Sharpening a tanto blade

audiobliss

I'm needing to sharpen one of my pocket knives that has a tanto blade. It's my Kershaw 2415T that I've subjected to quite a bit of abuse. I've sharpened it before with a stone, just grinding away on one side of the blade, trying to keep a consistent angle. However, I've also tried using my Lansky system with it, again just sharpening one side, and the blade subsequently looks UGLY because of my various attempts.

It's actually fairly sharp and works, but it's UGLY! I want to clean it up a little bit and give it a better edge. Hopefully with what I have at hand. Any advice on how to go about it?

hockeyboy

Check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2ogZdUzSdU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9XUL0KbBNM&feature=related

audiobliss

Thanks for the links. I actually already checked out the first video. Neither really address my issues. However, maybe my issues were more of just being unsure. I jumped right in and started sharpening with the extra coarse stone from my Lanksy set. I set it at a 25* angle which apparently was a different angle than what it had on there originally - I spent about an hour grinding with that one stone.

Yeah, sounds ridiculous, but my blade, though usable, was UGLY and had quite a few dents in it. I ground down past those for the most part. I'm now moving on to the medium stone, so it is coming along.

audiobliss

Ok, so I've finally finished with it. I spent about an hour and a half sharpening it and cleaning it up the first time, and then said I was done with it. Let it sit for a day and realized I wasn't happy with it, so I started again. I spent probably about another 30 - 40 minutes grinding away with the extra coarse stone, and I'm really glad I did because it did a lot of good. I still didn't grind enough away to get out all the dents in the blade, but they're much MUCH more subtle now. Blade looks a lot better.

That doesn't mean it looks really nice, though. It's just a lot cleaner and straighter than it was, so I'm really happy with my job.

However, I was just grinding away to make it cleaner and look a bit nicer, really wasn't going for an uber-sharp edge. Apparently grinding on a blade for ~2 hours will do that, though, as it's definitely one of the sharpest knives in my collection now. Easily shaves my arm. Cuts through paper as well as any knife I've tried it with. And I actually went to the bathroom and shaved my upper lip with it a little while ago.