Sharpening Scandinavian Knives

These knives are exceptionally easy to sharpen freehand. The wide bevel is simply laid flat to the stone when sharpening. You want to remove metal from the entire width of the bevel to preserve the correct angle. You are removing more metal this way, but it doesn't really take a lot longer because you can bear down harder without fear of losing the correct angle. Because the angle is preserved through successive sharpenings, you, your son, and grandson, will never have to regrind the blade to restore the profile!

It's best to be sure your stones are really flat. After using them a while, they tend to wear in the center, and become saddle shaped. Stones can be flattened by working two similar stones together, by working them on a sheet of abrasive paper laid on plate glass, or with a special ceramic flattening plate and paste used in Japan. Or you can just use diamond plates instread of stones. Diamond plates cut faster and stay flat. They are used with water rather than messy oil, and can even be used dry in a pinch. I've had a thin diamond plate, about the size of a credit card, in my wallet for years. I've backed it with a scrap of worn 9-micron abrasive film for a strop. It's all I really need to maintain my knives indefinitely.

An alternative to whetstones or diamond plates is abrasive paper. You can use successively finer grades of paper on a hard. flat surface with excellent results. The larger surfaces can be handy when sharpening chisels or other tools. Paper is flexible, so you can wrap it around a dowel to do inside curves on spoon knives, or cup it in a magazine to do outside curves on chisels. Papers come in a wide range of grits. 325 is good for taking out nicks, 600 for edges, and 1000 or 1200 for very fine edges. The paper has to be replaced frequently, and isn’t really handy for field use. But it’s an inexpensive way to get started, or to add grits you don’t use very often.

To sharpen, press the bevel flat to the stone and work the entire edge. In the beginning, I don't think it matters what type of motion you use, as long as you keep the bevel flat. Work it until you can feel a slight burr when you run your finger tip off the edge on the other side. You want this all along the edge. When you have established a burr along the entire length of the edge, turn the knife over and repeat on the other side. When you can feel the burr all along the first side, you've established the edge. Now you want to remove the burr. Stroke the blade lightly over the stone as if you were taking slices off the surface. At this point you want to move in one direction only, edge first, as if you were cutting the stone. Keep the bevel flat. Switch from side to side, moving the burr back and forth, until it's honed away. Moving the blade diagonally gives the effect of a slightly finer stone. Finish on a strop. If your blade is very dull, or badly nicked, you might want to start with a medium, or even coarse, stone to remove the nicks. Then move to the fine stone. Depending on your use, you may want to repeat with successively finer grades of stones or diamond plates. For fine wood carving you can go down to a mirror finish, but this is overkill for most purposes.

This applies to knives used for woodcarving or other work requiring the finest possible edge. For general use many folks like to strengthen the edge with a micro bevel. Just lift the blade very slightly on your finest stone, and take a few light strokes to establish a small secondary bevel. A better way to do this is to use a super fine abrasive paper (7 or 15 micron, or about 1200 grit) on a semi-soft surface like a magazine or newspaper. This is really just an aggressive strop, and blends the micro bevel smoothly into the primary bevel. You can also use a razor strop if you have one.

The book "Swedish Carving Techniques" by Wille Sundqvist has a good section on this style of blade and sharpening. It's a good book and worth having. It's been out of print, but I recently got a new supply.

I avoid using power grinders on these knives. It's really easy to overheat the thin edge, and ruin the temper. It's really hard to keep the bevel truly flat. With the fast cutting diamond plates, it's easier to do it by hand. There's also a satisfaction in sharpening by hand you don't get with power equipment. I find it a pleasant way to relax.

Reestablishing a Scandinavian Grind

Occasionally I find knives that have been sharpened incorrectly, and the Scandinavian grind has been lost. It’s possible to reestablish it with a little work and minimal equipment. It’s possible to do it with stones, but quite difficult. Diamond plates make it much easier. Moving the knife across the stone in the normal fashion causes drag, which makes it difficult to maintain a consistent angle without a flat bevel to follow. Moving the knife parallel in relation to the edge eliminates the tendency of the drag to rock the edge. If you do this with a stone it quickly wears a groove in the stone, which needs to be removed. Diamond plates stay flat and don’t form a groove. This makes the whole process much easier. I like to start with a larger diamond plate fixed to a bench. I apply pressure and move the knife forward and back in a stabbing motion. This establishes the straight cutting edge. Then I go to a smaller diamond plate and move the plate along the curve to the tip of the blade, continuing the bevel from the straight portion of the blade. At this point I reverse the procedure and apply the plate to the blade. I hold the knife in my left hand (I'm right handed), apply the plate to upper bevel which is facing me, and slide the plate back and forth parallel to the length of the blade. This allows me to see the material coming off the blade. I start with the coarsest, most aggressive plates available. When the new bevel is established, I smooth it with progressively finer plates.

These sharpening methods apply only to the Scandinavian grind knives. The other grinds require different methods to maintain the correct angle. There are many other web pages devoted to them, and I'm not going to repeat it all here. A quick Google search just netted over two million web pages with content on "knife sharpening". One of the best I looked at was Knife Maintenance and Sharpening, by Chad Ward. It's a primer focused on kitchen knives, but applies to field knives as well. Some of the other grinds perform very well indeed, and may be better for specific purposes. The Scandi grind is optimised for woodworking.


I never got around to adding images. Now there are so many YouTube videos on the subject it no longer seems worth the effort. Here's two good ones:
Mora knife field sharpening from Ben's Backwoods. This is pretty much the way I do it, although Ben prefers different tools.
And:
How to sharpen a knife at camp, from Ray Mears. The ultimate edge for those who are a bit more meticulous.

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