It depends. Some Japanese knives are single bevel but they’re easy to spot because the bevel isn’t just a tiny band at the edge like with many knives you see. It goes from about 1/2 to 1/3 of the width of the blade straight to the cutting edge. The non-beveled side will be perfectly flat with no angling (or hollow ground). The bevel would be on your handed side; a knife; for a righty would only be sharpened on the right side of the blade with the point facing away. I don’t know for sure because I’ve never been a fan, but I do not think standard Globals are single bevel. I also don’t think they’re flat ground (sharpened from the spine to edge with no secondary bevel at all, like a razor). So you’d be sharpening them like any other knife your used to, just at the lower angle.
Most Asian knives sold in the US are double bevel. You should be able to see the bevels.
If you have a fine enough rat tail file. Otherwise, they make diamond coated spikes for this exact purpose.
Ah, bladesmith pissing match time (not really): I’m going to argue that the “traditional” methods of stones and strop work best. That being said, it’s a skill like any other, and takes a good time to become proficient at it, and even once you have the skills it still takes longer to use stones and a strop than it takes with belts. Belts give a respectable edge, and they do it toot sweet.
Also, any belt (even with guides) will give you a slightly convex edge bevel. With some types of knives, this is great. With others, a flat bevel may suit the purpose better.
This tool is probably great for people who don’t have the interest or time to learn the skill of sharpening by hand with stones. Kind of like an automatic drill bit sharpener. It’ll give you a decent grind, but not quite what you can get by hand. Learning and mastering the art of sharpening with stones by hand is not something that is really right for everyone, and if it’s not right for you, then this tool is probably great.
my qualifications (one of mine made from scratch):
You know until Medievalist chimed in I was gonna say wouldn’t you be better off with a very fine saw, or one of those hot wire knives? I think it makes sense now. You’ve made a 12" steak knife.
I wondered if anyone would mention the Lansky system, that’s what I use and quite like it and get good results! I haven’t yet tried using a Spyderco, but I might want to get that as I’ve heard so many good reviews of it.
I have a few of the axes. And in terms of how they’re sharpened, in comparison standard cheap axes, the entire axe head tapers much more sharply from the back to the cutting edge. That’s gonna help to make it sharper, but the final sharpened bevel at the cutting edge (which easily visible and quite wide) is also a much sharper angle. Most of the cheap axe heads I’ve used seem be something like 45dg and are damn near blunt. If I had to guess (didn’t measure, haven’t had to sharpen) I’d say it’d be somewhere down where knives usually live. Like maybe around 30dg? ish? I’m just guessing though. The longevity is going to be down to the hardness of the steel (I’ve hear its ~50 rockwell), and potentially keeping that bevel angle just wide enough to be durible. Either way it seems to sit at the low end of where decent kitchen knives live. Just hard enough, with the widest practical angle to cut my dad every time he uses one. I wouldn’t actually mind cooking with one of those things.
That sounds similar to the old milkman that used to visit my neighbourhood. He was very handsome and charming. Usually it was the men that chased him with the knives though…
Oh man, I’d forgotten about that. It must’ve been about 1970-1972, there was a guy who would push a large handcart down the streets, sharpening knives. He had a large bell, like you’d see on the side of a building or at a boxing match, with a striker set up so that the bell would ring every few seconds as he pushed the cart.
Are you left or right-handed? I’m left-handed, and I hate using knives sharpened by righties. They never seem to cut right for me (though that may be purely subjective).
We have an odd circumstance in our household: one of my children is the only rightie. She’s given up trying to slice bread unless she’s the first one at the loaf. It’s actually kind of comical. Yes, honey, this is how the other 10% lives.
Very nice. Did you make the ‘damascus’ or was that a blank? I really wish I had kept pics from those days. If you want to see one now, you have to find an old rennie with an Iron Wolf blade.
If you have yourself a slack belt, you can use the larger contact wheel to apply a concave edge or if you want a fully flat grind, you can hold a block of wood to the back side of the belt to give the effect of a plane sander or a peice of leather if you want a very slight convex shape. Stone and strop are awesome to be sure. Myself, I usually get better results by sharpening on an old worn out 400 grit belt. It doesn’t move very much material so it’s very forgiving and I can take a bit more time to get the edge I want.
Yeah, I just figure most people can find a good rat tail file at the local hardware store. Specialty tools are probably not as easy for most people to come by. But you are right, the tools made specifically for a job are always better.
