[TheForge] Re: Knife sharpening

[Mike Spencer]

"J. Petrila" <jlpservicesinc at gmail.com> wrote:

> A chef's knife is designed to have the burr straightened using a
> steel..  This burr will fold over in use and the steel straightens
> it or stands it back up.. Yes it removes little sections but for the
> most part it lifts it back into position as its the fine burr that
> does the cutting..

I've come across an interesting sharpening thing.  People who do
competitive hand mowing aren't happy with a stoned edge on their
scythe blades.  They insist that the edge has to be cold-hammered all
along its length as the last step in getting the edge they want.
There are guys to come to competitions to do it for the mowers, have
polished hammers and special little anvils.  They say that modern
scythe blades (or at least most of them) aren't suitable for this
treatement and they prefer wider antique blades or (I might be wrong
here?) new ones made in Germany or Austria that are like the old ones.

I have both a modern and a wide, hand-forged antique scythe blade but
I haven't managed to quite get the hammering bit down.  Asked
questions and watched a guy do it a couple of summers ago.

> Ideally to get the sharpest edge...

Back when I worked in a hospital, I knew the technicians who sharpened
microtome blades.  The last step took several hours.  The blade -- 3
or 4 inches long and maybe 2-1/2" wide -- was put in a clamp at a
precise angle on the end of a a mechanical arm.  It lowered onto a
rotating plate glass disk, rather like a very slow, oversized record
turntable.  The disk was flooded continuously with white rouge and
water. The machine slowly moved the blade from sided to side on the
glass and turned it over every minute or two.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^