with what do you sharpen mulitool blades ?

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r0bz

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with what do you sharpen mulitool blades ?
like leatherman and swiss army knives ?

ive seen that in most youtube videos they sharpen with edge leading strokes i am used to sharpen with edge trailing strokes then deburr with edge trailing and the last few strokes edge leading
i have only sharpened kitchen knives
 
They are generally soft steels so nothing fancy is required, in terms of stones or technique. Mine often see a Norton Fine India or soft Arkansas. Just be sure to deburr (leather or cardboard works well) and you'll be fine.
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
They are generally soft steels so nothing fancy is required, in terms of stones or technique. Mine often see a Norton Fine India or soft Arkansas. Just be sure to deburr (leather or cardboard works well) and you'll be fine.
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cant quite feel a burr on them
 
very good tips thank you
Benuser said:
Use the marker trick and a loupe. You haven't reached the very edge. Probably a bit higher sharpening angles than you're used to. By the way: keep them coarse. In situations where you really need them a refined highly polished edge isn't helpful at all.
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how coarse would you say to finish at ?
at what diamond micron for diamong stones and at what grit for the whetstones ?
 
r0bz said:
very good tips thank you

how coarse would you say to finish at ?
at what diamond micron for diamong stones and at what grit for the whetstones ?
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I use a SG 320 (45 micron), deburr on it as much as possible, light edge leading. After that very light edge leading deburring only on a Naniwa Pro 800 (14 micron). Not looking to refine the edge, only deburring.
If you find it hard to deburr on such a coarse stone: stropping one side on rough leather (or your hand's palm) helps pushing all debris to the other side, where you may abrade it. Do the same the other way around.
When abrading the burr use very short edge leading strokes. Long ones will not only abrade an existing burr, but create a new one as well.
 
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Benuser said:
Use the marker trick and a loupe. You haven't reached the very edge. Probably a bit higher sharpening angles than you're used to. By the way: keep them coarse. In situations where you really need them a refined highly polished edge isn't helpful at all.
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It's @Dave Martell who warned us, kitchenknife sharpeners, for our habit to deliver polished edge with EDC's, which is of little use in a case of emergency. Think cutting through a seat belt, of making a tourniquet out of a pair of jeans.
 
A good small lightweight diamond lap (EZ Lap in Nevada if I remember right) can perk up a knife edge in the middle of the night when a sudden downpour whips your tent around and you need cords to quickly stabilize your tent better.
 
I'd say 'depends on what you're using it for'... but my multitools, outdoors knives, etc always saw significant abuse, so I usually just went for something that was fast... so I just threw it on 1k, either deburred on the 1k or on the 3k, and that was it. I usually added a microbevel too in hopes that it'd make it last, but most degradation on mine was always from hitting metal, rocks, or whatever when abusing it as a tool.
 
You can't believe how quickly a small diamond lap can fix an edge until you try it.
EZE Lap 4 grits = $25 on Amazon

There is a darned good reason that industry world wide uses lots of diamond grit. I'ld venture to say many production blade makers might also use some in their operation. They know what is efficient and when.
 
SAK's with their 52-54hrc EN 1.4110/X55CrMo14 steel, are really unpleasant to abrade and deburr, and don't hold an edge. I've found that a 600-1200 grit diamond plate (DMT or Dianova.), followed by a strop (Cheap 1-micron diamond, JRE compounds, Lee Valley CrOx - which is actually an AlOx/CrOx blend, Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, etc. You don't have to get fancy with this stuff.), is about the best edge possible on this rubbish. Don't worry about deburring too much; let the strop deal with the last bits. You're going to need to re-do it often, so make sure your setup is portable. A little Dianova 600/1200 plate, or a little Dia-Sharp Fine 600 plate, with a small basswood strop pasted with whatever, will keep you going with SAK's. I've fought these things for years, and this is the best formula I've come up with. A coarse grit on its own - if you can manage to deburr it on that stone/plate, which requires a lot of faffing about - doesn't last, as there aren't enough hard carbides to hold it. A really polished edge, likewise, will disappear within seconds. You need some sort of quickly created balance between the two.

Leatherman's 420HC is really unpleasant; maybe even worse than Buck's treatment of this stuff, which I abhore. Only Spyderco's Chinese 8CrMoV13 is nastier than this stuff. It feels even coarser-grained, gummier, and less malleable feeling than Swiss Army Knives. I've been using an 800 grit SiC stone (JNS 800 Matukusuyama.) with a light touch to shape them, and then the JRE Black compound (~3500 grit AlOx) to finish on a horse-butt leather strop (You want something more flexible than wood, since the stone-edge will be a little convexed on this steel. At the same time, not as flexible as veg-tanned cow.). This helps control the burr. You can also use diamond plates, but avoiding a crazy burr is even harder. Diamond plates will result in a little 'crisper' edge geometry, though, if you can pull it off... These sorts of steels, feel a whisker away from sharpening a stainless kitchen bench-scraper, or a spatula.

Don't get me started on Gerber's current mystery-metal. :facepalm:

I use about 13 dps on SAK's, and ~15dps on Leatherman's or similar depending upon BTE thickness. I could do steeper edges, in excess of 20-dps, so they roll less. However, I really struggle to get them to shave with 40-degree+ inclusive angles. I can do 20-dps angles that still shave on these steels with Trans Arks to avoid edge rounding, but it's so not worth the time.

