 |
| Before I start, these would have been very difficult to do without my EP. |
I thought I would give some tips that I learned from making some mistakes, the mistakes were mostly initiated by impatience. This makes me a hypocrite because one of the things I stress is patience, I really cannot stress it enough, impatience leads to mistakes in the case of sharpening knives with or without the Edge Pro.
I'm human though, I don't mind making mistakes, each mistake has led to an improvement and I'm going to do my best to pass some information along.
First of all, this is what Bar Keepers Friend looks like, you can find it in kitchen stores, and hardware stores. Cucina Moderna here in Halifax/Bedford/Dartmouth sell it. (Also very nice stores with great folks working there, they sell some very nice knives)
This product excels at removing those little rust stains on knives and I use a cork. So as for my previous cork related posts, get some red wine, remove the cord, drink the wine and keep the cork. Mix up a little paste by mixing the BKF with a little water and simply dab the cork in the paste and gently....I say again, gently rub the moistened paste over the rust areas until it disappears. You don't have to rub hard at all and it will not scratch the blade. You can get this product in liquid form.
Now be careful on knives with a PATINA, this can remove the patina, for example if you let a little drop of the paste sit on the blade for a few minutes, once you clean it off with water that spot will be clean and look different from the rest of the blade. Just be gentle and wipe/dry the blade off immediately after use.
This is great for removing the black marks on ceramic hones too, I use this a lot, it is safe and inexpensive.
The other product I use is the adhesive that does a fantastic job of adhering water stones to the Edge Pro metal plates.
Be careful with this, it is very effective, you just need a little on the plate only, don't spray it on the stone, just the plate and then put the stone right on the plate and you will have some time to move the stone around to make sure it is aligned correctly. It will be ready to use in 15 minutes but I let mine sit for longer than that. This is easy to find as well in hardware stores and it lasts a very long time.
TIPS:
Did I mention patience?
What I mean by that specifically is to exercise patience when sharpening by not jumping higher in grit before you should. This is especially true with the first stone used. Lets say the first stone you use is the EP 220. (I Love this stone). You need to make the knife sharp with this stone before jumping to the EP 400. By sharp, I mean, extremely sharp, don't get impatient and think the 400 is going to make up for anything you didn't do on the 220.
ENSURE you raise a burr on both sides with the 220, when the burr is raised on both sides the knife is going to end up very sharp, you can pat yourself on the back because you have successfully accomplished what was necessary to be done. You have removed the fatigued metal which was making the knife dull and you've exposed the fresh steel underneath and this is what you need to work on with subsequent stones. You are now ready to move into the refinement process.
When you did raise the burr on both sides, you can continue with the EP 220 but gradually decrease pressure, if you measure sharpening pressure on a scale from 1-5 and you were at a 4 when you first started you should now be at a 1 to finish up with the 220 and prepare for 400. Basically, you can get the knife very very sharp with that 220 or the 120 for that matter, this is the key to sharpening happiness, this is the Patience part. If you need to walk away from the knife for a bit do so. Most of your sharpening time will be on the first stone, you are removing metal, there is no rush and patience will be rewarded.
 |
| Sometimes, you will need a bucket load of patience. |
Tip 2.
Ensure that you use the entire length of the stone, and you can do this by slowing down, if you go fast you have a tendency to use the centre portion only. So you end up with the centre of the stone being dished. So take it easy and focus, use every millimetre of the stone and again you will be rewarded. The knife will get sharper faster this way.....remember, these tips are based on mistakes I have made.
 |
| This red area will dish faster if this is the only portion used. |
The video on the Edge Pro website does a superb job of demonstrating stroke speed.
Tip 3
Pressure.......do not use too much, let the stone do the work and the stone will last for much much longer. I never use "5" pressure for example, perhaps on a really dull knife a "4" but that quickly drops to 3 and then down to "1" By the time I am done, I am almost lifting the stone a little to reduce the pressure as much as possible.
What about the Burr, is it necessary to raise it with each stone..
I will talk about that in my next post but the answer, my answer is "no" the Key is to ensure that any burr raised by any stone is removed completely when you are all done, I remove the burr after each stone but as long as you are diligent and ensure there is absolutely no burr when you are ready to put the knife away or go show your friends or wife how sharp it is.
I'll discuss this in my next post.
Thank you.
Peter
 |
| ULU, easy on the EP. |
No comments:
Post a Comment