but he manages to do a better job of it than I can.
Your farmer’s market might have a knife sharpener too, and it would be a place where a professional was receptive to giving out advice if you hunted them down.
If you do figure out what you are doing to keep the edge off your knife, let us all know!
I probably can’t tell you anything you don’t already know, but here’s my $0.02 anyway.
When I really started to get into “the outdoors” a few years ago I read about Moras, and since then have stuck with “Scandis.” I have a couple of Moras, a 5″ Puuko, and a 3″ Swedish-bladed knife that I made a birch bark handle for. I find them all rather easy to sharpen given the large single bevels. I don’t know what kind of knives you’re using, but I find Scandinavian knives rather straight-forward to sharpen.
I also used to have a generic “tactical folder” that I carried as a pocket knife. It was a cheap and Chinese and made from stainless steel, and I had trouble sharpening that knife, so it was usually somewhat dull. Everyone says something different about this, but at least in my (limited) experience, stainless steel really is harder to sharpen than carbon steel. In fact, for me, regular ol’ nothin’-fancy carbon steel seems to work best. One of my Moras is of the “Triflex” variety, and it seems to be harder to sharpen and also doesn’t hold an edge as well as the regular carbon-bladed one.
After I lost that old pocket knife I bought an Opinel No. 7. It has a very thin blade and isn’t a “Scandi.” It seems to sharpen very easily, but it doesn’t hold an edge very well.
Also (I forgot about this), what method are you using to test the sharpness? I used to get really frustrated that I couldn’t get a smooth, clean-feeling edge every time. Obviously the sharper you can get your knives the better, but using the “thumbnail test” (just tapping the blade along your thumbnail at an angle) I find that even with little sharpening it’s easy for me to get the blade “sharp enough.”
Lastly, after reading this everywhere, I finally worked on my blades until I got a continuous bur along the edge, and this really does seem to help in getting a continuous, smooth edge.
Stainless is hard to sharpen because it leaves a really bad wire edge, so stropping is very important on stainless, If you wear a leather belt like I do this works pretty well. The technique I use is to place a 6″ stone on a flat surface like a table or a counter. Then draw it towards you like you’re slicing a layer of the stone, it’s real important that you maintain the angle you want to have the blade at and, that you get the entire blade. If the knife is ok but just needs an edge, do it 10 times towards you then 9 away from you and continue to alternate until you get to 1. If the knife is really dull then you might want to start on a course stone do it the same way then again on the fine. This also works on a steel or ceramic rod. Once you’ve done this especially on stainless you should strop it on your belt, use the unfinished side, by pulling it towards you to break of the wire edge left by sharpening 3 or 4 times on each side should do the trick. This was how the Black Smith that I trained with showed me and the truth is it took me several years to be able to get my knives as sharp as his so practice a lot. Good luck.
WHat kind of bone did you use to make the awl? Are certain kinds of bone better then others? I can not Wait To GEt the AWL! woo
I had just had my knife sharpened, only to lose it when running after my donkey…. it was sharpened by a professional sculpture artist, who also does blacksmithing etc, and it was so sharp it finally was the dangerous weapon it was meant to be. He sharpened it by hand, on some rough block.
Only now it’s lost in my neighbors pasture somewhere, and is literally like looking for a needle in a hay stack.
Hey Everyone, Thanks for the tips on knife sharpening!
Leslie, the bone awl is made from an “Ulna Bone” but I use cannon bones as well. The ulna has that nice finger holding groove in it and site in the hand very nicely. Cannon bones and a bit more work.
I gave leslie a bone one and she totally took it.
Hmm, there seems to be a very interesting community of people on this blog, I think I’ll join in 🙂
Where is this wilderness class of yours?
If you are still having trouble with the knife sharpening, I could make you a how-to video…I’ve had trouble with sharpening in the past, but with a few tricks I’ve picked up along the way I’m able to get a pretty wicked edge on just about every knife.