Thread: Knife sharpener

Your going to take off a fair amount of metal with my method but IMO its very much worth it. Once you have it reprofiled it will stay sharp longer and be easier to touch up. One of the nice things about this method is thatit is more forgiving of the angle you hald the knife at than a stone. You can be a little inconsistant and still get very good results.

I use the piece of carpet because I had it laying arouns, but plenty of other things will work. Moat people use a mousepad or a piece of thick leather. Even cardboard alone will work (I would use 2 layers). So you probably have something laying around that will work. Ive been tempted to try mounting sandpaper on a phone book and seeing what happens. I have a feeling it would work.

For the fine grit sandpapers like 1000-2000 look at autoparts stores or in the autobody section of walmart. You'll also find green paste chrome polish there too. You'll be amazed at the difference the chrome polish makes. The jar I have is Eagle1 nano-polish but any will work I'm sure.

Let me know if you have anyother questions. I'll be outta town next week but still should be able to check the board.

I like the free lifetime sharpening offered by Spyderco. I have 2 knives out with them now. Between wife and I we have about 10 Spydercos. Wife's late husband (1999) had a gun store/police supply shop so we have quite a few good knives, Spyderco, Cold Steel, Benchmade, Gerber, Chicago Cutlery etc.

SgtCap, I might give your method a try next time. I have an old Lansky kit that I like, but sometimes have a difficult time getting the right angle.

I used a lansky kit right up until I learned this method. THe Lansky works really well for most stuff. I could get an edge on my Spyderco Endura II that rivaled or surpassed the factory edge. On a spyderco thats saying something. Depending on what kind of edge you want you may find you prefer the Lansky. It generally produces an "toothyer" edge that bites when you touch it. The sandpaper created a much smoother edge that does to feel as sharp in many cases until you actually try to cut something. Then you realise exactly how sharp it is.


The place where the sandpaper method really shines is on larger blades. YOu cant really sharpen large fixed blades with a lansky, I've tried with limited success at best.

I will say that the convexed/sandpapered edge will last longer and still cut long after it feels dull. It's just something in the geometry that allows it to do that. The outward sweep of the edge (convexed) actually pushes the matterial your cutting away from the edge making the cut that much easier. On large blades, especially choppers, this is really effective.