Basic knife sharpening

[RGC]

What do you use this for?

[Leader Bee]

I cant look at your link here at work but I collect swords and can tell you that what you're looking for is choji oil, which is different to machine or cooking oil but for keeping corrosion at bay rennaisance wax is an inexpensive mess free way of stopping oxidisation, as oppossed to applying oils every few weeks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Wax

A small tub should cost about £5.

As for keeping your blade sharp then it really depends on how much of a finish you want, if you really don't care then hell, use even your regular old kitchen sharpeners; You may get a half decent finish with very fine sandpaper too but this is time consuming and a little difficult; otherwise; for a small knife that isn't used to taking a beating like a sword might, you'll probably get away with a razor strop, which is best used for fine cutting blades... like razors... duh.

The difference between a Whetstone, which you'd use with either oil or water is that the strop only re-aligns the metal in a blade and smoothes out any micro-fractures whereas a whetstone is somewhat coarser and will actually remove material from your blade.

Ultimately there's many choices for sharpening your knife and I'd suggest you research it further. As

Key points about corrosion:

- Use rennaisance wax, it can't be beaten and is far less messy than oiling your blade every few weeks.
- Don't handle the metal parts of your knife with bare hands, the oils your body secretes are slightly acidic and also salty, this will increase the corrosion rate so wear gloves when you need to touch the blade (i.e, when sharpening it)
- if you have a sheath, remove your blade from it every week or so, don't let it fester as any moisture on the blade will be trapped in the sheath with it and won't have the opportunity to evaporate.

Different levels of carbon in the metal used will make how much your blade attracts rust differ, high carbon steel blades will generally rust faster, be more brittle though hold a sharper edge. I'd suspect your knife would fall into this catagory.

Cold steel is a generally well respected cutler and so i'd imagine it uses 1020 carbon spring steel, for a tanto, which is a good thing.


EDIT: just got back from work and looked at the page. with that material and finish you shouldn't need to worry a whole lot about corrosion but stainless steel is pretty soft and will need sharpening with regular use. same material as household cutlery here in the uk so regular old knife sharpening tools will do the job.

[Mischief Maker]

I have this knife:

http://www.coldsteel.com/recontanto.html

Ha ha! The video for their Two-Handed sword is great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hfLZozBVpM

Was I the only one thinking of "Lord of the Flies" when these fat men started chopping up pigs?

"Uh, oh, they want a demonstration of our claim that the blade is strong enough to do pull-ups on. Better bring in a stunt double!"

[Leader Bee]

I have nearly that exact same sword. i'll have to get some pictures up.

[sven666]

against rust, just dont let the blood coagulate between uses and itll stay sharp.

also, dont put it in a sheat, make a habit to simply carry it in your hand at all times, makes for quick and easy access too...

[Leader Bee]

many of my swords are Gen2 (Generation 2) which you might like looking into. There's also cheness armoury and hanwei which aren't too bad but paul gill sing is a slightly better manufacturer that hand rather than machine forges their products; if you do get into swords and the hobby let me know as i have about 4 years back issue of the sword buyers guide newsletter.

if you want something a little different then try http://www.kultofathena.com it isnt the best quality but it is cheap, they generally have a wide selection.

[scrilla4rella]

Next to the scotch thread, this is one of the manliest topics I've seen on this forum

[Leader Bee]

I should probably not post pictures then as i'm actually quite weedy. pictures would make this threads manly-O-meter hit negative numbers

[moh]

I love the diversity of topics in OT

[Khan]

I think this is an undercover guide to emo therapy

[Ed Oscuro]

Keep your blades sharp by regularly sinking them into the flesh of your enemies!

Also, don't go fencing with them, that edge-on-edge knife stuff is bad. Actually, in general, you want to cut with the grain of things when you can, and you do not want to press that knife blade directly into something if you don't need to.

