This video is full of some really cool information & technique - even after watching most of Jon's videos and spending a good amount of time on stones myself, I learned some good tips. Part of that is probably me being a slow learner (and repetition causing learning & all that) but the information was laid out in a very easy to understand manner. It's different seeing someone go through point A to Z on multiple knives as well. For those of us who don't have access to someone as knowledgeable and experienced with sharpening to help iron out our technique, things like this are awesome.
Some things I picked up:
- For whatever reason, I had thought that it was important to flip and weaken the burr a few times, especially on the coarse stones, before moving up in your grit progression. I noticed that Jon almost always raised a burr once on each side before moving to the next stone. He also spent more time sharpening the 'primary knife side' (meaning edge facing him) than I would have guessed, so I took it to mean he was raising a rather sizable burr. I could be wrong though.
I tried this out today on my knives and I really liked the results I got. It was faster than I had been doing, it most likely saves more steel, and there's less time spent on each stone which = less time for me to mess things up.
- Different stropping & deburring techniques. Instead of switching hands like I had been, heel to tip, and doing 3-3, 2-2, 1-1+, how he does it is very fluid. I had never tried lateral strokes on a stone to deburr either, and doing that, plus cork and spending more time stropping than normal, had good results even on my stainless knives that sometimes give me trouble.
- If he ever nails down that large, muddy, relatively slow wearing synthetic finishing stone... I will be an even poorer man & have yet another rock to add to my already too large pile :biggrin: