Club Obi Wan

Here's my second try. It took a little longer due to other things going on these days.
Here's a comparison with the first whip I made last month.

I decided to go a little weird on the last five inches on the handle; using two different types and colors of leather.

Question time: How do you keep your knives sharp? I read in one of my books about a piece of leather rubbed down with, "Jeweler's Rogue??" What do y'all use? Having to clamp my knife into the Lansky vice for sharpening after cutting every 2nd strip cut is getting to be a pain.

I'm at work now and will get more questions on this thread when I get less busy.

I use straight razors to cut my strands. I find them easy to sharpen and hold, though they're sort of an expensive choice. I got lucky once and got a straight razor for $3, and the only thing wrong with it was it had a little rust.

To sharpen them, first I use a fine stone, and then I use baby powder on a strip leather and drag the edge across the leather. Make sure the baby powder is made from talc and not corn starch. The talcum powder acts as a fine abrasive (and it gives your knives a fresh, dry feeling ).

If you have to sharpen your knife a lot, it's either the leather is really tough or the steel in your blade isn't that good. Though, I'll usually sharpen a razor once while cutting out an overlay, and again while paring the strands.

-Adam, www.winrichwhips.com

MMmmm! Talcum powder, eh? I'll have to make a quick stop on the way home from work today.
Have you ever heard of this, "Jeweler's Rogue," though?

BTW, Whaddya think of my newest addition? It's a bit dirty because I did almost all the work here at the brewery -my hands weren't exactly clean. Plus (again) I used cheap stuff to make it. DEFINATELY going for the eight inch nail next time around; the last two have 12-inch nails in the handles.
The main knife I'm using is my old Boatswain's knife:
http://www.myerchin.com/Resources/B30075large
I've had it for years and have never had a problem with it's edge -until cutting leather. It's gone through tons of synthetic nylon, Kevlar, and all sorts of rigging lines.

I've heard of jewler's rouge, and when I had some it came in a block. You took the block, turned on your electric buffer, and rubbed the stuff into the polishing wheel.

With baby powder you just have to put a dusting of the stuff on a smooth rectangle of leather and go, without using that power tools that you'd need with jewler's rouge.

You second whip certainly has a lot of character

Yeah, a 12" spike is pretty big. An 8 or 10 inch spike would probably be better.

for a different knife that might cut better, you might consider buying a craft knife with replaceable blades.

Peace out,

A-town, www.winrichwhips.com

Randall, I use a tri hone system of stones to sharpen my knife blades, Aluminum oxide stone for re edging, then a medium or fine Arkansas stone with oil to put the final honed and polished edge. I have to admit though I don’t cut much leather lace. (least not yet, however; I am making a new years resolution to build a stock whip) I have heard that some like to use the disposable snap blade razors when cutting lace, that way when it dulls, you can just break it off and keep at it with a fresh edge.

Nice creativity, keep it up.

Dan

Hi Randall,

I buy the hobby blades at the larger home chain stores. Their the ones with the snap off points, and have about 10+places to snap of a piece so you get a new sharp, point. I hate sharpening knives, and think it's a bit of a waste of time to do so, when I can use these. The blades are about $1 each, and I use one blade up per whip (at a fast pace).

Best Regards,

Paul Stenhouse

Update:

Well, these last four days off were knife sharpening research days. I dug everywhere on this subject and found someone on a forum who claimed to be able to hold a long single strand of hair with one hand and cut it with a knife with a single swipe. It's a very interesting read and I'll have to give it a try. Here's a link to the thread:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... p?t=222864
Here's how he did it:
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I got the knife to regular shaving sharp using a combo of Lansky and Gatco systems. I like the Lansky stones, but prefer the Gatco guide clip and stand. Besides, Lansky has an Ultra Coarse Diamond stone which shortens the work.

UCD stone until wire edge. Turn. Other side takes less time. Wire edge. Turn.
Medium Diamond stone: Repeat
Fine non-diamond stone: Repeat
Ultra Fine non-diamond stone: Repeat twice polishing ALL cut marks from the bevel until it's smooth and uniform.

I got a nice strop off KnifeCenter that's rough on one side and smooth as a baby's butt on the other. I went to Sears and bought polishing compound from the tool department where the buffing wheels. They look like gold inguts. I got a White one and a Red one. I rubbed the conditioner I got with the strop into the coarse side really well. I used quite a bit. The smooth side had already been done. I scrubbed it in with a clean toothbrush. Next, on the coarse side I rubbed the heck out of it with the white brick using it like a crayon. Then I scrubbed it in real well with a freshly-cleaned toothbrush. Repeat. Scrub. Repeat. Scrub. The smooth side had already been done with Red, but I did it again. I used so much that it tended to build up on the surface in a few places. It didn't seem to matter. Scrub with freshly-cleaned toothbrush. I stropped a few of my cheaper knives quickly on both sides to get the compound worked in.

I renewed the compound crayon-style on both sides a little, but didn't scrub it in this time. I took the D-2 Benchmade that I'd already sharpened to shaving sharp and started to strop on the White/Rough side.
I strop SLOWLY! Being very careful to keep the angle. I hold the spine off the strop only about 1/8 inch. I also ONLY work parallel to the sides of the strop. I don't draw the knife sideways off the side of the strop where the edge is rough. I don't use a sideways motion at all. I just move vertically and that's all. I will reposition to focus on different areas of the blade. I use about the weight of my arm on the stroke and hold the strop very tightly so it bows very little during the process. It took me about 50 strokes on each side.
Next I switched to the smooth/red side. I used the same technique except I was more gentle, pressing more lightly, and did this about 15 strokes each side.

That's it. I can cut a hanging hair repeatedly with it.
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I have a Lansky Diamond system with the Saphire polishing stone, and I made a large strop, but I'm going to make a smaller strop this evening at work. I also bought a new Buck knife with three different blades.

I got two more smaller nails for my next whips. I'm going to start on whip #3 using the eight inch and if it doesn't look right, I'll use the 10-inch one for my 4th. I still have plenty of leather and hope to have the first whip finished in a week -unless something comes up, which is common. I'll be sticking with the 10-foot 12-plait until I get brave enough to go higher (And my knives get sharper).

Hey Randall, very detailed account on knife sharpening, I enjoyed it! I'm kinda knife crazy myself, and think that system would be gr8 on hunting knives, collector's knives, and any everyday pocket knife. But on cutting strands, I agree w/ Mr. Stenhouse~ somewhat of a waste of time sharpening blades. The snap-off blades work gr8, and cheap to boot.

Steve.

A scalpel with a #11 blade works great for cutting and skiving. You can buy the blades for around $12.00/box of 100. I usually hit them a couple licks on the buffing whell to get them really sharp, and then as needed depending on how much I've been cutting. After a ferw times, throw them away and get another one. They work well fro cutting sets and for skiving.

Jerry R

Well, I'm putting off the next project for a bit. I'm making a leather bag for all my tools for whipmaking. I GOTTA organize all this @#$%! Carrying around five plastic grocery bags full of scraps, tools, books, scraps, Pecards, etc. is getting to be a real pain when I get to and from work. I'm just one of those people who's paranoid that I'll forget something -so I take it all.