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Thinning Video

Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2017 7:52 am
by Peter Nowlan
I put a video I did the other day on my Blog.

http://sharpener-pete.blogspot.ca/2017/ ... ng_13.html

I've got some feedback from folks I trust to give me good honest feedback so I have decided to leave it up. The purpose of my videos is to help me just as much as it is for anyone else struggling with this aspect of sharpening. I don't care what anyone else says, thinning a knife is difficult, especially when everything is done by hand.

You need to do some forward thinking and think about how you want the knife to look when it is all done and then monitor the work as you proceed to make sure that everything unfolds as you hoped it would.
Now the video is on stainless knife and I may do one on a clad knife down the road. I would have to show how the core, the radioactive core is exposed :)

I'm just trying to help people, I don't get paid for this stuff and if you don't like the video, provide constructive criticism. Criticism will be ignored but if you add something to it that's very nice of you.

Peter

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 12:30 am
by orezeno
So, my critique is that you make it look a bit too easy. ;-)
I don't care what anyone else says, thinning a knife is difficult, especially when everything is done by hand.
Yes. Absolutely! The minute you lay the knife down to a shallow angle you're working on a much larger surface. A pro (like you) knows to monitor metal removal on that surface (on both sides if not a single bevel knife) to ensure that the knife's design is not compromised.
You need to do some forward thinking and think about how you want the knife to look when it is all done and then monitor the work as you proceed to make sure that everything unfolds as you hoped it would.
Very well said! And this takes a fair amount of experience. Not all knives are alike. Each has the unique imprint of the owner's use, so it is hard to know in advance how repair or thinning will go. A discussion of this needs to be in the video IMHO.

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 4:09 am
by Jeff B
Once again a very informative, yet not over the head of the newbe sharpener, video. Nice confidence builder.

Thanks for sharing more of your knowledge and helping us learn as you do Peter!

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2017 11:54 am
by Peter Nowlan
Thanks Greg and Jeff. I see this video is as the first of my thinning videos, as I improve I think the videos will improve and I can do a clad knife the next time. I think I probably get more out of doing them than anyone does watching them.
Appreciate your kind words as always.
peter

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2017 12:16 am
by jmcnelly85
Once again, nice video. I particularly liked the emphasis on finger placement, I have a handful of thinning sessions under my belt, but two knives ago it was an A HA moment. The last knife I did was the cleanest result because I finally understood the tiniest bit of misplaced movement can have some very ugly results, leading to more and more sandpaper. One thing I might add that helps me is changing directions between grits. I personally move the stone frequently throughout my progression, a trick that helps maintain a uniform polish is if I'm doing the perpendicular stone/diaganol scratch like in your video on a first stone, I will switch to a parallel stone/parallel scratch on the second stone, following with perp/dia third, para/para fourth, etc. Few things can be as frustrating as that one deep scratch surrounded by a beautiful polish.

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2017 1:25 pm
by Kit Craft
jmcnelly85 wrote: Fri Mar 17, 2017 12:16 am Once again, nice video. I particularly liked the emphasis on finger placement, I have a handful of thinning sessions under my belt, but two knives ago it was an A HA moment. The last knife I did was the cleanest result because I finally understood the tiniest bit of misplaced movement can have some very ugly results, leading to more and more sandpaper. One thing I might add that helps me is changing directions between grits. I personally move the stone frequently throughout my progression, a trick that helps maintain a uniform polish is if I'm doing the perpendicular stone/diaganol scratch like in your video on a first stone, I will switch to a parallel stone/parallel scratch on the second stone, following with perp/dia third, para/para fourth, etc. Few things can be as frustrating as that one deep scratch surrounded by a beautiful polish.
A good point about switching directions, this works well with sandpaper too. Where I found that it does not always work is when progressing through naturals. Particularly if I go from Ikarashi to Tajima. At this point it does reduce scratches but also ads new ones in a different direction which makes for more work on my next stone (Aizu). I also can't always move stones as some leave a different scratch pattern depending on which end of the stone you use! I have found this to be particularly true when moving from one mid grit to another. It is less of an ordeal if moving from something like Aoto to Ohira. But I am still at the beginning stages of this so it might simply be my inconsistencies in reading the stones.

Peter, as always, nice video. I watch them all!

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:52 pm
by loco_food_guy
Great Video Peter!! And thank you for making it. some questions I have and you may have answered them in the video but I don't think I heard you talk about it. How long do you thin a blade. I understand that each knife is different so it gets subjective but for instance the knife you were thinning in the video. How long would you have actually worked on your 220 if you weren't making a video? How do you know if its been thinned enough? Do you cut with the knife once its sharpened to see how it feels. can you see the thinning? Is it done by feel or do you measure with calipers? Sorry for bombarding you with questions. Ima learnin...

Re: Thinning Video

Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2017 1:58 pm
by Peter Nowlan
Hi, sorry it took a while to get back, I was away down south. These are good questions:
As for how long. It is very important to try and visualize what you want your knife to look like when you are done, what is your goal, this is vision is what will determine the length of time you spend on your thinning and of course, your skill and what you are using to thin. So don't just go at it without some forward thinking, it will help you establish a timeline. Now that I've said that, for me, it's about 20 minutes added on to the sharpening time. I am continuously stopping the process though and checking to see how the knife, the thinning looks. I measure it by feel and by looking down the knife, holding it up at eye level with the edge up and the heel closest to my eyes. Knowing when it is thinned enough is something you will need to learn yourself by just testing it to see how the knife performs. After all, thinning is done to enhance the performance or maintain it's original performance so you can certainly check the work by using the knife. I have a tendency to be cautious and go lightly with the thinning however, after testing lots of knives since the video, I can't seem to find a point where I am doing something bad in terms of any negative effect of performance. It's really important to equalize the thinning though and I think this is an area where I could screw things up if I was not careful, i.e. thin on one side longer than the other but it's something I would not do since I'm pretty careful about that. Those are mistakes from the past and they shall remain there :)

Peter