Miscellaneous

I have been away and busy and I've been neglecting my Blog. I have chosen to leave the Forum that I was on for the last few years, there comes a time, for me, when that is necessary and this is the time.

I hope to share more information here as I usually do.


     Flattening water stones is something that I really don't enjoy, nobody does but to make it less painful I need to find what works best and for now, I think I have it. I have tried sandpaper, various diamond plates and the Naniwa flatting stone. The Diamond plates have it as far as I am concerned, they are the best.

DMT Lapping Plate

    In the picture above is my favourite plate but I have also added a little bit of SIC Powder to the surface. This greatly improves the performance of the plate. Some people don't use a plate at all, instead they use a granite or glass surface and just use the SIC powder alone. I know that works and I will try it, what I like about that is it may be possible to keep re-using the powder as the water evaporates the powder will remain behind. Right now, I am losing the powder so I plan to get the glass plate to see if I can keep from washing it away. In any event, it is effective.

    Now Kevin Kent of Knifewear, a man that I have the utmost respect for told me that he uses the Naniwa flattening stone, the ones with the grooves in them. He said the diamond plates can "kill" the stones, meaning, they will have a negative impact on the cutting power of the stone so I will be testing that. Kevin has never steered me wrong so I take what he says very seriously.

My son brought this knife home after a deployment, he is in the army, it was a departing gift.

I used to polish knives like this using the Edge Pro Professional only, that is to say, if I was going for a mirror finish. These days however I find myself getting away from that and doing it all by hand. It is faster and more enjoyable, I do find it more difficult to achieve the same standard on both sides of the knife, that is a "precision" issue but it is okay with me. I could always do it by hand and then go to the EP to finish it off but it's not like a competition or anything. Just makes pretty pictures and folks do like it. This is a collector item, won't be used in the field.

Average knives in the shot above, 80% of the knives that I sharpen are average and some are quite difficult to do but they all provide learning opportunities. Many pro sharpeners do knives like this on a belt. I don't, I use water stones for all my knives but I do use the belt sander for repairs and if the knife is very thick, of low quality, I may start it on the belt sander to save wear and tear on the water stones.

The knife on the right is the new Miyabi Black line, it is quite beautiful. I keep reminding myself that not all great knives have to come from Japan. Look at these, and Kramer knives and Carter's as well.


All the best.

Thank you for sticking around. If there is something that you want me to talk about in my Blog please let me know in the comments.
Peter