Hope this helps.
 
i sharpen my sak with this

i alternate side to side edge leading on the diamond stone i dont check for burrs
is it okay ?
when sharpening kitchen knife you always supposed to check for the burr from what many folks said to me so is it okay to just alternate side to side not check for burrs on sak
 
If you reach the very edge there will be a burr, or even slightly before. If you don't reach it and stay behind, you aren't really sharpening but only thinning. I guess the second part of the procedure is meant to deburr — FWIW. You may use a sharpie and a loupe to find out if the very edge got reached. As for the burr, the art is in abrading it and not just pushing it to the other side, or raising a new one. If the deburring is incomplete you should expect a poor edge retention. If the burr folds over the edge it gets blunt like a butter knife. If it breaks off it leaves a damaged edge behind.
 
Benuser said:
If you reach the very edge there will be a burr, or even slightly before. If you don't reach it and stay behind, you aren't really sharpening but only thinning. I guess the second part of the procedure is meant to deburr — FWIW. You may use a sharpie and a loupe to find out if the very edge got reached. As for the burr, the art is in abrading it and not just pushing it to the other side, or raising a new one. If the deburring is incomplete you should expect a poor edge retention. If the burr folds over the edge it gets blunt like a butter knife. If it breaks off it leaves a damaged edge behind.
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so should i alternate from side to side like in the video ?
or do i side and check for the burr
 
btw do you sharpen the sak or other small multitool blades with 2 hands on the blade like you do with a kitchen knife or do you sharpen then with one hand ?
 
r0bz said:
the main problem is that i am very bad at feeling for burrs i cant feel them
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You may use a marker and a loupe, both to check whether you have reached the very edge, and to see if you have the right angle for deburring. Stropping the one side is helpful to accumulate all debris on the other one where you can abrade it.
Your second question: I work with little pressure except for thinning — others do it differently. I use both hands for kitchen knives and certainly do the same with EDC's. Not so much for pressure, but to keep the knife in the right position to the stone. Even more critical with EDC's than with larger knives as the profile changes so drastically on such a small section.
 
Benuser said:
You may use a marker and a loupe, both to check whether you have reached the very edge, and to see if you have the right angle for deburring. Stropping the one side is helpful to accumulate all debris on the other one where you can abrade it.
Your second question: I work with little pressure except for thinning — others do it differently. I use both hands for kitchen knives and certainly do the same with EDC's. Not so much for pressure, but to keep the knife in the right position to the stone. Even more critical with EDC's than with larger knives as the profile changes so drastically on such a small section.
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maybe i have trouble checking for the burr because i always wipe the blade from the stone sludge and then i check for the burrr maybe it removes it (the burr)?
 
r0bz said:
maybe i have trouble checking for the burr because i always wipe the blade from the stone sludge and then i check for the burrr maybe it removes it (the burr)?
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I do the same, and even with a lot of pressure, on a linen towel. It allows me to feel the burr. It might reduce it. It's certainly not enough to make it go away. I wished it were so. Would make our lives much simpler.
 
Thinking about your difficulties in recognising a burr. First, realise it's there, if you've reached the very edge — and quite often even before.
I sharpen one side completely with one stone before starting with the other one. With the first, coarsest stone, I know there's a burr on the opposite side when I've reached the very edge. I can check this by looking with a loupe at the scratch pattern and see if no polished line remains. Or no ink, if a permanent marker has been used. No need to check whether there's a burr: sure there's one, and likely a fat one, as a coarse stone got used.
A good occasion to find out how a burr feels.
If you move your nail perpendicular to the edge in the sense of the edge, coming from the side of the spine, you will feel an irregularity. That's the burr.
You may also compare the feeling of both sides of the partially sharpened edge. If you go with the flesh of you thumb perpendicular to the edge in the sense of the spine, the sharpened will feel smooth, and the other side, with the burr, will feel 'sharp' or ragged.
A third trick: go with your nail along the edge, on the top of the bevel. The sharpened side will feel smooth, the other side not. Don't do this when your nails are very short, or their appearance is important in social or professional life.
These tricks are a bit dangerous. You may easily cut yourself. Do it in a quiet environment. No kids or pets around. Not at the end of a working day. My general disclaimer is to supposed to be inserted.
 
r0bz said:
i only sharpen with the 800 grit stone
i use the sharpie and it does get removed at the edge
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An 800 may very well raise a huge burr, but not if you stopped too early.
Did you check with a loupe? Really, it makes a difference. Too often I have seen the ink apparently being gone. But in fact still present on top of the old edge, together with accumulated debris. In which case there's no new edge, it will cut marginally better because of the thinning and cleaning up behind the edge, but the bevels do not meet yet.
 
Benuser said:
An 800 may very well raise a huge burr, but not if you stopped too early.
Did you check with a loupe? Really, it makes a difference. Too often I have seen the ink apparently being gone. But in fact still present on top of the old edge, together with accumulated debris. In which case there's no new edge, it will cut marginally better because of the thinning and cleaning up behind the edge, but the bevels do not meet yet.
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yeha the magic marker romoved at the very edge
 
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