All About Pocket Knives

I am liking mine so far , I know you can just follow instructions that came with it , but like anything , theres the "tips and tricks" end of it , to make it better , so, I would like for people to please post the little things they do that have improved the results with theres , one thing ill ask first is I wonder if I need better cutting stones for some knifes , I have sharpened a 6318 carbon steel XX Case , its wicked sharp , and a friends older carbon Cammilus that's also very sharp , a couple guys from work sent home with me a Browning and a Gerber, that I couldn't get to cut hot butter after trying to sharpen them ! Mabey the oil stones just couldn't sharpen the harder steel ?? Anyway, lets hear from you all about the tricks and methods your doin with the Lansky , hopefully this can be a sticky for people to learn ,Thanks James .

I’ll start ....

- put a little piece of blue painters tape on the top edge of the knife where it mounts in the jig to prevent those annoying tell tale Lansky scratches.

- watch the inside of your right hand - if you slip, the blade tip is very close to the inside of your wrist

- I have tried all 4 sharpening angles & have settled on using the top hole (30 degrees). It seems to work perfectly for all of my slip joints ... and the best part is I always know which angle to use regardless of what knife I’m re-sharpening

- the standard stones dish out from wear over time - but the diamond stones always stay flat as the diamond sharpening media is bonded to a steel plate. It’s worth it to me to pony up for the diamond set

- I’ve Found the single most important part of the Lansky system is to buy the mounting base so it’s stable - trying to freehand that Lansky clamp is actually quite dangerous.

How do you get the system to work with small narrow slipjoint blades? The stones always rub on the clamps for me, and if I put the clamp just on the very edge it wont hold the blade securely

313 Mike wrote:How do you get the system to work with small narrow slipjoint blades? The stones always rub on the clamps for me, and if I put the clamp just on the very edge it wont hold the blade securely

That’s exactly the problem I have with them.

313 Mike wrote:How do you get the system to work with small narrow slipjoint blades? The stones always rub on the clamps for me, and if I put the clamp just on the very edge it wont hold the blade securely

I don't use the clamp on small blades, such as small pen blades and the pen blades on whittlers. Just hold the knife with the blade open, point away from you, and cutting edge facing up, hand resting on a table, then take the Lansky stone (or actually any stone will do this), try to duplicated the angle that the Lansky uses, and just rock the stone back and forth, towards and away from you. Small pens usually don't take much to sharpen them unless they have been badly abused.

OLDE CUTLER wrote:

313 Mike wrote:How do you get the system to work with small narrow slipjoint blades? The stones always rub on the clamps for me, and if I put the clamp just on the very edge it wont hold the blade securely

I don't use the clamp on small blades, such as small pen blades and the pen blades on whittlers. Just hold the knife with the blade open, point away from you, and cutting edge facing up, hand resting on a table, then take the Lansky stone (or actually any stone will do this), try to duplicated the angle that the Lansky uses, and just rock the stone back and forth, towards and away from you. Small pens usually don't take much to sharpen them unless they have been badly abused.

I’m a free hand sharpener, learned from a kid up watching dad. So it’s always faster for me just to skip the lansky. But when I have used one, since I like mine sharpened at 20° or less, I have a lot of trouble with the stone hitting the clamp even with larger blades. Any ideas?

Colonel26 wrote:

313 Mike wrote:How do you get the system to work with small narrow slipjoint blades? The stones always rub on the clamps for me, and if I put the clamp just on the very edge it wont hold the blade securely

That’s exactly the problem I have with them.

That’s the practical limit of the Lansky system - it won’t work with the really little blades. I guess it just depends what kind of knives you like - I don’t have many mini stockmans or little pen knives, so it doesn’t bother me & I do my best to freehand sharpen those ...

Lansky1 wrote:

Colonel26 wrote:

313 Mike wrote:How do you get the system to work with small narrow slipjoint blades? The stones always rub on the clamps for me, and if I put the clamp just on the very edge it wont hold the blade securely

That’s exactly the problem I have with them.

That’s the limit of the Landky system - it won’t work with the really little blades. I guess it just depends what kind of knives you like - I don’t have many mini stockmans or little pen knives, so it doesn’t bother me & I do my best to freehand sharpen those ...

I agree. But I still have issues on larger blades at lower angles. Any chance of a photo of where you place the clamp on say a typical clip blade of anstockman, or the sheepsfoot blade?

Colonel26 wrote:

Lansky1 wrote:

Colonel26 wrote:
That’s exactly the problem I have with them.

That’s the limit of the Landky system - it won’t work with the really little blades. I guess it just depends what kind of knives you like - I don’t have many mini stockmans or little pen knives, so it doesn’t bother me & I do my best to freehand sharpen those ...

I agree. But I still have issues on larger blades at lower angles. Any chance of a photo of where you place the clamp on say a typical clip blade of a stockman, or the sheepsfoot blade?

