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Sharpening |
| It is surprisingly easy to sharpen these curves blades.
All you need is a piece of clean leather glued onto a metal or wood dowel.
I use contact cement and glue the smooth side of the leather onto the dowel,
so the rouge holds onto the courser side of the leather better. It is the rouge
that does the cutting, so it is important to frequently rub more onto the leather. |
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Play Video (1.3 MB) |
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All of my curved blades (bent knives, scorps, drawknives, adzes) are sharpened on the
concave side with a strop like this. One of the secrets to sharpening is to do it often.
Don't wait until it is noticeably hard to carve. Take a break every hour or so to give the blade
a few strokes with the strop (with rouge rubbed onto it). As the video shows - take a few firm strokes
moving the strop away from the edge, not into it, at an angle a few degrees up from the main bevel.
Go at it very slowly at first. The convex side of the blade can be stropped with a flat strop.
If more aggressive sharpening is needed, a piece of very fine wet/dry sandpaper (400 to 800 grit) can
be tightly wrapped around a dowel and used in the same way. Follow that up with the leather strop and rouge. | |
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