North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[pinewoodel@hotmail.com]

--- In nafex@egroups.com, Tom Olenio <tolenio@s...> wrote:
> Hello List,
> 
> I have been looking for a good means to sharpen my garden
> knives that is simple, and only uses simple resources.  I
> found the following information and thought I would share it
> with the list.
> 
> If anyone has any comments on how to get a good knife edge,
> suitable for grafting, I would love to hear them.
> this is my 1st attempt at replying to a letter, my ignorance of the cyber 
> buttons is vast.......im swamped with building a house before freezup, but 
> your sharpening inquiry hit home so ill start a reply ......my other life 
> is producing professional woodcarving knives,   mostly for instructors in 
> scandinavian specialty woodcarving,  they have to be sharpened quite beyond 
> hair shaving.    1st off mr juranitch is an expert, perhaps, in the meat 
> cutting field, but nothing else,   keep this in mind reading his "bible".   
>      i have only grafted a few hundred trees, so am no authority on 
> grafting,  but what i have been learning is that its best to have one bevel 
>  (for me, the one underneath the knife as i am drawing it towards me in a 
> cleft whip graft)   absolutly dead flat, without so much as a microbevel on 
> that side  ( this is the side that is the guide in the cut). the cross 
> section oof  the other side is of course important, but not nearly so;   IT 
> only can follow his advise to have a bevel with a course angle different 
> from the sharpening angle.  this is in principle sound advise.    a COMMON 
> misunderstanding i find in woodcarvers (grafting is woodcarving as well) is 
> takig a sharp knife which needs only a touch up- to one of these coarse 
> carburundum stones and thuis wasting 10 times the steel needed to actually 
> sharpen it. if i knew how to draw on this computeer it would help 
> considerably   this is al the time my 2 fingers have to type today...i 
> guess a start would be... what grafting knife do you have?  what sharpening 
> stones etc do you have.?  next spring ive thought of offering a couple of 
> my modified carving knives hot rodded for grafting to serious grafters for 
> trial, more later
> ======================
> 
> Note: All the following were gleaned from the bible of knife
> sharpening called "The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening" by
> John Juranitch, published by Warner Books
> 
> 1. The specific angle is not as important as keeping a
> constant angle (angle of knife edge to sharpening stone).
> The more acute the angle the sharper the knife, but the edge
> will not last as long.
> 
> 2. When using the rough grit stone use a shallower angle
> than when using  the fine stone. That is, grind the
> (usually) sorry factory edge to a shallow angle with the
> rough grit stone and I want to stress here that there is no
> special way to do this because you are just removing useless
> stock from the blade. Just grind one side of the blade until
> it is ground down enough.   What is enough? Well enough is
> defined like this: Once you have ground the blade down
> enough (maintaining the same angle all the while) to have
> touched the cutting edge, start to test the edge on the
> opposite side of the blade by running your finger nail at a
> 90 degree angle to the opposite edge moving from the back of
> the blade towards the edge. Why? Well you are trying to find
> the curled edge (or burr) created by the grinding down of
> the first edge. Once you have this curled lip along the edge
> from tip to tang then turn the knife over and begin grinding
> the other side until you have the same curled lip for that
> side. Once you are done you should have a roughly ground
> edge with a fairly shallow angle.
> 
> 3. Now take your fine grit stone (at least 400 grit or
> finer) and raise the angle of the blade you just ground down
> by just a little more and using moderate pressure make a
> single cutting stroke maintaining as much as possible the
> same angle down the stone making sure to sharpen the whole
> length of the edge on the stroke. Now after one single
> stroke turn the knife over and repeat the same process. Do
> all this slowly and deliberately. Repeat this about 6 times
> and then begin to lighten the pressure on the blade as it
> strokes the stone. At about the 10th or 12th repetition
> about only the weight of the blade should be pressing on the
> stone.
> 
> 4. IMPORTANT! Do not use water or oil of any kind on any
> stone to sharpen your knife. In fact if you have been using
> some liquid on your stone, wipe it off as best you can or
> get a new stone which has not been tainted with such a
> substance. I know this goes against years and years of
> trusted advise from friends, fathers, aunts, uncles,
> grandfathers and etc.... Trust me on this one. Read the book
> to find out why this is true.
> 
> 5. After step 3 test the sharpness (carefully) by cutting a
> sheet of paper or (even more carefully) trying to shave a
> few hairs off your arm.  If you followed step 2 faithfully
> you should have an almost razor sharp edge. If not then
> re-read step 2 and do it again from the course stone.  Step
> 2 is most important. Step 3 actually does the sharpening.
> 
> 6. The more highly polished an edge the better it cuts.
> "Teeth" does not a razor edge make.
> 
> ================
> 
> --
> Thomas Olenio
> Ontario, Canada
> Hardiness Zone 6a



-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
eGroups eLerts
It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/15/_/423498/_/973128405/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->