What if you run into a sharpening snag?

Hi,

Just so you know, I am writing another article for Knifeplanet and it is turning out to be a long one.

    I was thinking that people who read my Blog and/or watch my videos, or anyone else's videos for that matter may think that the process of making a knife sharp came easy.  That is not the case at all, if there was a sharpening issue,  I found it and through the years I solved them.

    So if I had problems, perhaps others do, I am sure others do so the article is centred around sharpening obstacles, common ones and my best advice on how to get around them.  It's easy to put some pictures of perfectly mirrored edges and talk about edge perfection but it's really not that easy and I don't want people to have their confidence shaken if they can't get the knife ready for eye surgery or look like it impossibly sharp.  Every knife sharpener has had some problems, some learning to do so you're not alone. Remember, this is something I started almost 40 years ago, don't think I didn't make mistakes.

   I'll be writing about the following problem areas that I have had to deal with and as I mentioned, I'll be doing my best to explain how I got over them. You may not have any problems, or just one of them:

           *WHAT AM I ACTUALLY DOING

* BURR FORMATION

*IT’S NOT ME, IT’S THE WATER STONES

*PRACTICING ON A CHEAP KNIFE SO IT WON’T BE RUINED

*WHITE, BLUE, WHATS THE DEAL WITH STEEL

*TIP SHARPENING

*ANGLE HUNTING AND CATCHING

*CLOSING THE GAP AT THE APEX, SIGNS TO LOOK FOR

* MINOR EDGE REPAIR

*OUR WORLD IS FLAT

*PRESSURE - THE BIG ONE

*TECHNIQUE DISCOVERY

*EDGE LEADING, EDGE TRAILING, WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN

*TOOTY EDGE VS POLISHED EDGE…..GET OVER IT.

*STROPPING

*GRITS, WHEN TO STOP SHARPENING

*EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT

*THE PROBLEM WITH VIDEOS

     Some of these are not really sharpening problems but they are areas than can be grey and come up often in sharpening talk, the Toothy vs Polished edge topic for example.

    As soon as I am done and it is published I will place the link on my Blog. Eventually, I will have a video to accompany each problem area, the Burr Formation video has already been uploaded.