ihave oil stone just like this but a really old 1 its my friends grandads he is 60 so ye pretty old 1 but can i hell get anything sharp i aint even used oil i just use a bit if olive oil and other stuff lol
Thank you. I was searching for sound advice on the proper technique to sharpen a knife using an oil stone and you nailed it. Very helpful. The leather explanation was helpful as well.
Thank you for the lesson I just bought a new stone, and I thought I had some idea of what to do. I figured I better check first and came across your video. Let's just say I was completely wrong in how to sharpen knives, so thank you again for the great video!
Hey I'm glad it helped! Hope you get the results you're looking for, but remember that freehand sharpening takes practice, so don't be upset if the first few times you try don't come out what you had hoped for. The key to freehand sharpening is consistency. Good luck!
Some great information here. I've been sharpening my knives since my young years in BoyScouts and have done a "decent" job doing so but it just wasn't quite the sharpness others have been sharpened by. Now I know how to do this properly. Thank you for posting.
I'm a sharpening noob and I wish I got a cheap stone like this from the start. I watched tutorials where they used various whetstones from 1000 grit to 30,000 grit that were very expensive. So for my first stones I bought a 1000/3000 and a 4000/8000 stone for $12 and $16. After following the tutorials my knives were just as blunt but the bevel was really smooth. Then I used a $5 oilstone that came with a bundle and after about a minute with the same technique my knives became so much sharper. Its definitely messier but I am only going to use cheap oilstones from now on. I would defo recommend them as long as people don't mind getting their hands covered in oily grit. The plus side is it softens your hands in the process
While I don't think you wasted your money, as whetstones are good to have, but anything abrasive and harder than the knife you are sharpening will put an edge on it, no matter how cheap. My current method of keeping a fresh edge on my basic knives is sandpaper stuck to a piece of wood in 220, 600 and 1200 grit with a leather strop charged with green compound. It was super cheap to make and has lasted me years! However if I've truly dulled the edges too much then I start with an oilstone again and then afterwards go through the different grits of sandpaper
@@Mikey4808 That's a relief to hear and thanks for the tips! :) Its probably all down to my inexperience since I first tried sharpening a couple of weeks ago so I'm learning what works through trial and error. Maybe I only achieved a smooth, polished knife instead of a sharp one with the whetstones because I didn't keep at it long enough. I've since heard that using the finer stones is a slower sharpening process
@@hamstermunchies5558 It takes some practice but give it another go. You initially need to get a burr using the coarse stone and then work through the finer grits to refine the edge, but the importance is getting that burr. The burr mustn't be too big though. Only sharpen on the coarse stone until you just begin to feel a burr on the edge, not more, otherwise it becomes more difficult to refine. A good way to check is running some toilet paper from the spine down perpendicular to the edge. If the toilet paper catches on the edge it means there is a burr. There should be a burr along the entire edge, not just a section of it. Afterwards work through the finer grits. Your knives will be much sharper if you do this. Hope this helps somewhat
@@hamstermunchies5558 Stones are really only needed to form the edge and fix really dull blades, a leather strop and green compound will really be what gives you that razor sharp edge and if you strop your blades before you let them get dull you can keep them razor sharp with just the strop and compound and do so removing the least amount the metal from the blade as possible.
@@hamstermunchies5558 The most important thing is to establish an edge , then you can refine it. Anything over 1000 is for specialized work,let's say fish etc... 1000 is all you want/need.
Awesome video. Just tried my first knife sharpening ever using this technque and got the knife to cut the paper as per your demo. Failed on the arm hair though. Maybe next time
+Michael Jacobs Don't perpetuate urban myths about pulling steel or pushing steel, it will just confuse people. Old school used to teach edge first sharpening simply because of safety. Old folding knives had no locks on them so aggressive sharpening in a edge trailing or "stropping" style could close the blade on your fingers. People thought, why try to learn 2 styles? So many people just sharpened fixed blades the same way...just easier to use 1 style so you don't daydream one day and sharpen the wrong knife the wrong way and get hurt when a slip joint closes on your fingers. Somehow, observers mistook this style as a superior sharpening style and assigned all sorts of voodoo to it. Along came locking blades and soon they dominated the market to such a degree that slip joints are almost extinct and thus we can sharpen edge trailing now without worries. So now you can strop a razor or sharpen a folder and a fixed blade all using the same style. In fact some of the most efficient sharpening is done back and forth or "Japanese" style. Have fun and develope your own style and use any and all combinations of stones and stroke patterns...x pattern...j pattern...circles...whatever. It really doesn't matter as long as you get the results you want and you are happy with the edge you get then you did it right.
