Thread: Eggington shepherds sharpening steel

mate...try using steel away from you down onto table and stroke knife down and in towards you...a long steel and short knife is easiest...you can LOOK DOWN onto steel/knife and keep angle constant much easier this way.
my ceramic rods sit in wooden block at 25 and 30 degrees??? they look like two cigarettes.

Paddle strop with red or Green rouge.

Home made strop, leather and rouge off eBay

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

mate...try using steel away from you down onto table and stroke knife down and in towards you...a long steel and short knife is easiest...you can LOOK DOWN onto steel/knife and keep angle constant much easier this way.
my ceramic rods sit in wooden block at 25 and 30 degrees??? they look like two cigarettes.

What I meant was getting the angle right for any individual knife as in 17deg, 20deg 25deg. I can work out 90deg and 45deg but below 45 I can't workout. Also I'm far sighted so I can't see the blades edge flat on the steel to determine the blades correct angle. I made a jig for my whetstones that I can position at any angle, all I do is get the blades angle stated by the manufacturer and set the jig accordingly and start sharpening while holding the knife at 90deg, which is easy. What I could do with is those blade angle guides.

Originally Posted by Three O'Three

What I meant was getting the angle right for any individual knife as in 17deg, 20deg 25deg. I can work out 90deg and 45deg but below 45 I can't workout. Also I'm far sighted so I can't see the blades edge flat on the steel to determine the blades correct angle. I made a jig for my whetstones that I can position at any angle, all I do is get the blades angle stated by the manufacturer and set the jig accordingly and start sharpening while holding the knife at 90deg, which is easy. What I could do with is those blade angle guides.

You don't néed to over complicate angles.

Put the knife on the stone at 90 degrees, tilt it halfway. Now you are at 45, half the angle again and start sharpening.

It really doesn't need to be super precise to get a razor sharp edge. Just sharpen until you get a burr, then strop or hone to remove the burr and you will have a sharp knife.

What ever angle you sharpen at you steel at. Ceramic steels are good but are brittle and don like being bashed around diamond steels are knife reackers and generally to coarse and strip the edge of your knife. You need to match your steel the knife ie low carbon soft stainless needs a fine steel and will be easy to sharpen but needs more steeling to maintain. A high carbon steel takes a bit more to sharpen and needs a coarser steel to push the edge back straight. Disadvantage of high carbon is it doesn't like to flex much and shatters easier. The small steels like the rabbiter/eggington are generally coarse and need to be rubbed down with a green scouring pad or wet and dry sand paper. The ultimate is to rub it down on your stone do it matches the stone. you can get away with a piece of stainless rod but they tend to be a bit soft and dent after awhile. Another option is to cut a full length one down if you have a few around the house

Various steels, coarse to fine.
You don't need them all, this is an interest and opportunistic to buy an sale etc
A nice fine steel is all you need if you can hand sharpen on a fine Aluminium Carbide stone.
Some mass produced stainless knives sharpen easily. But they have to have some quality and characteristics.
Cheap supermarket kitchen knives are hard and brittle.
F.Dick, Victorinox seem user friendly to me. Some quality brands are harder steel with good edge retention once you get there.
Some customs like Carbon Steel are user friendly , some are of a higher hardness.