I've never been successful using the lower angles either. Every time I try using less than the 30° hole, I don't like the results (it's removing alot more steel, takes longer, and due to the fine-ness of the edge, technique has to be perfect - I find it's just alot more work and time to sharpen at the lower angles on the Lansky). At least for slipjoints, I'm 100% sold on the 30° setting on the Lansky. I can't imagine needing a knife edge sharper than the Lansky at 30° with the fine diamond & finished off with the ultra fine ceramic stone provides. But my experience is largely involving Case stainless steel - maybe for the modern super steels or even vintage carbon steels, it could be different . I'll try to get some pics tomorrow ...

Lansky1 wrote:

Colonel26 wrote:

Lansky1 wrote:
That’s the limit of the Landky system - it won’t work with the really little blades. I guess it just depends what kind of knives you like - I don’t have many mini stockmans or little pen knives, so it doesn’t bother me & I do my best to freehand sharpen those ...

I agree. But I still have issues on larger blades at lower angles. Any chance of a photo of where you place the clamp on say a typical clip blade of a stockman, or the sheepsfoot blade?

I've never been successful using the lower angles either. Every time I try using less than the 30° hole, I don't like the results (it's removing alot more steel, takes longer, and due to the fine-ness of the edge, technique has to be perfect - I find it's just alot more work and time to sharpen at the lower angles on the Lansky). At least for slipjoints, I'm 100% sold on the 30° setting on the Lansky. I can't imagine needing a knife edge sharper than the Lansky at 30° with the fine diamond & finished off with the ultra fine ceramic stone provides. But my experience is largely involving Case stainless steel - maybe for the modern super steels or even vintage carbon steels, it could be different . I'll try to get some pics tomorrow ...

Well, good! Lol. Now I know it ain’t just me. I agree that the softer stainless blades don’t do well with a low angle. The edge tends to roll in my opinion.

Good old high carbon steel really shines imo at those lower angles.

I have been using the 25 deg . maybe I should change to that 30 one ? It worked good for the 18 pattern case and a old Timer 25 OT hunter , but for others I might experiment , I also ran in to the problem if a knife was worn with small blades that the stone was resting on the clamp instead of the blade , if they are pretty full it seems to work great on the 18 med . stockmans , I think ill also look into diamond stones , is the ceramic better for polishing , finishing , than the ultra fine stone that came with the set ? it does a pretty good job , then I used leather after that .

I used the Lanskey, long enough to see it's shortcomings, but it somehow taught me what I needed to go back to free hand sharpening with much better results.

Ed

eveled wrote:I used the Lanskey, long enough to see it's shortcomings, but it somehow taught me what I needed to go back to free hand sharpening with much better results.

Ed

Those of you who mentioned that the Lansky is not perfect are all correct. But for the bulk of pocket knife sharpening it works good enough. The very largest blades are a problem as are the very smallest. This topic is suffering from a lack of pictures to show different setups, so I spent some time to try to get something to show. Not that easy to get things setup to see the angles.
If you put the blade clamp on in different places, this will affect the angle somewhat. As shown below, if the clamp is too far back toward the handle, more metal seems to be ground unnecessarily from the tip. Shown on a Buck 110 for example I usually put the clamp on more toward the center or even more towards the tip to avoid this. When sharpening small pen blades, the stones can actually rub on the clamp, so I don't use the clamp for small blades. I hold the knife as shown with the hand resting on the table and using just the Lansky stone (fine diamond shown) without the guide rod, with the bottom end resting on the table. I try to approximate 25 degrees blade to stone angle while doing this. Just rock the top end of the stone back and forth towards and away from the tip. Turn over and do the other side. Small pen blades usually don't need that much to sharpen, and this method has worked for me.

OLDE CUTLER wrote:Those of you who mentioned that the Lansky is not perfect are all correct. But for the bulk of pocket knife sharpening it works good enough. The very largest blades are a problem as are the very smallest. This topic is suffering from a lack of pictures to show different setups, so I spent some time to try to get something to show. Not that easy to get things setup to see the angles.
If you put the blade clamp on in different places, this will affect the angle somewhat. As shown below, if the clamp is too far back toward the handle, more metal seems to be ground unnecessarily from the tip. Shown on a Buck 110 for example
IMG_2533.JPG
I usually put the clamp on more toward the center or even more towards the tip to avoid this.
IMG_2534.JPG
When sharpening small pen blades, the stones can actually rub on the clamp, so I don't use the clamp for small blades. I hold the knife as shown with the hand resting on the table and using just the Lansky stone (fine diamond shown) without the guide rod, with the bottom end resting on the table. I try to approximate 25 degrees blade to stone angle while doing this. Just rock the top end of the stone back and forth towards and away from the tip.
IMG_2535.JPG
Turn over and do the other side.
IMG_2536.JPG
Small pen blades usually don't need that much to sharpen, and this method has worked for me.

