Randall Knife Useful Tips - Sharpening your Randall Knife

5) Sharpening your Randall Knife

The sharppening stone supplied with your Randall Knife is not intended for routine sharpening of the knife blade. A much larger whetstone is required to properly sharpen your Randall Knife. Use a stone atleast 6" x 2" to properly hone the edge. Use a soft Arkansas, fine daimond, or fine India stone to maintain a keen edge on your knife. A medium or coarse stone should only be used when an edge has been allowed to lose the original beveled edge and needs extensive work to restore the proper bevel. Practice your sharpening skills on a kitchen knife and use a magnifying glass to see how well your sharpening strokes are matching the bevel of the blade.

Apply a light coat of machine oil or honing oil to the stone surface.
Lay the knife blade flat against the stone with the length of the knife positioned about 45 degrees to the length of the stone.
Tilt the knife keeping the cutting edge against the stone so that the blade makes a 20 degree angle to the stone. This is the bevel angle that creates the sharpened edge. The sharpest edge comes from carefully maintaining this angle throughout the motion of the blade across the stone surface.
Move the edge across the stone from hilt to tip sweeping the blade in the direction of the edge.

Randall knife Model 25-6 Sharpening Direction

Turn the blade over and sweep the edge across the stone using the same conssitent angle of bevel and sweep as used on the first side.

After several strokes against the stone on each side, gradually reduce pressure against the stone as you begin to restore the sharpened edge.
Develop your technique for maintaining a precise bevel angle as you sweep the edge across the stone by checking the edge for improved sharpness about every other stroke as you get the edge closer and closer to a final sharpened edge.
Clean the blade after sharpening to remove metal shavings, stone grit and honing oil.

If you have trouble holding the angle conssitently as you sweep the edge across the stone, consider using a jig to control the angle. Smith's EZ Sharp is a sharpening aid that will help maintain the stone at the proper angle to accurately hone your knife blade.

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