Knife porn thread

Has anyone got experience of the Horl sharpening system?

https://www.horl.com/gb/en/sharpeners

Nope, but that looks cool.

I've got one recently not used it yet! Will report back

I like it. It looks like it relies on your knife having a magnetic blade.
One of mine does, the other, not so much.

I might be wrong but I'm not sure it does. I think you just hold the knife against the angled block don't you? I'm also interested in hearing how well it actually works. My partner has shown me a few videos of it seemingly getting very good results but it's hard to tell how much of it is marketing bollocks. It seems like a good idea for the casual knife sharpener (myself included) on paper though.

It looks like it would be great for refreshing the edge quickly because there is no setup time.

There is mention of magnets in the blurb somewhere which combined with some sort of rubbery surface makes it pretty solid. Without the magnets presumably you are going to struggle to hold the block and the knife stable with one hand while rolling the sharpener thing with the other hand.

No experience of it but does look good. Interested in what folks think about the angle though, 15% as the fine edge setting when I believe globals for example are much less than that???

Am probably going to resist the black edition Horl set up - the box it comes in is almost half the price!

https://www.horl.com/gb/en/specials/limited-edition-black

But am tempted to buy the Horl 2, the premium sharpness kit and the stands to keep it all nice and tidy and to keep the discs safe from getting chipped.

Ah I missed that!

Ha!

I misread the posts and thought this was specifically for sharpening hori hori knives and couldn't believe lfgss.com had reached this level.

I'll be very interested to hear your thoughts James.

There's a first time for everything! Worry not, try stopping him. OK, ok, I admit I'm interested too.

There's a first time for everything

It did occur to me.

Sorry James..Kisses.

I already use a bench grinder with mdf discs one with silicon carbide grit, the other with a polishing compound for sharpening bog standard knives (eg sebatier). It is great and super quick and easy and gives me shaving sharp blades in seconds. But it is not so good on harder steels (eg a couple of pocket knives) and I wouldn’t want to use it on hard steel Japanese blades. It means I don’t give a fuck about dishwashing the standard kitchen knives as it takes 15 minutes 3 times a year to keep them all super bastard sharp.

I have a couple of whetstones but it appears to take ages and technique is not dialled. So I wouldn’t use it on fancy knives. The Horl system appears to be good but on Reddit sharpening threads the utter knife geeks claim they can all do better with a whetstone. I have too many areas of nerdy specialism (food, coffee, cycling, yoga etc) and spending time learning a skill when it appears there is a tool that can achieve a very good but not perfect result seems more than acceptable to me. I have yet to see anyone say they made their knives worse using the Horl system, but know lots of people who have rounded blades by using whetstones badly.

I can now justify the Horl purchase as a research project for the benefit of my fixeh friends.

If you've got the cash I say give it a go, I like the look of the Horl thing. Personally I just use a whetstone which I think a lot of people over complicate. You just need to find the angle of the blade, hold at 45 degrees and swipe forward and back. You can feel if the blade catches and do the very tip separately. It's a 10 min job once every few months. My knives won't slice the top 3 atoms off a tomato but they'll go through it with very minimal force.

I can vouch for the Horl 2 sharpener, my daughters bought one for me for Fathers Day.

I love it because it is quick and easy to use and looks decent enough to leave out where it is easy to grab. I have used the Lansky sharpening kit previously and whilst it is brilliant to use it takes time to set up, not much but not quick enough to just quickly get an edge back.

The Horl magnets hold the blade firm enough, longer blades may need a finger towards the end to support it but not difficult, I sharpened two of my knives to the 15 degree angle and the other rough & ready blades to the 20 degree angle.

I had a go on a really blunt knife and that took around fifteen to twenty minutes to get a decent edge back, the others were not bad and only took between a few & several minutes.

my daughters bought one for me for Fathers Day.

Banging gift that.

Must be the result of top quality parenting, I'd reckon.

Well done you.

Have you thought about a 2nd angled block for the long blades?

Thanks for the review. Will be hitting the buy button tonight.

I was thinking of making another wooden block to go along side it, for that reason.

Ha, ha cheers, not the pro version and divided by four :D plus the son in law is into woodwork and making knives made me a wooden strop with inlayed leather :)

Knife antiporn.
Just found this at the bottom of an old rucksack, not seen since my farming apprenticeship about 16yrs ago. Probably got it originally when I was in the Cubs as a nipper.
Don’t remember butchering the handle but I was drunk through most of my apprenticeship.
2 mins on a 45micron has got it pretty stabby again.
Will use, absuse and probably lose it on the allotment.

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It's pronounced patina :)

Maybe put an orange lanyard on it. I always find that things blend into the garden.... which is why my main utility knife is orange.

Or do the white and red paint thing - which would be quite cool on a opinel.

Actually, if I want to paint my handle red/white, what's the best paint?

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What is the forum recommended knife for general bike packing stuff? After something small and ideally legal to carry in the UK.

There're a few usual suspects, opinel etc but just to highlight the boker plus atlas, bargain imo:

https://heinnie.com/boker-plus-atlas-sw/

@edmundro's Opinel, see above! Not strictly legal, particularly in larger sizes, but the perfect all-round knife. I have had one in my pocket for many, many years and never been stopped. It's extremely unlikely that the paramilitary plod will descend on you whilst on a bikepacking expedition. Even if they did, you have every justification for carrying it.