Exercising proper maintenance of your SOG knife will extend its life for many years. Keeping the blade of your knife sharpened is a must – a dull blade is pretty useless. Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad information out there that promotes ‘wonder products’ claiming to be the ultimate knife sharpeners. Often these products will leave you with a rough, uneven blade, and possibly a ruined finish. In other words, they are not such a “wonder product” after all.
Having your SOG knife professionally sharpened is the preferred method. If you ship your knife to SOG, they will actually sharpen it for you for a $12 fee. If, by chance, you live near the Lynnwood, Washington area you can stop by SOG’s retail headquarters and they will sharpen the blade for free.
If, however, you want to sharpen knives yourself you will began the process of developing a very valuable skill. You have to understand a few things about knives before you can start putting blade to stone. First you need to know the angle at which a SOG knife should be sharpened. Grinding at too high of an angle (or too low) can damage the blade. If you've sharpened your blade at the wrong angle, fear not as it can be fixed by proper sharpening.
SOG pocket knives, hunting knives, and tactical knives all fall between an angle of eighteen to twenty two degrees. This is quite a common angle. It does take a degree of experience to properly hold the correct angle. For those just starting out they do make a knife sharpening guide; simply a small metal attachment suited for pocket knives or fixed blades. These guides attach the opposite side of the blade you are sharpening and are usually held in place by screws. A quick field fix if you don’t have one of these guides is a small binder grip. Once you get the grip right you can remove the guide and sharpen with confidence.
There are dozens of different types of sharpening stones out there, the most basic of which is the Whetstone. The Whetstone is available in most hardware stores or cutlery stores – usually for around ten bucks and is small enough to be packed anywhere. Usually one side will be a fine grit, and the other side a rough grit.
A lubricant isn't always necessary – in the field you can sharpen with what you have – but it will make for a smoother stroke and therefore an easier sharpening. They do make special lubricant for knife sharpening but you can use anything from mineral oil to shredder lubricant.
First, you will be using the rough grit of the stone. Slide the blade over the stone as if you were trying to cut a smaller layer of it off. Use a medium amount of pressure…when in doubt use lighter pressure. Lighter pressure won’t efficiently sharpen the blade, but hard pressure may damage the blade. Sharpen the blade away from you…if the blade is longer than the stone you are going to have to sharpen at a downward angle. Repeat the process with one side of the blade between 8-10 times, then move on to the other side of the blade. An experienced knife sharpener can sharpen a blade with alternative strokes in a very swift manner.
Once each side is sharpened flip the whetstone over to the fine grit side and repeat the process. The fine grit will provide a nice sharpness to your blade. That is essentially all there is to it for using a whetstone.
SOG has a line of counter-top sharpeners that make sharpening a blade very easy for anyone to do. The device suctions down to any hard counter-top to insure that it stays in place. Two sharpening stones form a distinct but small “V” in the middle of the sharpener. You simply slide your knife straight through the “V”. This will sharpen both sides of your blade instantly. This sharpener holds the perfect angle for any SOG knife, and really simplifies sharpening. Using this will really put your mind at ease when it comes to sharpening your SOG knives properly.