On a stone, I’ll pinch a finger in under the apex of the curve, lay the blade on the stone with my finger tip under the blade and use my finger tip as a pivot point to pull the curve around the stone. It’s a bit of an art and takes practice. If you have a good slack belt sander you can do a similar method but you hold at the apex of the curve away from the belt and holding the handle, turn the curve on the belt.
One thing you will find with those 100 year old blades in comparison to modern ones is that the steel is usually straight carbon and iron - no other alloys in the mix. They are often a 1060 to 1080 steel and can hold a wicked edge for decades. However, they also patina over time. Buyers these days want shinny and bright so most blades sold are an alloy that stays shiny but not sharp and with nickel in the mix they are harder to sharpen. Those things need constant care and will probably be nubs if kept for 100 years like the ones you have. Treasure them. That kind of blade is hard to come by these days unless you have them made for you.
Hey, that’s gorgeous! Nicely displayed, too. Is the bolster pattern welded, or is that line just a reflection?
You don’t necessarily have to get any convexity from belt grinding. I like a slight hollow grind on my larger axe, which I can get using the belt roller rather than the belt surface between the rollers. But it’s pretty much a choice of concave or convex… I use the disc or sandpaper on glass for flat surfacing (I use the glass & sandpaper system primarily for chisels).
That’s a 1084 core with wrought iron (from an old wagon wheel hub banding) “skins” forge welded for a san-mai billet. I prefer to have a homogenous edge steel, and I figure the WI adds to the toughness being unhardenable, while also giving it that nice damascus-like look when etched. No blank, that was hammered out at my forge 
Bashing hot steel is certainly therapeutic.
Couldn’t agree with this more. Also add in the factor that a lot of modern “factory” knives are made to be a bit “idiot-proof” to some degree in terms of being a bit softer than would be ideal for edge holding. Harder to snap the tip off when abused, and easier to sharpen, but that comes at the cost of edge holding ability.
That being said, there are a lot of whoop de doo “superalloys” like the CPM steels and other more modern and exotic stainlesses. I tend to lose pocketknives, so I don’t carry a custom, and am always on the look out for custom level factory knives. I’ve been pretty impressed with an 8Cr13MoV pocketknife that I got recently. Good edge holding and fairly tough as well.
and sorry everyone else on BB for getting a bit too “Steel-nerd”…
The blade is a san-mai of 1084 and wrought iron. The pattern on the “skin” material is from WI not being an entirely homogenous material. The line down the center of the blade is the interface between the core steel and the WI “skin”.
The guard is wrought iron for the main body with the thinner more shiny bit being a piece of 304 stainless to mirror the shiny edge.
You can NEVER be too much of a materials-nerd!
I keep trying to convince everyone around me that a guy with a life sciences background (and a veterinary doctoral degree) knowing and being able to discuss the TTT curves or elemental composition of various steels is AWESOME not weird and incredibly boring. Not too much success with that though…
Lucky me though, I get to go to an ABS hammer-in next week 
I have a band saw to finish the foam. Hot wire would not work for some of my closed cell stuff because it is pretty heat resistant and when it is cut with hot wire it leaves a finish like burnt styrofoam.
Wright Iron is getting to be worth its weight in gold these days. Glad you put it to good use. I’ve done 1015 forge welded around 1090 stock. It does look very nice. Normally I worked with straight 02 and some bearing grade steels for custom work.
The one thing you just can’t get from mass produces blades is a differential temper. I think that’s probably why you see softer end products from the mass production houses. They have to combine a bit of softness for flex which ends up in a blade that just won’t hold an edge. But with an edge hardened blade you can have a dead soft back and a wicked hard edge which is my personal preference.
Yup. absolutely on all points. You can differentially temper a lot of the stainlesses that mass production uses, just not differentially quench. On top of that, it’s not easy, and adds a lot of time/expense, so nobody really does it.
As far as the WI, I’m pretty lucky to live on the West Coast (where all the wagons ended up eh?) 
There was an old decommissioned wooden bridge dumped in pieces in the desert near here for a long time. Blacksmiths and bladesmiths had been raiding it for WI bolts and connecting rods for decades. Then local teens decided it would be fun to occasionally set sections of it on fire. Cue massive clean up effort by local govt, and I’m sure all the WI just went to the recycler as scrap 
