Knife & Tool Sharpening For Dummies?

Fellas,

I'm looking for some help learning the fine art of knife and tool sharpening. My typical MO has been to get my pocket knives sharpened up at the gun shows every couple of months, but now that I'm trying to get outdoors more often, that's not cutting it any longer - because my tools aren't cutting well any longer.

My budget is extremely limited at the moment, so even buying a fifty dollar specialty system is out of the picture for me right now.

I stumbled across this YouTube video. I wonder what your guys' thoughts are?



Anybody with some tips, tricks, and inexpensive methods?

There are lots of sharpening stones available and some more high tech systems to sharpen knife blades. I've not looked but you might check some youtube videos to see how others do it. Also, look into some custom knife makers and see what they recommend. I use an Arkansas stone with a thin layer of oil to sharpen my knives.

If you're carrying around a $20 knife, with shitty steel, you're gonna have to learn how to keep one sharp. The best advice I can give you is to spend a little money on steel that stays sharp.

Learn to use a steel...$12 and up and never wears out...
http://www.factorydirect2you.com/j-...gclid=CJjDys72kbECFWVvTAodrixAdQ#.T_2aLtV4HMA

Those are only really meant to remove burrs or a finishing on the sharpening. I'm not saying it's impossible to sharpen a knife with one alone, but that's not its purpose.

I have a chef's choice diamond sharpening stone and it's performed pretty well.

That's gonna come as a shock to the chefs' I trained with, it's what they used and what I still use.

Huh, well it's sure not what the chefs I trained with at Le Cordon Bleu used it for.

Then French are wussies!

How sharp does a knife need to be to cut through a chicken-and-cheese biscuit?

Sharp enough that you don't need a spoon to eat it after cut...

I bought a very inexpensive sharpening tool at Atwoods not too long ago. It does both straight blades and serrated blades.