Sharpening a blade a very primitive ritual. A calm before a storm. The feeling of sharpening your knife before going out to hunt brown bears. Or making sure your knife is almost too sharp before packing it for camping. One of the best ways to sharpen your knife is with using a whetstone, also known as a sharpening stone.
In this guide, you’ll see how to sharpen a pocket knife with a whetstone. Now it’s not exactly rocket science to sharpen a blade… but like anything else, all knife sharpening methods are not created equal. And since we want the best possible result from the time we invest in any activity.
Let’s stay razor sharp with our most important tool shall we. Let’s go through a process that will make you think twice before handling your knife. As they say, a sharp knife is a safe knife.
How To Sharpen a Knife With A Whetstone
Step 1. Spit
Grease the stone with spit. The spit will act as grease to make the kind of surface the stone should.
If you want more of an edge, you can get a honing oil that’s high quality. Otherwise, using water is just fine.
Step 2. Get An Angle
To sharpen the edge, we need the stone to be at a good angle. Getting it on a 20-30 degree angle is ideal. Put your whetstone in a vice and wedge a couple of coins under the spine of the blade. After you get a good angle between 20-30 degrees, remove the coins. Don’t leave the coins underneath the blade as it’s easy to damage the whetstone that way.
Step 3. Get The Edge
Slide the blade across the stone in an arc-like direction. Two things to keep in mind as you’re sliding the knife.
- Use the same number of strokes on both sides of the edge.
- Apply even pressure against the stone so you won’t end up uneven.
Step 4. Slide
Continue sliding the blade in the direction of an arc until you’re as sharp as you can handle. If you’re sharpening a dull blade now or in the future, slide the blade 40 strokes to start with. On the side that’s full of fine grit, go with double or triple that number of strokes.
How To Sharpen A Knife Without a Whetstone
What if you don’t have a whetstone? Are you doomed to dull blades? Not at all. To sharpen your blade without a sharpener, check out this video by Sierra. He goes over five other ways to sharpen your knife.
Now you know how to sharpen a knife with a small whetstone so you can always stay sharp with the EDC blade you have on you. And remember, a sharp knife is a safe knife.
How long have you been using a whetstone?