[xbl0x180]

Can't you just use a leather strip, like the barbers do with those ol' school sling blades

[xbl0x180]

Well, there are also the sharpening stones that cooks use for their kitchen knives. I'd think they'd be way cheaper than 30 bucks at a restaurant supply store

[rapoon]

Cold steel is a generally well respected cutler and so i'd imagine it uses 1020 carbon spring steel, for a tanto, which is a good thing.

the blade is AUS 8, which is.... decent ....and considerably softer than 1020

That cold steel is a decent knife. use a whetstone or get a nice sharpener like a spyderco triangle. it's a standard v-grind/bevel and
AUS 8 is easy to sharpen but Tanto's are trickier than a traditional drop point and if you don't know what you're doing you'll end up re-profiling
the blade.

[Leader Bee]

Can't you just use a leather strip, like the barbers do with those ol' school sling blades

Maybe, never tried it.

Anyway, I ended up buying this after some research:

http://www.amazon.com/DMT-FWFC-Double-D ... 710&sr=1-1

Two-sided, not expensive, basic. I wanted a stone, but I did not want to spend a ton for something I will barely use. I tried it out, noticed a favorable difference, so I think I'm set for now. I'm still looking into preventing corrosion. Renaissance Wax looked cool, but I read you can just use vegetable oil, so I'm going to try that.

Don't go for veg oil. i used it once and it seemed to make my blade rot faster than if it was dry. when it begins to evaporate it leaves behind a disgusting thick residue thats a pain to clean off.

[Leader Bee]

Hmmm...didn't come across that when looking, but I wasn't all that extensive, thanks.

There's a decent little article on the sword buyers guide that covers a lot of the points i've made. You should find it if you google along the lines of "Sword buyers guide - Sword care"

[Leader Bee]

I finally managed to get a few pictures up of the sword i mentioned and some micro crystalline wax polish, they're a bit low quality but maybe you can get something from them...

The sword is nearly as big as me




The Rennaisance wax i use...



It looks like a white solid but once i tgets a little warm from your body heat it becomes easily spreadable over your knives/swords whatever... but you shouuld really use a cloth, im not sure how bad getting this stuff on your skin is for you!

I have some Semi related pics in the picture week thread if you want to take a look there too.

[Friendly]

Very nice! I fully understand the importance of having one or two of these around at all times. And also congratulations getting your first camera and taking your very first pictures ever.

[trap15]

Your handle is so appropriate, Friendly.

[moh]

I wonder if everybody on the forum could have a face to face discussion, would people still be dicks?

in comes anonymity, out go manners.

[Friendly]

People are who they are, sometimes they just hide it.

And yes, I'm pretty sure I would have made exactly the same remark face to face.

[njiska]

This forum makes me feel so much better about myself because for once I'm not guaranteed to be the biggest cunt in the room. Still Friendly's unfriendliness is far nicer than setting foot in Shmups Chat or Hi-Score these days.

And too leader bee: Those are some blurry ass photos, but they might look better/be easier to see if you scaled them down to a smaller size.

[Leader Bee]

yeah, i didn't realise how shitty they were going to turn out... still trying to get used to the fiddly controls on the camera; it was indeed a rush job.

[Marc]

I thought this was a weird topic. Then I recently got handed two hugely expensive knives that belonged to a relative of mine that made his living as a butcher, they need a bit of TLC bit I want to use them rather than store them, so yeah, informative after all.

[Ed Oscuro]

That flamberge is sexy, but is it practical? It looks like a bearing sword, although elsewhere I had read that the Landsknechts carried ones of that style. Years back I acquired a catalog of modern reproductions of medieval and other historical blades and one like that was in there - the flame blade definitely caught my attention.

