Knife sharpening with Bob Kramer

Make sure to check out the Bob Kramer sharpening equipment at SLT before deciding on the class, one way or the other.  

BDL

Awwww nothing in the midwest!!!  ARGH!!!!  I'd love to go to this class.  It'd easily be wroth $200 or whatever they charge for the class.

Nothing against Kramer, but he's selling (vastly overpriced but pretty) sharpening equipment as well as his new line of semi-custom (i.e., Bob didn't make them with his own dainty hands) "Carbons" through SLT, so you can expect at least some sales propaganda; the class will include a lot of people who aren't ready for it, and are either beyond it, or wish to prove they're beyond it, unfortunately all three of those mean a lot of time wasting; and is unlikely to be worth the price of admission.

For $285, you can buy an EP Apex Chosera kit and forget about freehanding for awhile.  Or, another knife.  Another knife.  Yeah, that's the ticket. 

Or, if you want to spend too much money -- but significantly less too much money -- pick up Dave Martell's or Murray Carter's sharpening CDs.  They're an excellent  steps along the road to freehand sharpening. 

Try to remember though, that although there are a lot of things to learn and remember when you first start sharpening, they're all (or nearly all) very simple things.  Sharpening is mostly practice and doesn't take much depth of knowledge or knowledge at all.  It's rubbing a knife on the right rock at the right angle, and that's all there is to it. 

FWIW you'll probably adapt your techniques and equipment over time, anyway. 

How about a Ray Lampe barbecue class?

BDL

Well said. It's really all about putting the time in and learning by repetition.

Oh yeah, no doubt it's all overpriced.

But I still think meeting Bob Kramer would be cool.  Especially if you can ask him a few questions on things like knife design, which I'm sure I would :). 

I pay for overpriced concert tickets or tickets to athletic events, etc... all the time.  To me this would be a similar justification.  Entertainment more than anything else really.

That makes all the difference.  I've taken barbecue, baking, CLE classes, schlepped to astronomy and physics lectures, etc., etc., knowing their price and/or the degree of difficulty getting there wasn't worth the actual education.  Sometimes it's the opportunity to rub elbows with my betters, sometimes it's the drinks afterwards, ideally it's both and a great class. 

There are a lot of good ways to sharpen, and not all of them apply to all people or all knives.  At this stage, I think you should be learning "burr method" (my name for it) sharpening of one sort or another.  It's always been my preferred method for sharpening on stones, for a long time and my preferred recommendation for people who ask my about sharpening. 

Lately, I've come to realize that more than a few people who think they're good sharpeners are actually sharpening and using a "wire edge," mistaking it for sharp.  I probably shouldn't be surprised as a wire edge is among the most common mistakes.  Learning to detect and remove a wire is a basic part of  the burr method, if only because pulling a wire is one of the first steps in creating a good edge.   Fortunately, none of this stuff is complicated and any good teacher -- even if there are style, jargon and equipment variances you won't stay with -- will be helpful. 

There's a sort of mid-western "school of sharpening" with guys like Steve Bottorff, Mike Meder (both of whom are in Ohio) and others.  If you want to take classes, you could do worse than either contacting Steve or spending some time on Teh Google and finding people in Wisconsin.   You should very much contact Dave Richmond at CKtG who isn't that far away from you.

Of course, Bob Kramer won't be there to answer your Bob Kramer questions.  What price glory?

BDL