With the help of this step-by-step manual, discover how to keep your pocket knife operating at its best.
A pocket knife is always a useful tool to have on hand — unless it has a dull edge. Your pocket knife needs to be sharpened frequently. Here’s how to properly sharpen the blade to avoid endangering your knife.
In order for you to sharpen your pocket knife with confidence, we have compared the following advice from various knife manufacturers and experts. We discuss the tools you can use to sharpen your knife, how to determine the best sharpening angle, how to strop your blade, and how to test for sharpness.
Now that you know this, you’ll never need to use a dull blade again.
Table of Contents
Important Caveats
It should be noted that there are numerous methods for sharpening a knife before we get started. Everybody has a method they believe to be the most effective, and men have a variety of methods and tools they believe to be crucial to getting a razor-sharp blade. The majority of it ultimately comes down to personal preference. You’re going to see how I honed my pocket knife sharpening skills. It’s very simple, suitable for beginners, and best of all, it actually functions. If you prefer an alternative method, that’s great. Comment about it for us. I’d be interested in your advice.
Additionally, there are various methods for honing a knife’s edge depending on the purpose for which you’ll be using it—cooking, whittling, etc. Therefore, you don’t need to sharpen your pocket knife in the same way that you would an expensive chef knife unless you intend to use it to prepare gourmet meals.
When to Sharpen My Pocket Knife?
Using the paper test, you can determine sharpness. Cut through a piece of magazine or receipt paper while holding one side firmly in your knife hands. To determine whether the blade has any dull areas, make sure you test the entire cutting edge.
It’s time to sharpen your pocket knife (or at the very least, hon it) if the blade catches or tears the paper. Holding the blade’s edge up to the light is another way to check. It is rounded and needs to be sharpened if a portion of the blade bounces light back at you.
Use common sense as well. You should probably sharpen your knife if it isn’t operating as smoothly as it usually does when you try to use it.
Tools Needed
Little is required to sharpen a pocket knife. Just two things: a lubricant and a sharpening stone.
stone or whetstones for sharpening. Sharpening stones come in a variety of shapes and sizes, just like there are numerous ways to sharpen a knife. Japanese water stones, rocks with diamond encrusted surfaces, and rocks with various grit levels are all available. Once more, the choice of stone depends on its use and personal preference. Find the stone that produces the outcomes you want by experimenting with a variety of stones.
It’s probably not a good idea to use a cheap sharpening stone when honing high-quality knives. However, there’s no need to start out too fancy if you’re just learning how to sharpen your pocket knife. A sharpening stone costs around $10 and is available at most hardware stores. This one and the one I use are extremely comparable. The majority of straightforward sharpening stones have two sides, one with coarse grit and one with fine grit. You can get a blade that is finer or sharper by using grit that is finer. Normally, you begin sharpening on the coarse grit and work your way up to the finer grit.
Lubricant. The majority of knife sharpening professionals advise using some kind of lubricant when honing your blade. The lubricant can take on a number of shapes, including water and oil. The majority of the literature on the subject suggests using mineral oil to sharpen knives. The lubricant lowers the heat produced by the friction that occurs when you sharpen your knife. In fact, a blade can become warped by excessive heat. When you grind your knife blade on a stone, lubrication also aids in cleaning up the swarf that is produced. Most hardware stores sell this for around $5.
I should point out, though, that with the majority of simple stones, lubricant is not required. Therefore, if you need to sharpen your knife while working in the field, don’t let the fact that you don’t have any mineral oil on hand stop you.
Steps to Sharpen Your Knife
You can sharpen your pocket knife by following the steps listed below. If you prefer a video guide then this is a great example from YouTube:
1. Lubricate the Sharpening Stone.
Your sharpening stone should have a thin coating of lubricant on both sides. Simple.
2. Sharpen One Side of the Blade Using Rough Grit.
When using your sharpening stone’s rough grit side, lean the knife blade against it at a 15-degree angle. Noting that the recommended angle varies depending on the type of knife you’re sharpening and the level of sharpness you want, you can generally stick with anywhere between 10-15 degrees for your standard pocket knife. The blade will be sharper as the angle decreases, but edge retention will suffer. Consequently, a larger angle will be less acute but last longer.
It’s crucial to try to keep this angle constant while sharpening, but it’s challenging. Naturally, practice makes perfect, so don’t anticipate being proficient at this right away. You’ll get there eventually, and if you get tired of trying and need assistance, think about using a sharpening guide, which is a simple but useful tool for keeping the sharpening angle constant.