Interesting (mostly historical) reference for that quintessential American knife: http://bowieknifefightsfighters.blogspot.com/

I believe that there are a few distinct types of good blades being made these days:

- Blades from India, Pakistan, and similar places (an important shout out to Nepal as well) being made in a traditional style. You can buy a very nice Afghan or Indian style Khukri made locally, the only major downside is that it's not made of space age materials (lol) and it's not stainless (but can be coated of course). Of course you can buy traditionally-made knives from your own country, too. I would do my best to vet any potential supplier first, so you do not repeat this mistake in buying from a bulk supplier of oversize brittle toothpicks.

- Your garden-variety Gerber or similar type of knife, as well as serious blades from Kershaw and others, for any use. Their best knives use other materials than stainless (which doesn't stain, sure, but doesn't perform as well as other steels), and may use layers of material (like Kershaw's "composite blade" laser-cut material folding a stronger material for the spine and a different material for the cutting blade), and coatings as well (teflon, Parkerizing, bluing like a pistol, chrome plating, nitrides). Alas, there are so many "good knife deals" out there these days that you might run into a QVC katana, as seen above.

- Some niche products that use not just "Damascus steel" but even "wootz" steel; the story here is use of unusual alloys. The traditional alloys used in production knives are probably a better bet for use but these are promising, along with nanotechnology (indeed, one of the wilder claims about "wootz steel" is the nanotubes one, but it does point a way for future knife tech).

I had a few ideas about specific types of knives to get, but I probably would find an axe more useful. SOG makes a fairly cheap khukri / machete type blade called the "Jungle Primitive" which looks quite good though. At the same time, I saw it tested alongside a Chinese blade and the Chinese blade fared very well too. Other knives of interest: Smith & Wesson type rescue knife (with glass breaker / seatbelt cutter), Gerber's CFB, too many to mention really. If I were buying a knife I would probably go for a rescue style knife, unless it was for some survivalist or outdoorsman's purpose in which case a really good khukri, machete, or even a hatchet would be a good choice...

And here's a nice send-off with some flamenco style music! Also a rapier vs. longsword spar.

[Leader Bee]

That flamberge is sexy, but is it practical? It looks like a bearing sword, although elsewhere I had read that the Landsknechts carried ones of that style. Years back I acquired a catalog of modern reproductions of medieval and other historical blades and one like that was in there - the flame blade definitely caught my attention.

Yes, the Flamberge is a variation of a greatsword, the landscnechts would generally be the vanguard of a force and they were used to brutally smash holes in defnsive lines should cavalry be unavailable (or impractical, such as no room to maneuvre) this is why the swords were so large; another use i have read into was for lopping off the tops of pikes/spears and other polearms used in defnsive formations such as a schiltrom but the wavy blade pattern served no practical purpose and is just an aesthetic choice.

I believe that there are a few distinct types of good blades being made these days:

- Blades from India, Pakistan, and similar places (an important shout out to Nepal as well) being made in a traditional style. You can buy a very nice Afghan or Indian style Khukri made locally, the only major downside is that it's not made of space age materials (lol) and it's not stainless (but can be coated of course). Of course you can buy traditionally-made knives from your own country, too. I would do my best to vet any potential supplier first, so you do not repeat this mistake in buying from a bulk supplier of oversize brittle toothpicks.

Good call here; Windlass Steelcrafts is one of the more professional weaponsmiths to come from this region. go south a bit more though and you'll see a large drop in quality (places like the phillipenes where there is a lot of moisture makes for easily tarnished steel)


- Some niche products that use not just "Damascus steel" but even "wootz" steel; the story here is use of unusual alloys. The traditional alloys used in production knives are probably a better bet for use but these are promising, along with nanotechnology (indeed, one of the wilder claims about "wootz steel" is the nanotubes one, but it does point a way for future knife tech).

You need to be careful about buying blades advertised as wootz and damascus, it's actually very rare to find real weapons made this way and will be very expensive... most items of this nature tend to actually acid etched for the pattern (the same with many hamon on japanese blades) rather than several metals folded into the blade that real wootz and damascus (the same thing) would be made by