Knife Sharpening Basics [Scandinavian Grind]

Description

Krik of Black Owl Outdoors goes over the basic theories of knife sharpening and lends some tips and tricks to how he has managed to get his knives razor sharp.

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Tags: black owl outdoors,nature,camping,hiking,backpacking,survival,bushcraft,wilderness,forest,backcountry,knife sharpening,sharpening,tutorial,blade sharpening

Video Transcription

hey what's up Turtles Creek here at blackout outdoors and today I'm going to be doing a video on the basics of sharpening a knife now I have a few different types of sharpeners in this bag I've a few different knives I have a more in the BK 16 a couple different grinds just to show examples of have a more companion right here I have the BK 16 I have a stone that has a coarse and fine side to it and also have a Smith's sharpener diamond sharpener I'm going to be using the stone today and actually I'll probably show a different technique of sharpening with the Smiths so the basics dust of the night before I sharpen it is talking about the edge this is a Scandi grind on this mora and the actual part that you'd sharpen you can see where this bevel start right here and comes down what does that maybe on a 6 7 millimeters maybe 5 this is the actual part I'm going to be sharpening and to do this you're actually going to keep this whole surface that five or six millimeters I just mentioned that's going to be in complete contact with what you're going to be using the sharpened stone the diamond and or other potentially natural materials if you want to do that in the field that's what you're going to be sharpening and as you can see on a knife it's a wedge shape meaning there's an angle here there's an angle on this side and through use the point that fine fine point microns thick is going to be become dull with use and time now what I'm going to be using to show you how to sharpen this is if you have a knife edge that is potentially damaged or you're trying to bring back to life a really old knife or the edge is just completely sort of crap on it you're going to be using the few products I have today once you get a knife shaving sharp and you continue to use it all you have to do is hone it after that pretty much after every use you don't need to touch a stone or daimond sharpener you can just use a strop your hand ceramic anything like that but I'm going to be showing you how to actually sharpen sharpen the knife and the principles and physics that apply is that you can do this at home if you if you if you don't have this skill down and some of the easy ways to do it is to actually keep what you're going to be using the sharpen it stationary and solid on a table on a bench you can put some rubber underneath this something that's going to give grip so this doesn't move it's actually not too bad am I about in my lap right now but I'm going to be actually holding in my hand because I think that's sort of the pinnacle of the skills be able to do it freehand holding it not having it stationary it's just going to sort of show to you that you have the motion and the skill down in form is everything with sharpening a knife you have to be you have to be very diligent on watching the edge the angle the entire time you can take a very sharp knife take a couple passes with incorrect form and completely dull it but that's okay you can pretty much bring back any edge with simple techniques with going to a really coarse stone sandpaper and working away to a very fine grit but to start doing this you're basically you want to lay your knife I'll get it on the actual fine grit to start doing this you want to lay your knife flat and as you can see here there's a gap where the edge is not touching where the edge of the knife is not touching and to sharpen that you want to roll it roll it until that gap pretty much disappears and at that point that's when you can start the move and you want to actually sort of pretend abstractly think that you're taking off a thin layer of the stone as you move the knife against the stone and I'm trying to keep this this isn't sort of exactly how I'd be doing it because I'm trying to keep in frame for you just get the angle basically want to pull it across while maintaining the whole entire edge the whole time with the light and consistent pressure and you hear that sound so I get that high-pitched sound is what you want you want to do that and you want to keep doing that until burr forms now that can be five times ten times 20 times appending on the steel material all of that but basically you need to keep it consistent with every pass you do on one side you have to replicate it and do the exact same go on the other side say okay so I think that was four I say I do five I like to put my thumb up here on the blade because the small and I get really controlling these smaller edges I get control some people then will turn it over to do this and go away from them but for me personally I don't like doing that for a few reasons one I can't really see the angle where the edge is making contact and two I like to use my left hand because I'm naturally right-handed I like to force myself to use my left hand and tasks that aren't natural per se so I'll flip it over and repeat the same thing with my left hand you see I'm rotating it gap disappears light and consistent pressure on the length of it and scandi grinds are really easy to sharpen because there's a large surface area of contact on the stone so it's really easy to keep that consistent on a flat grind it's a little bit more challenging just because the edge is that much smaller and that's basically all there is to it this applies to every type of wedge shape wedge shape cutting device it's the same principles same number of strokes on each side flip it over all that and I'll show you just sort of like how I'm going to really do it now that was sort of to get the the angles and for the camera just to show you sort of the basics but how my technique is when I do it I'm really being particularly you have to watch the angle like a hawk like I said you can really dull a knife that's sharp so I like to do it I like to get I like to get it I slide right here and this is our thing where the technique complete comes in when you sort of reached your point that you can do it like this holding it holding it one hand in the other like this I like to get it up here get it eye level so I can see it and yeah I'm pulling a knife towards my face with hardly any pressure not a lot of tension I'm not really afraid that I'm going to cut myself in the face I like to get it up here so I can watch it the whole time and I'm sort of abstractly thinking putting myself in the position of the blade and with my intention and my thought that's how I really really have figured out to keep this consistent sort of put myself in the position of the blade the angle all of that put my consciousness in there that way found it's really consistent and like I said I like to switch my left hand just to keep my dexterity I like to practice all of that it's cold out here I am losing dexterity but still want to do it you know I got to practice in the non ideal conditions test yourself and I'll switch over keeping it over here and do the same thing and if you are just learning and you feel like some of the trouble spots I notice my first starting getting it getting it was the swoop in the blade sometimes it's really hard to keep the consistency of the pressure and the angle so what you can do if you find yourself having that problem and I don't care anyone says I feel it's okay to do that is it maybe just take some passes on the street edge you know straight here till you feel comfortable and then just choke up start where the edges that way you just have a smaller motion in that wake and you can really focus on the swoop and maintaining that

