Reclaiming a drawknife
Jeremy Osner
>Many moons ago (IIRC it was at last year's CRAFTS auction tailgate), I bought a very pretty drawknife in atrocious condition from somebody's junk bin, thinking I would reclaim it someday. Today I made a first pass at it, with mixed results.
The tool is very light weight -- the blade is no more than 1/2" from edge to back and quite thin, and has lovely handles that look kind of like the ones on the Ashley Iles palm tools. The only way I was going to get the bevel onto the grinding wheel, would be to take off the handles, which I didn't really want to do, so I figured I would try to get the rust off the bevel with stones. I poked through my slipstones (picked up cheap at another tailgate in anticipation of the day I learn to sharpen my gouges) and found a set of 3 small rectangular stones marked Coarse India, Medium India and Fine India. (Anyone know what make the stones are? The logo on them is a bear's head.)
So I held one handle of the knife in my left hand, pressed the other handle against my chest, and went up and down the bevel scrubbing it like using a toothbrush. After a couple of passes with the coarse stone I could see metal. I did the same on the back, passed through all the grits and then I used the edge of my Arkansas stone as I have not got a slipstone.
How'd it come out? Well it is not as sharp as I'd like, though it will at least cut wood. The edge is not real even -- it was hard to pay attention to keeping the stones at the same angle, working the way I was. I think I need to figure out a way to hold the blade in a vise, and try it again.