Questions about EDC knives and sharpening

[Jonnydread]

Hey folks,

I know very little about knife culture, and my experience with sharpening knives is limited. I'm looking for recommendations for a small belt-knife to use for EDC/general life stuff. I don't need nor want anything particularly fancy, just a good quality utility knife that I can sharpen on my own as needed. Secondly, outside of the crappy pull-through kitchen knife sharpeners, I am ignorant to how to properly sharpen knives. I looked into whetstones and they seem to be a good go-to for general sharpening needs, but if someone has a recommendation I'd love to hear it.

I'm sick of dull-ass kitchen knives and buying cheap pocket knives that don't cut well or dull after a week of use. Help!

[Carlito[]

https://www.worksharptools.com/shop/benchtop/powered/knife-tool-sharpener-mk2/

Pretty much a dummy proof sharpener. Works great.

[Jonnydread]

My buddy just recommended this to me!

[flyweightnate]

I just got the Ken Onion edition, and put a very good edge on a dozen knives in under an hour. Serrated, smooth, recurved, long, short, thin, thick... even scissors.

[XEMON]

For EDC pocket knife/tool, any decent quality folding will do (ive used $5 ebay knife with great success!), specially if you're gonna use them as a tool ...
I personally only use non serrated blades so i can sharpen them (and i hate how serrated blade mangle everything ...) but its up to you.

For the wet stones, its teh best/faster/most reliable way. I would go down to your hardware store and get a 2 sided stone and use oil instead of water.
I usually setup on a cutting board with the bottle of cooking oil and go to town on the kitchen knives.
It takes a bit to get the right angles and motion, but after sharpening 2 or 3 times, youll get the hang of it.

[iamthelazerviking]

I like the compactness of a folding pocket knife. Over the past 20+ years, I have used the Kershaw Whirlwind. Have two because the original one was misplaced and I was sad so bought another. The spring assisted opening mechanism is great, and I love to have serration for sawing needs. Mine have stayed super sharp, don't think I have yet to sharpen them!

[Lt. head-shot]

For EDC, I rock a folder since its a bit easier. But if you do want something on a belt, look for about 3 to 4 inch blade, in 154cm. Better steels are out there, but for simplicity of sharpening, 154cm is a great all around steel. Good edge retention, easy to sharpen, and limited rust if you take care of it. 440C is stainless and too soft, 1095 is high carbon and gets a great edge, but won't hold it and loves to rust super fast.

For sharpening, please do NOT use the belt sander style. 99% guarantee that you will over work the blade and end up grinding your edge down way faster than you would with a normal sharpener. I would instead go for something more like this, where you can clamp the blade, match the edge bevel, and then work smoothly. https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/W...-P1887C68.aspx

Now, shameless plug, I do have these for sale, and if there is anything that strikes your interest, I'd be happy to give you a breakdown and discuss. https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/b...ing#post286531

[Jonnydread]

Thanks for the suggestions man, I know you're a knife guy so I was hoping you'd chime in. One of the things that is attractive to me about the belt sander style sharpeners is the fact that I can sharpen non-knife tools with it. What is it about them that causes one to work the blade down too quickly?

[Lt. head-shot]

The issue is mainly that it is just so fast. Knives don't need grinding, unless you hammered the edge against something metal and need to grind past a completely rolled edge. Knives need sharpening. The grinding happened when they made the blade, you are just "tuning up" the cutting edge. Having a grinder makes it so that instead of spending 15 minutes sliding a stone across an edge, you are sliding a belt along at thousands of rpm and doing the same amount of mileage in just a few seconds. Does it work? Yes. But over doing it is so easy because its super fast. Maybe I'll put it like this. When a hopper is half filled, do you always slam a pod into the hopper, breaking paint and wasting half a pod? Or is it better to use half a pod and top it off slowly? Slamming a pod works when the hopper is nearly empty. But if you don't want to wait until you are always empty (aka dull as hell) until you fill (sharpen).

[flyweightnate]

Eh, I disagree... while you CAN overdo it with a belt sander, if you're doing a drawer of kitchen knives once a year, at ten seconds each it's far easier than a whetstone.

But yeah, don't go with a 400 grit and hang it in there for 60-90 seconds. That would be wasteful. The 1000 grit for 5 seconds is plenty if you're not removing chips.

[Grendel]

There are a lot of knifes out there. I am a knife buyer and user but not a collector. I have knives in just about every drawer in the house and a drawer of cheapos in my shop. My current favorite workhorse is a CRKT Pillar it is stout enough that I use it as a screw driver, pry bar and knife (maybe even a little bit of a hammer when I'm desperate). It is not the lightest knife but I clip it to my pocket pretty much every day. I keep 3 knives on my desk next to my wallet and keys and depending on what I'm wearing/going will dictate which one goes in my pocket and others in my closet for other needs.

• CRKT Pillar - most days with jeans or cargo shorts (they can support the weight well)
• Kershaw Vapor - lighter and slenderer then the Pillar so work slacks or lighter shorts
• CRKT CEO - Light Long and Thin pretty much any time I'm going out to dinner or wearing a suit
• Old Timer Trapper - for around the house relaxing or traveling
• Buck 110 folder - anytime I want a belt knife [i.e. hiking, camping, kayaking, cutting wood, hunting...anything in the woods] I've had this knife since High School

I use a Lansky Sharpening kit to establish and/or fix knife edges (I can be hard on my knives) but for day to day sharpening I have a couple of two sided handhold stones and the inside of an old leather belt as a strop. It takes a little practice to learn to hone and edge by hand but not too hard once you get the hang of it. I do not like serrated blades much but I do have a few with partial serrations so I do keep some sharpening sticks around for them.