correct angle and I don't care what anyone says I feel like that's okay too when you're learning how to sharpen a knife just to get the movement down because it's just it's we're going to come with repetition and then once you feel like you've got that motion down through you know through practice through practice multiple times of doing it then you can get it all in one swoop if I've done that correctly I can get the shaving sharp on this grit of actual stern I don't know if I have much hair left on my arms you know if I can do them down probably not I don't have hairy arms in general but I've been doing practicing a lot not that's picking it up it's shaving off these little hairs now this isn't as good as it can be ideally I would not want to be talking I really want to be focused on what I'm doing this they're trying to show you and talk at the same time is not really ideal but this is shaving a little bit not as good as it can be but it definitely is shaving oh if you're picking that up but it is shaving now if I stop talking and did this again I know for a fact I can get this super super sharp and once you get an edge one way to test it there's a few ways to test it is to run a running across the fingernail without any pressure and you should and it should leave a little cut without any pressure and once you know if you've done that that's pretty good for most you know applications for this and that's all there is to it that's really all there is to it and if you're just getting into knife sharpening if you're not sure please let me know leave a comment we can start an exchange I'm sure there's other people watching this video that have a lot of experience as well one of the things you can do is actually get like a felt tip pen or a marker and actually color the whole bevel on each side and then start your sharpening and that will show you the inconsistencies or where you are consistent with contact on the sharpening device where it scrapes off obviously you got contact where you're missing it there's not and and some and you know that's dependent as well on the actual quality of the bevel on the cut you know it might cannot come from the factory completely perfect and that's how you can actually excuse me you can actually get it perfect by using coarser and go and finer but that's basically the principles there's another technique I've seen used if you don't want to do this way you can actually sort of hold the hold the knife like this imagine this is one edge and you can kind of sharpen like this there's an interest in that video I can show that any questions please don't hesitate to ask if you have your own techniques or in style let me know I'm always looking to learn more remember to check out black outdoors Calm check us out on Facebook check out black out on Instagram this is Creek signing out with black outdoors later Turtles you