Page 108 - American Survival Guide - October 2017

years of use. Be careful when using this
stone, however: Because it is hand held,
you do run a risk of getting cut (which will
make for a bad day and an overall horrible
sharpening experience).
When using the dog bone, we are not
going to look for the burr. With this sharp-
ener, all we are trying to accomplish is to
refine the blade’s edge ... but it can make
a world of difference. So, with knife in one
hand and dog bone in the other, we are
going to repeat the previous step of about
20 swipes on the ceramic, again following
the same angle you have already used.
It won’t hurt if you want to increase your
angle slightly; say from 22 to 20 degrees.
All we are trying to accomplish at this
point is to make the tip of the cutting
edge a little sharper. If this is done cor-
rectly, you should be able to remove leg
or arm hair with little effort and probably
slice through a piece of paper (a fairly
solid indicator of sharpness). You might
experience a snag or two, but you should
still feel very proud of your sharp knife.
If you have a belt or other piece of
leather, you might want to strop your
› Above: Man-
made and natural
stones will all
hollow out in the
center, as you can
see here on the
bottom stone. They
have to be lapped,
or smoothed out,
which takes time
away from sharp-
ening that can be
better spent using
a superior product
(let the gnashing of
teeth and screams
of agony begin!).
While the author
owns some natural
stones, they are
primarily for fin-
ishing edges, and
most are covered
with a layer of
dust—because he
simply doesn’t use
them anymore.

› Right: This is the
burr at 40x mag-
nification. Notice
that it is fairly
uniform, indicating
an effective burr.

108 AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE [OCTOBER 2017]

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