get an exact angle on my swivel knife

[pete]

I'm probably the LAST to figure this out but---

I never got a REALLY exact angle on my swivel i when I sharpened them. Close, but sometimes I would look at it under my magnifying glass and see that I had done one side slightly off from the other. I use a Tandy rolling jig that adjusts to the angle.

This afternoon I pulled out an old blade to sharpen and realized something. Strop it FIRST . If you get rouge on the base of the blade then steepen the angle. If you get the tip of the blade scarring the rouge then lessen the angle!

If you get a smooth pass across the rouge then you are right on!

THEN go to the 400 or 600 grit or stone and begin putting an edge on it.

DUH--

Hope that I educated someone and didn't bore you to tears

pete

[unicornwoman]

I'll have to try that.

As for boring to tears, SHARPENING is more likely to bring on the tears. I, too, have really struggled with it. I'm getting better sharpening the X-acto & Scalpel blades, but I still consider sharpening a challenge!

[Romey]

Lets be clear for those who maybe dont understand what you were doing, It took me a thinking before i fugured it out, your stropping JUST to see the edge angle then going on through the grits and i assume back to the strop for final polishing. I just wanted to make it clear for everyone stropping is used AFTER any honing.

From the posts I read so often of PPL sharpening headknives, to have to go to a 400 or even 600 grit to bring back a edge means its some seriously poor heat treated steel. Once the angle is set one shouldnt have to do much more then stropping for a LONG time before ever needing the edge reshaped. I could see 800 maybe, 1000 grit more probable but to have to go clear back to 4 or 600 grit, yikes thats serious edge deformation to need that.

Edited October 25, 2007 by Romey

[steveb]

i have 2 older head knives - both came with cocked edges - so i used a stone to rough the blade out and then used 1000 then used 1500 grit wet dry paper - to finesse the blade, followed by a session with an arkansas/japansese super fine stone to finish up.

a few strops and they cut like crazy - havent had to do anything but strop them in the past year.

ive used the same technique with my swivel blades too...the trick with swivel blades is keeping the angle right when using anything more aggressive than stropping....i use the cheep tandy fixture when i use a stone....or wet/dry paper

my .02 YMMV

steveb