How Can I Sharpen/Touch Up My Swiss Army Knife?

I’ve had a Swiss Army Knife for a couple years now. Its been one of the best gifts I’ve ever recieved; I use it almost every day and it replaces many other tools that I don’t have easy access to since I’m living in a dorm.

However, using it on all sorts of things has worn it out a bit. The blades aren’t nearly as sharp as they were when I got it, and a couple of the tools such as the bottle opener (heh) and pliers have little rust spots on them.

What can I do to restore it? Is it worth buying a sharpening stone (called a wetstone or something, isn’t it?), rust remover, etc. and doing it myself? Or should I try to find a knife expert and have them do it? What sort of stores would be able to do this for me? How much would it cost? Does the maker of my knife have some kind of restoration dealie where I mail it to them and they sharpen and clean it for me? If so, how much would that cost?

I’m not sure if it will help to know the brand and model information, but I’ll post it just in case:

On one side of the largest blade is stamped: Victorinox - Switzerland - Stainless - Rostfrei. On the other side is stamped: Officier Suisse.

All Victorinox Swiss Officer’s knives come with a lifetime warranty. You can send it to:

Swiss Army Brands, Inc Service Center
P.O. Box 897
65 Trap Falls Rd.
Shelton, CT 06484-0897

Any repairs covered by the warranty will be done free of charge. Any non-covered repairs will be performed for a fee after you’ve approved a written accounting of the repair cost.

As for blade sharpening, I use the techniques outlined here. With practice and a bit of elbow grease, you can get a razor edge on your blades.

As silly as this sounds, toothpaste can polish out minor rust. 0000 steel wool and a little oil will work for rust too. Smith or Gerber sharpening stones at Walmart ought to work fine. Just keep the angle (around 20 degrees) and number of strokes per side equal. I reccommend clamp systems like DMT’s aligner if one is bad at keeping a consistent angle. A cheap Smith clamp system is usually available at most Walmarts. Stay away from really rough stones.

I sharpen my knife with a simple sharpening stone, a couple of inches long, and which cost me about two bucks. Basically, you just pull the knife along the face of the stone as if you were slicing off a very thin slice of the stone. Push the knife away from you for one side, then turn the knife over and draw it towards you in the same way for the other side. Easy.

I’ve owned a Victorinox SA knife for many years. The blades are of rather tough stainless steel which isn’t the easiest material to sharpen, but almost any decent stone can be made to give decent results with a modicum of care.

A sharpening scheme I’ve been using recently that gives surprisingly good & fast results is simply to put some 400-grit wet/dry paper on a “palm” type orbital sander, hold it with the paper up, apply a small amount of water to it, switch it on and sharpen away.

Give the knife a few drops of oil now and then to keep corrosion away and the blades opening freely.

I’ve worked as a toolmaker for years.

A drop of oil now and again is the best thing you can do to keep future rust away. Get a cheap stone and a can of 3in1 oil and experiment a little with sharpening.

I don’t won’t try to describe the angles to keep a keen edge (because I need picture and don’t type nearly as well as I should) but you can figure out most of it. Practice is the best teacher.

Lube is the key, as with so many things in life.

A sharpening stone is a nice thing to have. There is a wide range in prices though, from cheap palm size stones to large diamond bench sharpeners. You might want to consider a stone that has both a coarse and a fine side. I know my first time I was sorely tempted to cut my costs by just buying a fine stone and sharpening twice as much, but I think the coarse saves time when your knife is really dull (as it sounds like yours is) and I think I get better results that way.
However, be warned, if you don’t know what you are doing you might end up making your knife duller. That said, sharpening a knife is very easy to do and learn, so don’t worry too much. Unless you bang the knife repeatedly against the stone, you can do no harm. I highly recommend having someone show you how to do it properly and safely first, maybe even hold your hand while you do it until you get the feel and the angle right.
Know any boyscouts in the nieghborhood? They are always happy to brag about their knifely prowness, and would probably be happy to show you how, or even do it themselves for five bucks or so.
Good luck!

I forgot about the Warranty. I also live in a dorm. I have a Ranger model, and don’t want to start using it yet. A dorm-mate moved out, and in his cleaning he found another swiss army knife, and for “payment” for helping him move, he gave it to me. So, I get a swiss army knife, and get to keep my ranger from getting down and dirty.

Most hardware stores offer knife sharpening services.

Cheap.

It takes some time and practice to learn to sharpen on a flat stone. A much easier route is to buy one of the ceramic stick sharpeners, also available cheap at Wally World. They come with two sticks and a wooden base that holds the sticks at the correct angle. Then all you have to do is hold the knife straight while you stroke it down each ceramic rod. They do an outstanding job of sharpening and they are all but idiot-proof. (Not implying that you are in any way shape or form an idiot)

Have to agree with Scumpup here. For a beginner, use the sticks. They will give you the option to do the “multi-angle” sharpening that Mr. Goob refers to, but can’t draw. They do this by providing 2 sets of holes, which make 2 different angles. They usually also have 2 types of rods, one for sharpening, and one for honing (burr removal).

Once you are more comfortable with the concepts, think about the larger flat whetstones.

MHO.

-Eagle Scout Butler

The ceramic sharpening sticks are great for just a few sharpening sessions, then the pores in the ceramics get clogged and they become useless. I don’t know of a way to rejuvenate them.

I like the sharpening ‘stones’ which are a flat piece of steel with diamond dust imbedded on their surfaces. Got mine at TruValue Hardware. THey come in a variety of textures from coarse to fine. The texture rated for “cutlery” is probably what you want.

The sticks can easily be cleaned in several ways.

  1. One of those gummy erasers that artists use will clean them.
  2. You can just scrub them in the sink with some cleanser and a stiff brush.
  3. Run them through the dishwasher and then wipe them off with a cloth while they are still warm and wet.

I have a Spyderco Triangle sharpener, which is the best there is IMO, that I’ve been using with the same set of sticks for 10 or 11 years now. I’ve used all three methods to clean the sticks.

How to know when the blade needs a touch-up… Hold the knife, with the edge up and the point away, at chest level under an overhead light. Slowly move the point up and down, so that the light strikes the edge at various angles. If you see the edge as a white line of reflected light, sharpen it. Nicks will show as white spots.

I use a Victorinox knife sharpener with two disks of synthetic ruby (hardness factor 9). The disks are positioned in exactly the right angle inside of a plastic housing unit so that even an amateur like me can use it with ease. I run my Swiss army knives through this sharpener for razor-sharp, like-new results.