Hey there guys welcome back Ricky here
So a lot of people have been writing me asking me how you sharpen your knives tip
Now this problem is not specific to those who are new to sharpening
but people who have been sharpening for years can also sometimes tell me that they have problems sharpening the tip and the heel of
Their blades but today we're only talking about the tip. So here are five things
You can do to remedy that. The first thing you can do is that when sharpening the tip of the knife make sure you use
The areas around the corners and the edges of the stone
This tip here achieves two things the first it allows you to apply wear to the areas of the stone that are normally neglected in
Regular sharpening. Most people sharpening on a whetstone will only use the very center of the stone
So by using the top in the bottom areas of the stone during tip sharpening you allow the stone to stay flatter
Longer and the second thing this teaches you is taking shorter strokes which leads us to the second tip when I'm sharpening the knife tip
Using the push and pull I typically go about an inch to inch and a half up and down
this allows me to make sure that I have the optimal control over my knives tip and also allows me to know exactly where the
Knife's tips gonna be going I also do longer strokes only on the sides of the stone
The third tip is deepening your sharpening angle from the belly to the tip. Here's what I mean
Most people when using a device such as a sharpening angle
They place that sharpening angle at the heel of the knife or in the middle of the knife. Not at the tip
This is actually more apparent when you're standing across in the person
sharpening the knife
The sharpener has a harder time seeing this you only know this by
Experience and if you're trying to maintain the same sharpen angle at the belly and in tip the knife actually flexes
So by bringing in the spine up by one to two degrees
You compensate for that flex when you don't compensate for that flex and you're sharpening at a very steep angle
Say 10 to 12 degrees
You have a much higher chance of scratching the profile of the knife then if you were to bring that angle up to 13
Or 14 degrees, you're more likely to notice the cosmetic difference then the actual performs difference
But what you'll notice if you look very carefully
From the belly to a tip is that the cutting bevel is slightly wider than the rest of the knife again
That's more or less cosmetics and less to do with performance
But for those who are detail oriented that might be kind of crazy and tip number 4
Remember to go back and forth between the left side and the right side
It's very important that we keep our bevels the same as much as possible
That's not a really big problem because it's relatively easy to fix
It's more or less an eyesore than a performance hindrance
But the important thing is that's the easiest way to maintain your knives cutting edge profile
The fifth tip is to remember that you're not disrupting or fixing your knife tip
You're sharpening the entire blade the more evenly you distribute the sharpening time between the tip
belly
and the heel
The more consistent your edge will be and if you've been doing a lot of push and pull on the very tip
Make sure you do a couple of push and pulls where you integrate the belly and the tip and one smooth motion
that way you maintain the most consistent transition between the tip and the knife's belly and
Here is a bonus tip for those who like to strop after the sharpen and polish the knives on whetstones on a strop
I have found that the easiest way to maintain a very consistent pull
Between the entire length of the blade is going from the heel to the tip by doing it
That way you don't risk the knife cutting into the leather at all
And also you don't risk going tip first into the leather
Which a lot of folks do including myself and for those who like going from tip to heel on both sides
I have found that doing a very slight J motion at the very tip of the
Blade to the belly will allow me to capture or strop the areas that I mostly miss when stropping
So by placing the tip of the knife on the strop instead of doing a push right away
You do a lateral pull and slowly push upwards as you move through the length of the blade
You avoid the knife cutting into the leather?
If you were pushed to straight of a stroke and you do the same thing with the other side
You simply place the knife's tip on the strop
Pull towards the spine as you move the knife up through the strop and remember with stropping
Each of your strokes or edge trailing strokes to avoid cutting into the leather
I hope you found this tutorial helpful
If you did, please give the video a thumbs up. And if you have any sharpening questions, please leave them in the comments
I'll read through every one of them and I'll do my best to answer all your questions. Alright folks
Thank you so much for your time. I'll catch you in the next video