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The Razor Edge Book of Sharpening (1985) [pdf]

by daverol on 10/14/23, 10:50 AM with 48 comments

• by baaaaaah on 10/14/23, 3:02 PM

  I happen to own a paper copy of this book, and as usual for sharpening books, they throw in a chapter on axes as an afterthought. Sharpening an ax is different enough from most other sharpening that you should get a specialized text for it. It's not that difficult or terribly specialized, but knife sharpeners always seem to want to apply the ideas of knife sharpening to axes, which isn't quite right all the time.

  Two books I recommend for axes are "One Moving Part", the USFS ax manual, probably the best (only?) work that they ever did:

  https://www.fs.usda.gov/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf18232812P/1823-2...

  And "The Ax Book" by Dudley Cook, which you'll have to buy a paper copy of. (I don't suggest you round the corners of your axes as he suggests though)

  The old USFS ax manual, "An Ax to Grind", even had a companion video which you can find on youtube, though if you're new to sharpening the instructions could be more clear IMO:

  https://archive.org/details/an-ax-to-grind

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=22tBYD-HMtA

• by downut on 10/14/23, 6:51 PM

  I have been sharpening my own knives and tools for 45 years, and have been doing it in the same way since I was in my teens and my dad and I read some article (in Popular Science, maybe?) which Just Worked. My dad was a bit more patient than I have ever been and his edges always shaved hairs, dry. My edges are still quite good though.

  Anyway Ima procrastinating today and saw this HN item and hesitated, oh no, have I been doing something wrong all these years? So in the spirit of never stop learning I bit the bullet and read it.

  I didn't have to read far though. First came the don't use oil bit and then next the relief and the burr, and nope! Hooray, whatever we read back in the day was the equivalent of this. Maybe it was the same people, I remember a folksy tone.

  The sad thing is in all those years none of the people of my acquaintance, with the exception of my daughter, have ever had any interest in sharpening/maintaining their knives, and if they do anything (most don't), it's an electric sharpener. I've passed through some home kitchen horror shows, and now if I know I'm going to be cooking in somebody else's kitchen, I bring my own knives, even internationally. Mandatory for AirBnBs. I remember reading up on packing a set of knives on a Thalys train and reading some worrying restrictions. But decided, well WTF to chefs do in France? I didn't get hassled, maybe I was lucky.

  Anyway, even though I don't think I've ever converted anyone, I always encourage people to learn to sharpen/maintain their knives. I will usually haul a big DMT hone along with me on trips to home kitchens and do a quick repair job on the host's knives. Weirdly, quite a few people are very wary of sharp knives! Dull knives are what terrifies me...

• by btbuildem on 10/14/23, 2:51 PM

  Years ago, when I lived in Seattle, I remember meeting an old Japanese blacksmith. I found him when I was looking to buy some of the pull-style hand saws, but when I met him to pick up the wares, it turned into a bit of a social call.

  He must've been around 80 or so, lived by himself in a house that was half home half workshop. Got into talking about saws and chisels and blades and sharpening, complete with a Mr.Miyagi-esque riddle of "what does it mean to cut something?"

  I walked out of there having learned how to quickly and effectively sharpen a blade -- hold a steady angle consistent with the rough grind of the edge, push into the grain of the stone, and remove the burr. Seeing that in this book brought this memory back :)

• by SloopJon on 10/14/23, 3:05 PM

  The metadata says this was digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016. There is a better scan of a better copy of the book at the Internet Archive's library:

  https://archive.org/embed/razoredgebookofs0000jura

  I don't know whether the book is still in print, but it's in stock at Amazon:

  https://www.amazon.com/Razor-Edge-Book-Sharpening/dp/0966605...

• by lcuff on 10/14/23, 2:53 PM

  I bought this book years ago, and found the information interesting and useful. But it's also a shill for their products. Annoyingly, I found the home jig for knives and chisels extremely fiddly. You have to adjust 4 separate set screws (allen screws) to install the jig (mount it on a knife or chisel), and you have to do it twice: once for the coarse stone and one for the fine stone. I eventually switched to EdgePro equipment for kitchen knives, and I use a Veritas system jig with an 'ordinary' diamond stone for chisels and plane blades in the shop.

• by bravoetch on 10/15/23, 1:59 AM

  https://scienceofsharp.com/ is a great contemporary source for how to sharpen stuff, and what that actually means under a microscope.

• by m_herrlich on 10/14/23, 3:04 PM

  I love this. It's a book about craftsmanship and the philosophy of excellence and knife sharpening is almost incidental (it takes a while to find the part that actually says how to sharpen stuff).

  This kind of trade craftsmanship is rare these days but the lessons apply to any kind of productive pursuit.

• by blindriver on 10/15/23, 12:08 AM

  I have a Japanese whetstone and I've been practicing sharpening my knives and watching Youtube videos and I'm still terrible. It's a source of frustration because I'll watching butcher TikTok videos and the way they can slice through meat makes me extremely envious.

  Any good Youtube videos in particular that can help me with this, as well as maintaining the sharpness for a long time?

• by tacticaldev on 10/14/23, 1:24 PM

  Not a bad read. Looks like it's got a lot of technique(s) and basics. Could probably use some updates on materials and tooling for higher end (modern/powder metallurgical) steels.

  Knowing how to sharpen your tools is something just about everyone should learn. Almost all of us have at least a kitchen knofe that needs attention.

• by johndhi on 10/14/23, 7:05 PM

  These are the methods I'm aware of:

  -randomly swipe that long skinny thing that's in the knife block along a chef's knife, perhaps aiming for 45 degree angle -as a kid my dad had something I think he called a whet stone. He'd put 3-in-1 oil on it and we'd carefully swipe the blade against the stone.

  Either of these right?