A sharp knife is easy.
All my pocket knives do that. I use diamond plates.
Normally freehand.
Japanese Kitchen knives I use a sharpener kit with Diamond plates Then Diamond and Ceramic Steels.
Just stand Tomato then press blade on it. NO slicing.
They’ll usually all slide through. Top to bottom.
It’s only practice mate.
as long as you buy 440c steel upwards.
I use a lot of 440c along with D2 for general blades.
With basically VG10 Laminates for all my Kitchen blades.
MY skills don’t call for anything better.
Apart from a coupla Aogami drool blades I bought for perving on.
Buy one of those Blade angle guides from Hocho or others.
It’ll give your arm a memory of the angle to hold for best results after a while.
Then you’ll only need it. and the sharpeners for longer blades.
You tend to drop the angle at tip end on them (longer)if you don’t concentrate.
Thanks Macka17
I have been collecting and sharpening knives for a few years now, but the sharpness level I end up with is typically arm hair popping or cutting paper vertically.
All my steels are indeed 440c or up (except for a few cheap Enlans I have just for fun). Most of my sharpened blades can create circles in paper, even white pages or telephone book paper.
What I have used so far:
whetstones large, freehand
self-made Wicked Edge clone (oil/whetstone)
Lansky
Lansky clone (better IMO)
1K compound
3K compound
6-10K diamond sprays
they can slice tomatoes top to bottom, but not horizontally (no hand holding tomato)
I stoned mine. water. and oil soaked round axe stone for 50 yrs.
My knives are sharp (even then.) When you can peel a layer of skin off the soft sides of your finger tips.
That included my Puma Prince. Hunters Pal, and Saw blade skinners.
I also taper my cutting edge on working blades.
Tip to 2\3rds down blade I taper angle from around 10\12deg to 20ish. angling out to around 30deg at back 1\3rd to1\4 of cutting edge, for stronger rear working edge without chipping.
Plus had/have a 6in 600grit Diamond steel in belt with a 3in (Oil soaked) Fine. Round Axe stone for touching up in field.
We’d often skin\Dress up to 30 foxes. 20 to 50 rabbits and a goat or two on a night hunt, walking the hills.
When fox were worth money.
Prince and skinner did all night with just a wipe on steel usually.
Roo’s we left. Stinking worm riddled things. or an ear when culling.
Gocomma is a brand and they order products from various OEMs. Some of their knives are clearly manufactured by Sanrenmu.
I would guess they use a variety of knife OEMs. The mall ninja crap above does not look like it was made by SRM.
420 steel. Looks fine, but don’t count too much on a decent edge for long.
Rockwell 50 is fairly soft for blade steel.
I don’t touch anything less than 57/58 for cutting edges.
OK for a utility pocket knife though.
Problem is that nowadays, all these “surplus” joints just sell mil-style new crap.
I got this nice cotton “army shirt” (damn, forgot what they’re called… the shirt equivalent of cargo-pants) that just ain’t made anymore. My washer did a number on it, started ripping at the seams from the propeller, and any more washes and it’d probably come out in pieces. New crap is poly-blend, not cotton. Hell if I can even find any all-cotton ones anymore.
Damn, way back, you could to pick up a pair of army boots and who knows, find part of a blowed-off toe inside or something. Now? Might as well just order some boots from REI or somewhere.
Just for s&g, I was looking for… think it’s Swiss camo: white, black, and red, made to look like fall foliage in snow or something. That pattern was tres kewl. Surplus? Yah, you could pick up one, probably. Now? Forget it.
Ah, just goggled it. Swiss Alpenflage. Dunno any authentic… probably made in China nowadays.
Yeah, the real stuff is hard to find now a days on the open market. Like you said, much of it is cheap knockoff stuff. . Certainly not what you could easily get 30 years ago.
I’ll ask around & see if anyone I know has an original SOG they want to part with… or knows of one. Don’t hold your breath though. But I’ll PM you if I locate one.