Knife Sharpening Using Traditional Methods: Edge Pro what I do right and what I didn't start off doing right.

Hi,
First of all, check out this awesome Benchmade Folder in D2 Steel, it's a nice knife, not mine though.

Yes it sharp too and the reason I am putting this shot up is to show you that you can do this yourself with the EP Stones, and Tapes. However, don't get hung up on trying to get mirror edges on your blades. This is not the perfect mirror edge, if I look carefully enough I can see tiny scratches and it doesn't bother me a tiny little bit.

I used to read a lot of different things on different forums and discovered that not everything is true, not everyone who posts things is posting accurate information. I found myself always thinking that I had to do better at everything I did because someone who may have been sharpening for 2 days and read something on a different forum posted it and I took it as gospel.

I found it best to stick to one forum and I soon got to know who I could respect and who was going to teach me things. When you get an individual who never asks questions or seems to have the perfect answer for everything I start to wonder. I hope to hell I always have questions because this sharpening journey I am on is never going to end.

Now here is a knife that I like to do on the EP due to its bird beak shape but it can be done freehand.
The EP is perfect though and if you have the 1/4 size stones, you are laughing. Like the ones in the Picture below, I have the 220, 600 and 1000. I will be getting the newer 400 and 1k stones. Did you know that Ben sells a 1200 grit stone? You have to ask him for it though.

The biggest mistake I made was rushing out to buy different stones for the EP because of all the things I was reading. People often say that they don't like the EP stock stones and you NEED to have Shapton or Chosera or Nubatama or Natural stones to get the knives truly sharp. That is not true at all, if you can't get the knife sharp off the EP 220 and 400 then you just need a little more practice.

Now it is cool to have the different brands of stones but do not feel the need to get them, if you can't get the knife sharp off of the EP stock stones, you are not to get them sharp off of Shaptons.

Now if you bought an EP Apex with a different set of stones, like Shapton or Chosera, that is cool, they are awesome stones, my point is that you should not feel pressured into getting them.

Now the one item that I did find extremely useful as the EP sized Atoma 140 but remember, sharpen a lot of knives and I've worn it out. If you are just sharpening your own knives then what you have is likely fine.

Another problem I encountered was moving to fast with the stone arm and I found that sooner than later my stones were dishing in the middle. After watching the latest video on the EP Site by Ben Dale and his son, I noticed how much slower they were moving. Now they may have been slowing down for the sake of the tutorial but slowing down and really focusing on using the entire length of the stone really helped me.

BURR - I cannot over emphasize how essential it is to raise a burr with your first stone, you can get a knife sharp without raising a burr but there is no comparison to what your knife will be like if you are patient and work to get that burr on both sides of the knife formed.

I also thought that I had to raise a burr with every stone, that is not true either. The first burr is an indication that you have pushed the fatigued metal to the opposite side of the blade, so mission accomplished and once you do that on the other side there is no need to produce another burr because that would be formed by new metal. Now I am not saying another burr won't form, that is ok, it happens all the time but you just don't need to continue grinding with you higher grit stones until you FEEL a burr. As long as it was created on your first stone, you just need to make sure there is nothing left, no debris on the edge when you are finishing off. So very light strokes will accomplish the cleaning of the edge, and I mean light as in weight of the blade only.

One More Time

Now what about scratching the blade, can it happen?

Heck yeah, if you are concerned about scratching the blade then tape it up with painters tape. The stone on the stone arm is not scratching it, it will be the tiny pieces of grit and metal that is resting on the blade table, the blade table that your blade is resting on. I also make sure that I wipe that area off all the time as I sharpen. Taping the blade will solve the issue though and I always do that with customers knives unless they are already completely scratched up.

You will also see on some forums about modifications to the EP, I completely ignore them. Ben Dale invented an amazing device, I see no need to screw around with it. I am not saying that some of the modifications suggested are bad, not at all, I am saying that personally I am not interested. I could not be happier with the EP and the results I am getting.

I have often read that some folks just don't find that they are getting their knives sharp, not as sharp as they expected. I was there at times myself and in every single occasion, the problem was me, not the equipment. I was not hitting the edge of the edge, I was not really sharpening the knife. A tiny adjustment, sometimes it was pressure, sometimes it was repainting the edge with a sharpie to help me get back on track.

Now one thing that Ben did teach me and it is on his site is how to create a Relief Angle or just Relief. I don't think he actually calls it that but it really is establishing compound bevels.

It is easy.....here is a simple plan to follow.

For your average kitchen knife that is often too thick. ( For those Japanese Hand Made and very thin, this is not really necessary)

Let's say you have an old 8 inch Wusthof chef knife and you want to sharpen it at 19 degrees.

Instead of setting the pivot arm to 19 deg set it to 15 deg and start grinding with your most coarse stone. You are not trying to sharpen the knife and reset the bevel to 15 deg, you're going to get to that 19 deg setting soon. You are creating a Relief Angle at 15 deg (basically 5-6 deg less than your primary angle). You can go through all your stones at this 15 deg angle and polish it to your hearts content, but remember, don't be concerned that the knife isn't getting sharp, you are not there yet. This can take awhile, 15-20 minutes approx or even more.

Now raise the angle to 19 or 20 deg and starting with a 600 EP stone, you don't have to start with a coarse stone, now you start sharpening the knife and you use very light pressure. The knife should get very sharp and it should happen very quickly. I have done this many many times and at times, I have starting sharpening the knife (Primary edge not Relief) with a 5k stone. It will depend on how well you did with the Relief Face, how close you came to the Primary Edge. This took me a few times to get right but it pays off, it will result in extraordinary edges and I use it often.

Ben Dale warns us about thinning the knife at an angle too acute, in other words, selecting an angle of 15 deg for example and just grinding away until you reach the edge and sharpen the knife this way. While the knife will be sharp, he says it will be difficult to sharpen in the future and I believe him.
Keep your Primary Edge up at 19 or 20 deg.

This is applicable to 90 percent of the knives I sharpen, it is not applicable to a Takeda or Moritaka or other freaking awesome Japanese knife where you can sharpen it at 12 deg in the first place.

I will be taking soon about the reasons we want a sharp knife and what a dull knife does to protein and vegetables.

I had an Interview yesterday with the newspaper, they came to my house and watched me sharpen a knife. Tomorrow the photographers are coming. COOL eh :)