Great tips - I mount the clamp on a clip blade in about the same spot as you do. I like your idea about sharpening little blades with Lansky stones freehand - I will most def try that.

I've got one but don't care for it at all
Nowadays I used a flat ceramic or ceramic rod almost exclusively.

ken98k wrote:I've got one but don't care for it at all

just curious ... why don't you care for it ? I'm aware some feel it takes too much time to set up & they feel it isn't worth the hassle. Some would rather just grab an oil stone and have at it ? Thing is, I've never heard of anyone who learned to use the Lansky and didn't get better results than freehand sharpening. Don't get the wrong impression - I'm not grilling you, I'm just curious what you didn't like about the Lansky ... thx

Lansky1 wrote:

ken98k wrote:I've got one but don't care for it at all

just curious ... why don't you care for it ? I'm aware some feel it takes too much time to set up & they feel it isn't worth the hassle. Some would rather just grab an oil stone and have at it ? Thing is, I've never heard of anyone who learned to use the Lansky and didn't get better results than freehand sharpening. Don't get the wrong impression - I'm not grilling you, I'm just curious what you didn't like about the Lansky ... thx

Like you said, takes too much time.

To me the main problem has been small wore down blades that I cant get the stone to touch because it hits the clamp first , on large blades , say like a buck 110 or something , it kind of runs out of stone about halfway through the blade , I guess on that you just kind of start over at that point , and use two strokes on the blade to get the full length covered .

ken98k wrote:

Lansky1 wrote:

ken98k wrote:I've got one but don't care for it at all

just curious ... why don't you care for it ? I'm aware some feel it takes too much time to set up & they feel it isn't worth the hassle. Some would rather just grab an oil stone and have at it ? Thing is, I've never heard of anyone who learned to use the Lansky and didn't get better results than freehand sharpening. Don't get the wrong impression - I'm not grilling you, I'm just curious what you didn't like about the Lansky ... thx

Like you said, takes too much time.

I agree Ken. That and the fact that I like to put a nice long low angle bevel on mine and then a bit steeper secondary bevel. That clamp just gets in my way. If I want a 30° angle I’ll just use an ax.

Colonel26 wrote:I agree Ken. That and the fact that I like to put a nice long low angle bevel on mine and then a bit steeper secondary bevel. That clamp just gets in my way. If I want a 30° angle I’ll just use an ax.

It's all comes down to preference - I can get an absolutely scary sharp perfectly formed edge using the 30 degree setting on the Lansky running through the various diamond stones ... I've never needed to go any lower & can't imagine anyone would need a knife any sharper. One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is the 30 degree edge is much more durable than a steeper angle - it holds up better & lasts longer between sharpenings. We're getting into preferences, which isn't the intent of this thread, so ...

cbnutt wrote:To me the main problem has been small wore down blades that I cant get the stone to touch because it hits the clamp first , on large blades , say like a buck 110 or something , it kind of runs out of stone about halfway through the blade , I guess on that you just kind of start over at that point , and use two strokes on the blade to get the full length covered .

FYI ... I've learned over time to take about 5-8 strokes per side - seems to work best ... don't have to get the whole length of the blade in one swipe like you might with a full size oil stone.

I use the Smith-branded sharpening system, which is basically a poor man's Lansky. It has both the strengths and weaknesses of the Lansky as outlined above. The Smith that I have only gives you two angle choices--20 and 25 degrees.

I find the greatest strength of this type of system is its ability to quickly show you how even or uneven the factory edge is. Here's how: When you first start sharpening a blade with one of the included stones or diamond-grit bars, you can run your finger tip across the blade at all points to see if you're creating a wire edge consistently along the whole length of the blade. Often, I've found that one or more spots on the blade don't roll the wire edge over to the opposite side of the blade. That tells me I need to spend some time on those spots until a wire edge forms. At that point, I can then proceed with normal sharpening. This has primarily been necessary for me.on stainless steel blades.

My system has just two diamond-grit bars, with the coarse being around 350 grit and the fine being 600 grit.
I wanted a keener edge, so I bought sandpaper in grits of 1K, 1.5K, 2K, 3K, 5K, and 7K. I didnt buy all those at once but acquired them over a few months. I then cut a piece of sandpaper of each grit just large enough to wrap.around the sharpening bar. That way, I can maintain the same angle and hone each blade going up to 7000 grit.

After a few months of enjoying the satisfaction of getting the blades so sharp, i began to just sharpen to whatever grit I feel like, based on time constraints and the number of times my young kids interrupt me.

For the blades that are too small for the clamp, I worked on developing and improving my free hand technique.

Liking mine so far , I may need to get some diamond stones for it .