Sharpening Your Hunting Knife - Outdoors - Hunting

There are many different ways to sharpen a knife and everyone has their own personal preference. But did you know that there many mistakes made when people actually sharpen their knives. We're going to cover some of the mistakes and things to pay attention to when sharpening your knives.

One of the most common mistakes made when people sharpen their knives are uncontrolled bevel angles. And basically failure to establish a new edge and this ends up leaving the final bevel very rough and in bad shape.

What you're going to want to do is pick an angle to sharpen your knife. Most people don't know this but if you already know at what angle your knife is sharpened at, then you'll want to sharpen your knife at that angle again. If you happen to not know it might be a good idea to ask the manufacturer of the knife which angle is best and most appropriate for your knife. In any case you'll need to decide which angle is best. Once you decide which angle you're going to sharpen choose an angle of 10-30 degrees per side. Try not to make shallow angles. This makes the knife sharper but the sharpness doesn't last very long. I would choose a more steep angle of around 17 degrees. This angle will last longer and is more durable in the long run. It's also a good idea to find a sharpener that has a guide mechanism, this will help the sharpening process.

To make sure your knife has a symmetrical edge, make sure you sharpen the knife by dragging it across the stone or sharpener in the exact opposite direction that you would if you were going to slice off a thin layer of the stone. What this does is it forms a burr and makes the stone last longer.

Now what you'll want to do is continue grinding at the same angle until your grind is about at the half-way mark of the blade. Also when choosing an oil for your stone, make sure to check with your manufacturer. The wrong oil can damage your blade and if you have an expensive knife this can be a costly mistake and not one that you want to make.

Next what you'll want to do is flip the knife over and sharpen the other side until you create a new edge. A good way to check to see of you're doing a good job is to check to see if you've raised a burr. One way to check this is a famous way and that involves dragging the blade across your thumbnail and see if it catches or scrapes.

Then just go ahead and flip the knife over and repeat the process. After that and this next step is up to you but try using another stone to sharpen your knife with and a dry, finer stone if you can and just repeat the steps above.

These are just some basic and useful ideas to help you when you sharpen your knives. Nowadays there are some very sophisticated ways and machines to sharpen your knives with. However when you're in the mountains hunting and you have a big bull elk on the ground and you have to pack him out, all you're going to want to have is a simple sharpener that doesn't weigh a lot.

I hope this article helps you out and gives you some tips for sharpening your knives.

Take care and good hunting.

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