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[deboardp]

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[deboardp]

[Mablung]

The heat treat of my Al Stohlman head knife isn’t great, so sharpening can be a chore. Stick to it, though, being exceedingly careful with the edge angle and working the burr carefully, and they’ll sharpen up adequately. It’ll just take some time and patience. I think the steel is D2, which is relatively hard. 
 

You would probably find the discussion of knife sharpening under the Sharpening forum helpful. Lots of good videos and tips. 

[deboardp]

1 minute ago, Mablung said:

The heat treat of my Al Stohlman head knife isn’t great, so sharpening can be a chore. Stick to it, though, being exceedingly careful with the edge angle and working the burr carefully, and they’ll sharpen up adequately. It’ll just take some time and patience. I think the steel is D2, which is relatively hard. 
 

You would probably find the discussion of knife sharpening under the Sharpening forum helpful. Lots of good videos and tips. 

I had no idea there was a forum for sharpening knives. Thanks!

I did decide to change the profile of the blade, make the angle less, and it might be futile. Ilk check out that forum, maybe there's some tips that will help. 

I'm careful about the burr. I do circles until a burr develops along the whole blade, then turn the blade over and sharpen until there's a burr, and repeat. 

[Mablung]

https://leatherworker.net/forum/forum/221-sharpen-it/
 

Link above. 
 

Obviously you’re not totally new to sharpening, if you know to feel for the burr. I will say, though, you’re wasting effort and possibly causing angle changes just through natural human inconsistency by raising a burr a second time.

The general wisdom is that once you’ve raised the burr on one side and then cleaned it off so that both sides of the bevel are even, you’ve maxed out how sharp you’ll make the knife at that grit level. Then it’s time to move up to the next stone up, in whatever set you’re using. (Since you said you’re using a “coarse” stone, I’ll assume you’re using an oil stone of some species or a waterstone around the 800–1000 grit mark.) Each successive burr-remove-burr again cycle just removes more metal but does not refine the edge further. The next stone up will refine the edge by taking off finer bits of metal, on up to polishing stones and stropping doing exactly that, polishing and smoothing the edge. 
 

While still honing the blade, keep doing the burr-remove cycle, but pay attention to the consistency of each bevel. Keep the angle right and keep the pressure consistent. Raise the burr on one side, uniformly across the edge, then remove it uniformly. Then check the edge again to make sure all is consistent, then move on to the next stone. 
 

After working through your stones, polish on the strop. Use jeweler’s rouge, then green buffing compound, then leather without any compound (if you want—lots of people stop with green and get a wonderful finish on the edge that way). If you have done your job patiently, you should have a mirror-polished edge. 
 

That takes time, patience, attention, patience, elbow grease, patience, practice, and patience. It can be especially challenging with a round knife, because the geometry requires the blade be sharpened in portions, rather than the whole edge at once. (Or at least, you will likely find it much easier starting out by doing portions—trying to sweep the whole edge across the stone consistently in every respect with every stroke is extremely difficult to get right.)

[Mablung]

5 hours ago, deboardp said:

The edge of that trim knife looks like it has a consistent bevel, as best as I can tell. But it’s not nearly as sharp as it could be, which I can tell from how dully the bevel reflects light. Even the body of the blade behind the bevel reflects more. You need to work that blade up through some finer stones and strop it well. A knife truly sharp enough for leather work will glide through the leather—that is, the blade is FRIGHTENINGLY sharp.

Watch the video in one thread in the sharpening forum about sharpening the round knife. Great explanation of the technique. At the end, the guy demonstrates the edge of his knife on some 10 oz. veg tan saddle skirting—the knife slides through like the leather is butter. 

[deboardp]

2 minutes ago, Mablung said:

https://leatherworker.net/forum/forum/221-sharpen-it/
 

Link above. 
 

Obviously you’re not totally new to sharpening, if you know to feel for the burr. I will say, though, you’re wasting effort and possibly causing angle changes just through natural human inconsistency by raising a burr a second time.

The general wisdom is that once you’ve raised the burr on one side and then cleaned it off so that both sides of the bevel are even, you’ve maxed out how sharp you’ll make the knife at that grit level. Then it’s time to move up to the next stone up, in whatever set you’re using. (Since you said you’re using a “coarse” stone, I’ll assume you’re using an oil stone of some species or a waterstone around the 800–1000 grit mark.) Each successive burr-remove-burr again cycle just removes more metal but does not refine the edge further. The next stone up will refine the edge by taking off finer bits of metal, on up to polishing stones and stropping doing exactly that, polishing and smoothing the edge. 
 

While still honing the blade, keep doing the burr-remove cycle, but pay attention to the consistency of each bevel. Keep the angle right and keep the pressure consistent. Raise the burr on one side, uniformly across the edge, then remove it uniformly. Then check the edge again to make sure all is consistent, then move on to the next stone. 
 

After working through your stones, polish on the strop. Use jeweler’s rouge, then green buffing compound, then leather without any compound (if you want—lots of people stop with green and get a wonderful finish on the edge that way). If you have done your job patiently, you should have a mirror-polished edge. 
 

That takes time, patience, attention, patience, elbow grease, patience, practice, and patience. It can be especially challenging with a round knife, because the geometry requires the blade be sharpened in portions, rather than the whole edge at once. (Or at least, you will likely find it much easier starting out by doing portions—trying to sweep the whole edge across the stone consistently in every respect with every stroke is extremely difficult to get right.)

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out. That's the exact procedure I used to sharpen my custom round knife, made of a special hard steel. I have three stones in a triangle holder and four leather strops, black and green Rouge. My round knife has the mirror finishes. I forgot the procedure for this new knife. My memory doesn't work well.  I'll go back to it. I'll also return to the original angle of the knife edge and just follow the procedure, although I'm afraid I scuffed up that bright finish on the unshakable part. Woops. 

[Mablung]

1 minute ago, deboardp said:

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out. That's the exact procedure I used to sharpen my custom round knife, made of a special hard steel. I have three stones in a triangle holder and four leather strops, black and green Rouge. My round knife has the mirror finishes. I forgot the procedure for this new knife. My memory doesn't work well.  I'll go back to it. I'll also return to the original angle of the knife edge and just follow the procedure, although I'm afraid I scuffed up that bright finish on the unshakable part. Woops. 

Then you've got what you need already, including the procedure (just gotta call it to mind!).  If you're used to sharpening your round knife, you'll just have to make a few adjustments to your grip and angle when sharpening the trim knife.  I have to work myself back through the angle and approach whenever I change the style of knife I'm sharpening.

[deboardp]

1 minute ago, deboardp said:

The general wisdom is that once you’ve raised the burr on one side and then cleaned it of

Intuitively I want to clean the burr off by sliding the knife across the stone edge first, to pull the burr off. Is that how it's cleaned off?