Honing Knives

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Sorry for the slightly off-topic post, but the experts on honing all seem to reside in this little corner of the forum!

I've got a couple of knives I use in the garden that are in dire need of a new edge, and I stumbled across an old whetstone in the shed.... it's seen better days but has a very coarse black side and a medium/fine green side. The coarser side is dipped badly in the middle but the green side is nice and flat.

My questions:

1. In order to use this stone to hone knives, will I need to re-lap (?) the coarser side?
2. How would I roughly gauge the grit of the stone (i.e. how fine etc it is)
3. could anyone point me at some useful info on honing knives rather than razors?

Cheers,

Chris

P.S. I'm already assuming that only Arrowhead and Neil will respond to this one.....
 
Chris,

I asked my buddy and I'll relay the message to you.

I remembered a video at sharpening supplies ( great customer service to boot ):

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HERE
 
I'll get flamed for this, but a hollow in the length of a coarse stone is not going to be fatal for knife sharpening purposes. If you're going to use it for anything else lap it, but for knives, and especially ones with curved edges, there are probably more fun ways to spend your time.

Judging the grit is a matter of having something to compare it to. An old timers' trick is to run your thumbnail across the stone and get a feel for it that way. For the finer side you can tell a lot by the look of the bevel you hone with it: if it's a real mirror finish you are looking at 4000 and probably higher (only Turkeys and hard Arkansas stones seem to polish like this around the 4000 mark, and I don't suppose for a minute that's what you've got). If the stone is what I think it probably is, it'll be coarser than that. Any chance of a picture?

For knife sharpening opinions, try British Blades, or any of the other knife forums. Information overload of course.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.britishblades.com/forums/forum.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.britishblades.com/forums/forum.php</a><!-- m -->
 
Hi Chris,

Gauging the grit is going to be a bit of a problem. Like Andy says, you need something you can compare it with. A strong eyepiece/loupe will help, too - you can examine the scratch pattern on the bevel with one of these (or a cheap usb microscope). All you do is borrow a few stones from friends and use a scrap blade/piece of steel to grind away on the known stone. flip the bit of steel round and do the same on your stone, then use the loupe to examine the scratch patterns - you should be able to tell which is the coarser of the two, hence a lower grit. Be sure to grind away for a bit though - you want to look at the scratch pattern from the stone you are assessing, not something from elsewhere that has not been removed by insufficient grinding.

If your stone is very old, chances are even the fine grit side will relatively coarse (from a razor-sharpening perspective!) - they used to be designated as just coarse, medium and fine, and fine could be something like 320 grit. Yours may well be a 150/320 combo. If finer, it could be a 220/1000 or something in that region.

If all the stones you used were dished in the same way, then it probably wouldn't matter - any deviation on one stone would be echoed on another, but if one side is really dished and the other relatively flat, I would lap it. Some lapidary grit of 60/80/120 size would do it - probably go for the coarser 60 or 80 - it will get the job done quicker. put about a thimbleful on a flat piece of thick glass, make it into a slurry with water and rub away - once it begins to 'stick' you know you are getting close to flat.

As for honing, there are some neat devices and sound info here: http://sharpeningmadeeasy.com/

Regards,
Neil
 
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