Sharpening Tip:

I use a cheap 1x30" Harbor Freight belt sander, starting medium and working down to strop like most everyone else...

The difference.. is a neat trick to thin the edge, at just the place it needs to be... on a fat blade, the belts will often leave too obtuse of an edge for my tastes and to thin it out, this method works wonderfully.

I wear a thick/heavy leather glove, and apply pressure to the backing of the belt. That is it. Sometimes using the seams of the glove, sometimes using the smother rounds over the fingers.. etc. You can play with where to pressure and how, and have various edge results.

A series of colds had me floored and in lock down for a month, and I have been playing with various techniques with my spurts of wellness.. and am amazed how hair splitting sharp I got my AK with this method.

play at your own peril.

I will have to give that a try. Thanks for the tip.

yeah, i have the same saner and sometimes do the same thing. sometimes i reinstall the metal angle that backs the belts on the sander for a flat grind. also play with the tension.

Good tip, Ironballs. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I rarely wear a glove when I use my belt sander because I always afraid of the glove getting caught in the belt, but then again I'm using a 2 x 72 with a 1 HP motor. I do occasionally sand notches in my fingernails though by accident. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif" alt="" />

I will have to try that with my smaller 1 x 42. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Most of you have probably seen this, but here it is one more time...

Knife sharpening

I don't have one. I would like to. One of the things I worry about is overheating the knife.

Cool video. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

As far as heating the blade... I keep a bucket of water and rag handy all the time and I dip the blade often.

I've followed Jerry Hossom's advice on sharpening via belt sander and have gotten excellent results in a short time.. and I'm getting better with more practice. For anything except the leather I use the slack part of the belt. Don't forget to cool the blade by immersing in water between each stroke. As you get better you may not need to cool it after each pass on the belt but it's good practice anyway. Here's the link to Jerry's tutorial: http://tinyurl.com/293nmo or
http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/776367/tp/1/