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Sharpening a blade a well-honed art

by R. Thomas Funk
| June 17, 2015 9:00 PM

With the arrival of summer vacation, my grandchildren are dropping in for a quick visit and a possible adventure with Grandpa.

In anticipation, I have spent months collecting pocket knives at rummage sales and thrift stores. Most of the kids are old enough to be responsible with the knives and in their current condition, there are only few of the knives capable of cutting anything other than warm butter — which is the reason I bought them.

Being able to put a decent edge on a knife is fast becoming a lost art. So armed with their dull knife and a hone of some sort, my grandkids are learning to sharpen a blade.

There are several types of hones, including whetstones, Arkansas stones and diamond hones, and there are different rules that have to be understood and applied depending on the type of hone employed.

Whetstones are manmade and look like they are a rock of some sort. In truth, they are not a rock and water has to be applied to the stone during the sharpening process.

The water helps in two ways:

First, it helps keep the blade cool during sharpening and prevents the blade from losing its temper. I don’t mean it prevents the knife from getting angry. The temper of the blade is the hardness of the steel that allows the blade to hold an edge. Soft steel takes an edge easily but the edge wears off quickly. Hard steel takes longer to sharpen but once it has an edge, it lasts longer. The thinner the blade at the edge, the easier it is to overheat, and if you overheat the edge, you’ve lost the temper in that spot.

Second, the water helps keep the knife and the stone clean. It floats the microscopic bits of stone and steel away from the edge. A quick rub with your thumb on the surface of the stone under running water washes the stone and you’re ready to continue the sharpening or to place the stone in storage.

Arkansas stones are how I characterize all of the natural stones used in sharpening. These can appear to be made of granite or marble and are usually labeled soft-Arkansas or hard-Arkansas. Here, instead of water, we use oil, but for the same reasons we used water before. I find that I can get a smoother edge with an Arkansas stone.

Finally, there are diamond hones.

I was introduced to these by my best friend. They are thinner and lighter than the other hones and don’t require oil or water to function. Once I am finished with the diamond hone, I’ll wash it in warm soapy water prior to storage.

The hardest skill to master in knife sharpening is maintaining the same angle of the blade. My father used an old-fashioned whetstone for sharpening his hunting knife. The stone was round and had two sides to it, smooth and coarse. If the blade needed a lot of attention, he would start with the coarse side and get the edge close.

Then he would turn the stone over and finish putting the final touches on with the smooth. He used a circular motion that I was never able to master. He would work one side of the blade from hilt to point in small, slow circles. Then he would turn the blade over and repeat the process on the other side. He was totally focused on the job at hand and never looked up. The angle of the blade never varied and his hunting knife was like a razor.

I, on the other hand, wore out umpteen cheap pocket knives trying to imitate his style. I finally gave up and learned to sharpen by trying to slice a thin piece of the sharpening stone with each stroke. Like my father, I had to pay total attention to the job at hand. Each time I’d let my mind drift, I had to visit the medicine cabinet for a Band-Aid and iodine. Little by little I mastered the art of knife sharpening.

If you still have difficulty trying to maintain the correct angle, there is a system that maintains the correct angle for you. It is called the Lansky Universal Knife Sharpening System. It holds the blade and stone true and you just have to move the stone(s). You still have to maintain the stones with water and oil, but it is an easier way to keep your knives sharp. The Lansky is available at most sporting-goods stores.

As my grandchildren come and go this summer, I want them to take away fond memories to be sure, but I want them to leave having learned old-fashioned skills that will last a lifetime even more.


Funk is a retired educator and a lifelong resident of the Flathead. He lives in Kalispell.  

Copyright 2015 R. Thomas Funk