SC - Started Knife Set

[Mike C. Baker]

Quick general note to reduce future confusion: in SCA, I am best
known as "Amra" (apologies if the .sig is confusing, but I use this
account for multiple personal interests -- I'm *trying* to improve
the recognizability).

- ---Varju at aol.com <Noemi> wrote:
> << First digression: yes, I said stones.>>
> And I would assume that this means a stone only for 
> sharpening knives.  With luck I will soon own one for 
> sharpening leather awls etc., and I doubt I'd
> want to use it for knives too.  Is there a book or source 
> that lists the proper way to sharpen knives?

I have limited experience with awls, but I do seem to remember
specialty sharpening stones particularly suited for them
(carborundum pressed / molded into a form reminiscent of a
woodcarver's gouge).

For fine dressing or occasional touch-up of awls, icepicks, or
similar items that one might be concerned with "grooving" a stone's
primary surface, an old family-learned trick is to use the narrow
edge or ends of a rectangular stone.  
 
> What are the good knife manufacturers?

"It Depends". Sabatier & Dick I'd heard of before seeing the names
on this list, if that is any indicator. I can't afford them for
myself. Wilkinson can be good or bad, if you can find them and
depending upon your expectations and the age of the blade (really
old and some of the most recent Wilkinson have been given good
reports, but there were several years in the recent past -- twenty
years or less ago -- when you were about as likely to fling one
across the room as to use it for any length of time). Gerber has
mixed reviews, for reasons similar to Wilkinson. Buck is generally
solid quality. Schrade makes some decent and some not-so-good
blades, with the advantage of wide distribution and reasonable cost.
I'm very found of Queen Steel, but have yet to find them in other
than pocketknife (folding) styles. 

Maxam makes some fair blades although what I've used have one of the
most user-UN-friendly handle designs I have ever cursed at. I've
never personally cared much for Old Chicago or other brands that
leave the blade faces unpolished / deliberately roughened,
particularly for kitchen & other food-related uses. 

And if you can find a George A. Baker homemade, with riveted
aluminum scales on a full-tang blade shaped from former industrial
band hacksaw, I personally guarantee it will last a lifetime -- or
I'll replace it out of my current stock. You just have to provide me
with the remains of the original and an accounting of the conditions
under which the knife failed. (Family humor, actually: I don't
remember Grandad ever signing his work... or selling it outside of
OK-KS-TX-MO-AR. The guarantee is very, very real however...)

Brand or manufacturer is nowhere near as important as finding a
knife that fits your hand and the purpose to which you are putting
it to use. One of the advantages of wooden handles is that they will
usually wear to fit your hand better with time -- or can be
user-modified with relative ease. Similar reason some people prefer
softer steels in the blade, allowing fine-tuning by the user through
limited re-grinding.

Hope this helps.

===
Pax ... Kihe / Adieu -- Amra / TTFN -- Mike
Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard) / 
Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra (AoA in SCA, so: al-Sayyid) /
Mike C. Baker: My opinions are my own -- no one else would want them!
     F.O.B. (Friend Of Blackfox)
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8661
Alt. e-mail: KiheBard at aol.com MikeCBaker at aol.com

_____________________________________________________________________
Sent by RocketMail. Get your free e-mail at http://www.rocketmail.com

============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================