Introduction: Sharpening Jig
If you sharpen your knife you had to hold correct angle, for outdoor knives is best angle about 15-20 degrees. Because it's not easy to hold correct angle during whole sharpening without lot of practice, I built this jig for easy and exact sharpening of my knives.
This jig is constructed to sharpen at 15 angle degree, but thans to variable stop on stand, you can set another angle. 15 degree angle is set, when rod with sharpening stone and vertical rod forms 90 degree angle. If you set slider stop little bit upper, then sharpening angle will be bigger.
The whole process of making this jig you can see in video bellow.
Step 1: Base
The base is made from 3mm aluminium sheet. It's just bended about 15 degree. This sheet is very pliable, so it suffice use your hands to bend it. To check the angle you can use protractor or mobile app in your smartphone, like in screenshot.
Now we need make stand. I used piece threaded rod, because we will need make stop on this stand and if I use thread rod I can use nut like variable stop. So cut out piece of wood and attach it with aluminium base sheet with two screws. Now drill hole in center of this wood and using an epoxy attach threaded rod in it. The rod must be attached absolutly verticaly.
Step 2: Slider
To attach rod with sharpening stone to base, we need slider which will slide and rotate around stand (vertical threaded rod). This slider is made from plywood. I just used some circle drill cutter, but it needn't be circles. So I cut this circles and drilled 10 mm holes into it (my stand is M10 threaded rod). Then I drilled hole in both of this circle from side and attach them with piece of wire and glued with epoxy together.
Step 3: Knife Holder
Knife holder is made from another piece of aluminium sheet. It's rectangle about 10 x 4 cm with oval hole. So, how I made this hole. I just drilled two holes 10mm in center line and then connected it using jigsaw, then adjusted it with rasper. this holder is attached to base with bolt, so we need drill hole into base sheet.Thanks oval hole we can variable set knife according to size of knife.
Step 4: Sharpening Stone
Sharpening stone is connected to second threaded rod using two nuts. Half of this rod is grinded to clear threads to reach better sliding in slider. In end of this rod is drilled hole with nail in it to prevent to pull out of rod.
Step 5: Sharpening
Now's everything done so we can start to sharpen knives. First clamp the blade into holder, then attach sharpening stone into rod using nuts and washers. So, everything is ready but before sharpening we must check angle angle between the knife and whetstone. If base is bended at 15 degree, then rod with sharpening stone must be horizontal, if base is under 15 degree, then set up slider little bit upper, if base is more then 15 degree, then set slider lower, then check angle using protractor.