Knives!!!!

[havalotta]

If you need a handle put onto a blade bring the blade to a sportsmans or gun show. There are many skilled knife makers at shows as such.

Myself I use the Rada knives for paring and picking mushrooms, One of the "Older-Better" Chicago cutlery chef knives for chopping
(OR a food processor if in need of a lot of chopped goods) A really thin serrated, double pointed end one for cutting tomatoes or pricking things out of olive jars. A flexible filet knife OR the "long" thin rada knife for skinning fish. A heavy folding knife for all types of game use. A pocket knife for slicing apples, cheese whatever while in travel.

I do NOT like a "one sided bevel" on the blade...It pulls and veers every cut you make off to the side.

Now if you want a knife for hard use (or wood carving ) that's sharp, strong, bladed, easy to sharpen. A single-side or "chisel grind" blade is best.

Various types of knife edges. Knife Edge Grind Types

[hazelnut]

Chisel With Urasuki - Urasuki is traditionally found on Japanese single beveled knives. Back side of the blade is concave to reduce the drag during cutting.

Havalotta. It is interesting that Japanese blades with urasuki (back groove) are made to reduce the kind of blade behavior you mention in your post.

i have turned into a collector of old bladed tools--scythes, knives, hoes, shovels.

As an archeologist, the first thing you do to go to work is to sharpen your shovel and trowel to go to work for the day--as the office worker might sharpen his pencils.

And there is nothing more irritating than to have someone borrow your shovel and sharpen the back of it. A digging shovel has a chisel edge, not a knife edge.

So the chart you show here applies generally to bladed tools, not only kitchen knives.

thanks for the link.

[havalotta]

Yes I noticed that about the Japanese blades but THOSE are made proper with the back groove and I believe it's all in the handling and angle you hold them that gives you the proper results.

How does one go about sharpening a shovel? Mine's horrible!!!!

[River]

Buck 110 Ecolite Overview - YouTube

Here is a link to a video on the Buck 110 Ecolite, a knife I bought for myself with some Christmas money. It is more of an outdoor orientated knife, or useful for chores around the house when you do not want to dull a kitchen knife. The handle is made form Paper Stone, which is...

PaperStone® is a sustainable composite made from 100% post-consumer recycled paper and PetroFree™ non-petroleum based phenolic resins. PaperStone® is VOC-free, including formaldehyde, and emits no radon gases, the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States....PaperStone® is one of the few architectural solid surface material certified by the Smartwood program of the Rainforest Alliance to FSC standards for using 100% post-consumer recycled paper.(From company website.

Anyway, I really like mine! Buck also makes great blades with one of the best cost to performance ratios out there.

[hazelnut]

Havalotta. How To Sharpen a Shovel.

[Note: in the Southeast we cut off about 20 cm of a point nosed shovel so we can dig a flat surface.]

Never sharpen the back side of a shovel.

Lay the shovel flat and and place it so the cutting edge is away from you
--step on the metal collar of the shovel where it is attached to the wooden handle.

Take a bastard file (I don't know why they call it that), and file the edge at an angle away from you in long strokes. You can also kneel in front of the blade and file toward the body of the blade, but if you do this you can get a really bad cut, or even nearly sever your thumb. So, I prefer to kneel behind the edge of the blade, its clumsy but safer. I think the angle you use about a 30 degree angle.

If you use your shovel every day It will not rust. But after a rain, I keep a spray bottle of canola oil in my tool box and spray a coat of oil onto the blade. (I don't recommend eating canola oil, but it is a good tool oil.).

To keep the blade super sharp without refiling it--which will really wear down the blade, you can use a sharpening stone in the same way that you used the file.

[havalotta]

We've a bunch of files in the cabinet but how do I know if it's a bastard or not? Does it matter?

[hazelnut]

Here is the squidoo definition:

Bastard File

It has broad diagonal cutting lines on the surface. There is a tang which is sometimes hafted into a wooden handle.

Here is a sharpening stone for scythes but it would keep all of your other gardening blades sharp, too.

http://www.amleo.com/scythe-stone/p/192S/

[liquidambar]

Havalotta and Hazelnut I had my laugh of the day!

Who knew!

[hazelnut]

How do you know if its a bastard file? I did NOT say, 'Does it have a Daddy?'

[Staff]

Sharpening: How to Sharpen a Shovel
The Family Handyman

Sharpening: How to Sharpen a Shovel | The Family Handyman
excerpt from above:

Sharpen your shovel or spade and make digging easier. You can do it in 10 minutes…