Took the words right out of my mouth mate.... Been sharpening wood working tools, drill bits, router bits, knives etc for nearly 45 years now. I am a carpenter by trade. It ammuses me at how much bullshit is perpetuated by ignorant, copycat samurai wannabes these days. I have never used anything but edge leading techniques because I was schooled that way for the very reasons you laid out in your comment. Because of that it is the only way I do it due to mainly feeling comfortable with that method. Either way works fine the aim of the game is and always will be consistency with your angle presentation of tool to sharpening medium.
@Beeblebrox One now you're trying to dive into the minutiae and unless someone has a very expensive Japanese sushi knife you will never know the difference...and the difference is not determined by sharpening style alone... it's determined by angle of attack in reference to the spine... you can develop teeth facing forward for a push cut or teeth facing back to the handle for a pull cut or with circles almost no teeth at all for press cut... which is what a razor or cheese knife is basically... no slicing motion just pressing the edge straight at what you're cutting... like straight razor shaving...those are discussions for knife forums not a RU-vid comment section... there just isn't enough room unless you make your own video dedicated to the subject.
@@easyaussietarget3355 would you make a RU-vid video how to do it. My father left me amazing knives and a number of sharpening stones. I remember him using oil (some old cans of oil are kept with the stones). I would really like to learn how to do this properly.
Harbor Freight just started selling an oil stone like this. It's cheap, but I wanted to try it out before I started to think about buying anything more expensive. I'm sure it's not top of the line quality, but this was more of a test run than anything. It gave our knives an edge back, not razor sharp, but they'll at least slice a tomato without putting any effort into it. I need to run them over the stone a bit more and get a strop to finish them.
Great video 👍👍👍 I have a couple of questions if you don't mind and have time... I have a old stone but I don't know what grit it is and I can't tell what kind it is 🤷 I found it years ago and starting to chip away on the sides. Is there anyway to restore a stone or clean it up a little bit? The next question would be how do I know if I have a good blade and one that's worth the time to sharpen? I had some nice looking knives before but half the time the steal ain't worth the time to sharpen. The nicer a knife is, the cheaper the blade is. That's just my opinion about the knives I bought in my life time.
San b I've never tried it. I would think it's a bit thick? Might clog up your oilstone... Give it a try and let me know what your results are. I'm curious to know
I broke out my Dads stone last night to sharpen a new knife... and to put a new edge on some other blades I have.... I totally forgot that my Dad did the 10, 9, 8...etc.... will have to go back and do that.
Both are useful. I use oil stones for most grit but depending on how heavy handed you are the finer stones over 1k are better as water stones. If you have a light hand the oil stones take longer over 1k. This is just my personal experience. I tend to be heavy handed so I don’t have much issue with oil stones up to 8k
Oh I forgot to mention don't worry too much about pushing or pulling with these coarse stones its later on when you start to be really fussy about your edge and you buy expensive whet stones in finer grits that you must pull and not push, same for stropping but if you are keen you will find all this out!
Thanks for the video. Good point: oil the stone thoroughly. Bad point: pushing the knife is just dangerous and doesn't work from my experience. I don't know why all these knife sharpening video use a piece of paper to illustrate the sharpness? Who needs to cut paper this way? I use a tomato to check if my knife cuts well.
Those are not oilstones, they're whetstones. Oil stones are natural stones, usually Arkansas stones, and are called oilstones because they need oil on them to protect the stone. Whetstones can use oil, water, or nothing at all. Forget the paper. Just set you knife straight up an down on the stone. That's ninety degrees. Tilt it half way toward the stone, and you have forty-five degrees. Tilt it halfway again, and you have twenty-two and a half degrees. Tilt it just a hair more, and you have twenty degrees, or tilt it halfway again, and you as close to eleven degrees as you can get, which will make it hair-whittling sharp.As for oil, if these are kitchen knives, or if they come into contact with food in the wild, buy mineral oil. It's dirt cheap, and food safe.
Well to be really correct, it's an aluminium oxide stone but I just call it an oil stone because that is what most people would call it. I don't care for the correct name, I care for the end result :-). Your method of sharpening does work but I prefer to do I this way. There are dozens of ways to sharpen a knife, this was just one of them. With regards to oil, I did use mineral oil
James Ritchie you are an absolute beginner You don't know anything about sharpening To get the sharpening angle you lay your knife on the stone and take a bit of a higher angle Then you go into the stone You will feel the knife is cutting into it You back of and feel for it to stop cutting into the stone Second method You take the knife put it flat on the stone Then you lift it up and look that the shadow at the sharpening edge disappears Thats your angle Then to you mister in the video Please also pull back and stay longer on your stone If you don t what will happen is your knife will have little like holes on the cutting edge meaning it won t cut that well
Actually, there is, edge following/stropping strokes produce a finer (sharper) edge. But this is on the highest end of sharpening skill, most people would struggle to get an edge fine enough for it to matter what technique they use.
