Sharpening

Every time you sharpen it should be treated as a learning experience. As I work these 510s over and over I get more competent and confident about my ability. Having so many of them on hand has made it easy for me to compare my "finished" state on each knife in the progression.

One of the challenges of sharpening knives is keeping the red stuff inside your hands and fingers. Today I noticed streaks of what looked like rust on the stone as I made a few passes. It was then that I realized that I'd sliced a neat little piece off of my thumb. I had been resting my thumb on the tip of the knife to keep the bevel flat on the stone and apparently sliced it one time across the stone. I never felt a thing.

While I was laughing about the cut on my thumb I noticed a similar cut on my index finger on the other hand. Again, I never felt a thing.

These are knives that are taken to 220-grit on a Norton Waterstone so the edges are not highly refined or polished. Agressive would be a good word to describe the type of edge I've got at this point. After the edge is shaped then I'll take it to a 4000-grit Norton waterstone and then an 8000-grit waterstone of unknown origin. Finally I'll use black and green compound loaded into strops to put the final polish on the edge.

By the time I get to the bottom of the box I should be able to really make the Scandi edges shine.

Thanks for reading,


B