indian oil stone

[Caravan Monster 323]

I always struggled sharpening with a flat stone but can get good results much more quickly using my own Heath Robinson version of the system described in the video. If you don't want to watch the video (he goes on for 20 minutes) the basic points are:

1. Use a carborundum wheel on blunt knives to raise a burr or wire. Bench grinders are no good because they spin too fast and will blue the steel losing temper. He uses a slow speed drill. I also use a slow drill clamped to the bench and also have the carborundum wheel in water (plastic milk bottle with side cut out to make a trough). I would imagine an old school pedal powered grinding wheel would work well if you can find a working one.

2. When the grinding raises a burr, remove it. It will look like a really thin piece of wire.

3. Use a leather, paper or mdf wheel with linishing compound to polish the cutting edge. This is what makes it really sharp. This wheel is made from absorbent material to hold the compound or polish or whatever you use. It can go much faster, I don't think you can blue steel with these fine abrasives.

Make sure the wheels spin with the top moving away from the operator, so that the knife can't catch on the wheel and open up your belly with your newly razor sharp knife. It's probably a good idea to do grinding outside or wear a mask as the dust produced is bad on your lungs. 

 

[jok 3,035]

Oddly no one has mentioned this. I have a Chinese water stone which requires immersing for 24 hours in water and has a 2 sided grading. The results on most of my knives are quite impressive particularly on boning and filleting. I think, however, the best results are when using original good quality blades.  Jok.

[micky 3,325]

I have to wonder how sharp people want a knife to be ? when I caught a lot of Rabbits and it was only a matter of gutting them a retractable Craft knife was more than good enough but I still had my Penknife handy   because of habit I always keep it Razor sharp which is another habit and keeping a knife sharp is easy ! it takes a few seconds and if you don't know how to do it ask some one who does ., i

cannot understand why anyone would want or need a surgicaly sharp knife for a few Rabbits or Fish when a plain old Razor sharp Penknife does the job easily .

In the Field this month there is a good article on Pen knifes  ranging from  £40 to £ £ 50000 for a Purdey Special.

[low plains drifter 9,459]

Have a look at Jacklore knives on YouTube, he's got some on sharpening