I'm really pleased with this! It works like a charm ru-vid.comUgkxDcr-y2Pf6xdnrFHrSP7dl9kpKaCozcSQ Takes less time than my old electric sharpener because it can take more off the knife faster, and then it smooths out nicely with the finer grit polisher. I don't know how long it will last before the grit wears away, but I wouldn't mind having to replace it every once in a while.
I didn’t see you using any oil on the stone? Or is it something I missed? I was very interested to know how much oil would you use on a stone like that
Why bother with all that messing around? A twin electric grinder will sharpen a knife on both sides all in one go in a few seconds and will be just as sharp for the purpose.
Oh my! Everyone is a fucking expert aren't they! It is an Oil Stone not a Whet stone and if you put oil on a Whet stone straight after that throw it in the rubbish! Dear James Ritchie please don't give advice when you clearly have no idea! If you are using an oil stone with knives that will be preparing food please use a vegetable or sunflower oil not a mineral oil or wd-40 these are fine for chisels but will taint food if used on kitchen or hunting knives, and before you start saying I am a fool I make my living with sharp knives , I am a chef and an avid hunter for the last 30 years so neer! Technique and angles are something you develop with experience and depending upon the application as Michael so rightly explained but somewhere between 15 and 20 deg will be just fine to start.
LouSaydus I'm curious to know why you would say that? It most certainly works well for me. This is an educational video so I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter
There are a few major issues. I'm not super familiar with oil stones so I won't go over the application of oil, but it seems that the stone used is very coarse and needs more lubrication to avoid edge catching. The first major issue is the stone is not secured properly. It is rocking back and forth as the knife is being stroked which means it's impossible for the sharpener to ensure they are running the blade at the right angle. The second major issue is the knife is leaving the stone, that shouldn't be done because you're going to hit the stone at a slightly different angle each time (possibly chipping a coarse stone) you put it back down on it. Even if you manage to put it down at the correct angle you're going to roll the edge of the blade ever so slightly and ruin the bur you just created. In an extreme case you'll end up with a curved profile which will make the knife durable but it wont have a very sharp edge. Also pushing or pulling are both perfectly viable on lower grits. Once you work your way up to 1k+ you'll want to pull the blade so a bur forms and is worn away rather than pushed under the blade possibly causing edge defects. The strop shown here with no compound was extremely worn. When small bits of leather get under the blade you don't make good contact, not a major issue due to the way you should be running the blade over it but why show something that's off when teaching others? You should also impregnate your strop with a compound to help polish the edge and smooth it even further as well as lubricate the action ensuring equal pressure and draw speed. Again the compound isn't going to make or break the edge but it'll get you in the correct mindset and will help to refine the edge.
@@LouSaydusthis is the most annoying thing to read. You sound like a boomer mixed with a redditor and it's absolutely insufferable. How can not removing the knife "ensure" the angle is always the same? It's impossible to keep the angle the "exact" same simply because a human is using motion for the task. Humans are not precisely dialed in machines. Its comments like yours that cause a normal person to suddenly doubt the information given in the tutorial (which happened to be a great tutorial). If he is so criminally wrong in his technique why did the knife get sharp? Why did it cut through paper? If you're so sure the video is going to lead beginner knife sharpeners astray why don't you make a video of your own?
The most common mistake with pronunciation I've ever encountered in knife-related videos is the unnecessary addition of the "i" in Aluminum to make it "Aluminium". All it takes is just a bit more research even if there's great difficulty with speaking in an entirely different language.
Anthony Mann. You can pronounce it either way because it is spelt either way. In South Africa, where I am from, that is how the entire population pronounces aluminium
Anthony Mann Strange how it's spelt "Aluminium" on the Periodic Table of Elements - I guess thousands of scientists must be wrong. I'll call them up and let them know.
The person who discovered Aluminium called it Aluminum, but the world chemistry body thought the name was silly and should have been bought into line with the other element names, but they let it slide until the guy who made the initial discovery died. The Americans didn't like it so they kept the name the guy originally chose, but the rest of the world adopted the standardised form because it fits better in the periodic table. There are a ton of other bizarre language anomalies too, so it's best to look things up before trying to correct someone.