When your angle is comfortable, start rubbing the blade against the stone. It is entirely up to personal preference whether you bring it close to or far from you. Here, light to moderate pressure is sufficient, and you should try to maintain some consistency in the pressure applied throughout each stroke. As if you were trying to remove a thin layer of stone from the sharpening block, move the blade in that manner. This should be done a total of ten times.
3. Repeat on the Alternate Side.
You get the idea, just repeat step 2 on the other side. In theory, you should keep sharpening until you have raised a burr, which is what happens when one bevel is ground until it touches another. A frayed piece of material is hanging off the end of the burr where it was ground. You don’t want it on your edge because it will break off because it is weak. You can see a highlight along the edge when you hold the edge up to a bright light, but not on the opposite side.
4. Stroke Alternate Sides
After concentrating on each side, make another 10 or so strokes, this time switching sides between each one.
5. Repeat Steps 2-4 Using the Fine Grit.
You just need to repeat the process using the sharpening stone’s finer grit side once you’re done with the coarse grit. This will get rid of the burr that was left over from the rough grit phase.
Sharpen With Sandpaper
Besides using stones, you can also sharpen your pocket knives with sandpaper.
What You’ll Need
Although theoretically straightforward, sharpening a knife successfully depends on the technique. To effortlessly chop and dice, we’ll show you how to sharpen your knife and master the technique. Your knives, a piece of fine and superfine sandpaper, a chopping block, and your honing steel or sharpening rod is all you’ll need (which usually comes with a set of knives).
Holding Knife Flush With Sandpaper, Drag on a Diagonal
Holding the knife handle in one hand while lightly pressing on the knife’s center to keep it flat with the sandpaper, drag the survival knife’s edge down, drawing it away and in your direction at an angle. Ten times through this process.
Hold the Knife at 22 Degree Angle Against Sandpaper
Straight blades are not very effective. Serrated blades are more difficult to use, though. An edge of a wood cutting board should have a sheet of fine sandpaper adhered to it with tape. Keep the cutting board and knife at a 22-degree angle. Fortunately, you won’t need your protractor. Here’s a hint: if you hold it up at a 90-degree angle, find the beveled edge by tilting it halfway down, which will give you a 45-degree angle. 22.5 degrees is obtained by dividing the difference by two more times. That’s close enough!
Flip over to Sharpen the Other Side; Repeat Process With Super Fine Sandpaper
On the knife’s other side, repeat the procedure 10 times. Then, swap out the fine sandpaper for ultra-fine sandpaper and repeat the process.
Use Honing Steel to Finish
Finish by straightening the metal by rubbing the knife’s edge over honing steel at a 22-degree angle on both sides.
Voila! Enjoy Your Newly Sharpened Knife.
Make sure to use the same angle every time you sharpen the same knife. In general, it is not advisable to vary the sharpening angle. It is far more crucial to consistently use the same angle than it is the actual angle. Try carefully slicing through some paper sheets to test the sharpness of your blade, then observe how quickly the cut is made.
Next, you can attempt to carefully remove some of the hair from your arm.). After you’re done, clean your sharpening stone. If you don’t properly clean up any small steel grit left on your sharpening stone, it could eventually rust.
You’ve just learned how to sharpen a pocket knife, there!
FAQs
What is a Burr?
As you sharpen the blade of your knife, a tiny strip of metal called a burr will rise along the edge. As you grind out a new edge, a thin strip of the blade’s old metal is peeled away.
The burr, which feels like a very fine wire along the edge opposite of the side you’ve been grinding, is something you might be able to feel with practice. When the burr is fully raised, you know you’ve sufficiently ground the edge and can switch sides.
While raising the burr during sharpening is beneficial, the burr is a weak piece of metal that prevents your knife from cutting effectively. Once you’ve finished sharpening both sides, you should remove the burr by stripping the blade.
How Do I Sharpen My Serrated Pocket Knife?
Many pocket knives have a serrated area of the blade close to the handle, which can be challenging for a beginner to sharpen.
The good news is that many sharpening tools include specialized serrated tools, like a tapered rod or a triangle edge that can fit in the grooves. Similar to how the rest of the knife is sharpened, the serrated area is sharpened by working groove by groove rather than by sweeping the blade.
Can I Use a Kitchen Knife Sharpener on a Pocket Knife?
These knives typically have a bevel angle between 22 and 30 degrees to prevent the blade from being easily damaged. That means your fixed-angle pull-through kitchen sharpener won’t work for your pocket knife. But you can still use other methods. Using one or several whetstones is the most effective method for sharpening a pocket knife.
