Round Knife Sharpening jig

[KWAK]

A couple years ago I bought an Al Stohlman Tandy round knife. It wasn't even close to the condition he describes in his 'Use and Care of Hand Tools' - type book, and I only made it much worse trying to sharpen it by hand. So I built a "Thing". I work in the aerospace industry for a living, so I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to end up, and knew that I would fall far short of that level working in my garage with hand tools. I used a piece of 2" x 2' x 1/4" angle iron, and put a lot of thought and work into it. I used the Lansky sharpening system idea, basically, working up to their finest stone, and quit (for now) with their leather strop.

I originally put this idea up on a 'Facebook' page, and took a lot of flack about it not being perfect, or exactly equal throughout the entire curve of the blade, etc, Some of the people commenting were big names in the sharpening business, and they definitely know what they were talking about. The thing that they didn't get was that I just wanted something that would work for my occasional project, and I leave my pursuit of perfection behind at the company's door when I leave my job in aerospace for the day, and go home to work on stuff. I stole my motto in life from Theodore Roosevelt..."Do what you can, with what you have, where you are". I think it turned out great, because now I can cut caiman tails so fine that when you hold the cut edges together, it's hard to see where you caused the separation.

(I haven't been on this site in a long time, so I'm not being rude if I don't respond to questions. I don't have any type of instructions, never made a single drawing, or anything like that. The only important thing that I can tell you is that I did my trigonometry calculations to come up with a 15 degree angle on the blade. Like I said, I have an Al Stohlman knife, but you can customize it to whatever you have. I feel that the key to this device is that it is very repeatable, within a small margin of error. I'm very happy with the results, and figure that I put much less time into making it than I would have spent trying to teach myself the muscle memory necessary to get proficient at sharpening by hand.)

[TargetRockLeather]

That's a very sturdy looking jig. I'm sure you get very consistent results with it. The only downside I can think of is that it appears to be built for that knife alone. Too bad you can't use it for other knives. Nicely done.

[KWAK]

Yes, a fault is that it is a purpose-built jig, for one particular model of knife. In fact, I even go so far as to make sure that I load the knife always facing the same way up. I am able to get the knife extremely sharp, though, and as this is the only round knife I have, it solved a serious problem issue when I bought some caiman tails to use in a project. I took some pics of the blade edge as I progressed through finer grits, then to a leather strop with diamond compound. It's at nearly a perfect mirror finish at this point, maybe 2 hours after being extremely dull.

[ramrod]

very nicely done! ive often dreamt about making a jig like this for my round knife, too. if you had made some kind of drawings, i'd have a nice guide to use. lol.

seriously, you did a great job on this.

[seagiant]

Hi,

           Nice jig and looks easy to make.

Here is a link to the best vid I have seen on sharpening a round knife.

I learned to sharpen knives as a kid, my Father never could figure it out?

I was gifted a Tandy Stohlman Knife also and after rounding the back of the handle to get rid of the flat edge...

And then sharpening, works very well for me!

I use oilstones, instead of the more expensive diamond but the results should be the same.

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by seagiant

[Scoutmom103]

Nice jig.   Looks like it will do the job well and it's giving you the results you wanted for your knife.   I do wish you had the instructions for how you did it.  I do better following directions than in designing new mechanical type devices.

Thank you for sharing it.

[chuck123wapati]

that jig rocks friend! Anyone who talked bad about that is just sorry they didn't come up with it first.

[KWAK]

I really  appreciate the positive feedback on my idea. I will work on putting together some basic plans that are adaptable, so everyone can build to your specific knife. Let me know, specifics, and I will  provide specific plans based on the  measurements you provide, for a fee for my time.

Edited February 21, 2021 by KWAK

[Ferryman]

That looks great.

I personally would buy one if they were available commercially.

[Lil Doodler]

Great jig for sharpening the round knife!

If I may suggest, there's always different ways to sharpen round knifes.

I saw on a holster making video by Bianchi that he uses a grinder with a polishing\buffing wheel with white polishing compound (not the polishing compound that Tandy sells).

When he works on a full rig holster project, he has a couple of sharpened round knifes handy, so when one begins to go dull, he picks up another one. He says that you can tell when a round knife is getting dull when you can hear it cutting the leather. It's true

[Ferryman]

Did you ever sit down and do the plans etc KWAK