knife sharpening tips

come on i know we have some pros here.. Ed?

Jaq is the authoritah here.

Don't mess with steels or gadgets, get yourself a whetstone, double sided with a coarse and a smooth side for preference. Knowing what kind of knives you have, you can buy little guards from the manufacturer that slide over the back of the knife so you can get the angle right.

Wet the stone and very gently rub the knife in little circles over the surface of the stone (rough side first) moving from hilt to tip, moving the guard along, repeat for the other side. Now repeat the process but drawing the knife backwards along the stone, first one side then the other. Do this over again with the smooth side of the stone and repeat as necessary until you have a satisfactory edge, common tests are to use a tomato (should cut the skin with minimal lateral motion) or a piece of paper.

Make sure you keep the stone wet and rinse off the black grit that develops as you work.

I use the Lansky system once or twice a year to put new edges on, and a ceramic hone every time to align. Might eventually get into waterstones, but the Lansky does the job for now, even though it's sort of annoying to use on long blades. Book recommendation: Edge in the Kitchen. I got it from the library and want my own copy.

Heh - xpost

THANK YOU, ED AND JAQ!!!

MY "GREAT" KITCHEN KNIFE SUCKS BECAUSE I AM A SHARPENING LOSER

"Now repeat the process but drawing the knife backwards along the stone"

not sure what this means - you mean still doing the little circles, but slowly moving down from the tip to the handle?

If you're willing to send them away and you're in the US, I'll put edges on them for you. That offer stands to everyone in Seattle too btw - bring them on over. It's very meditative and I don't want to wear mine down to nubbins.

i take mine to the butcher counter at my grocery store, and they do it for me for free!

Oh mine are a total disgrace. I haven't invested in the stones etc yet to do this. I'm sure I could take them to a good kitchen store or something -- and I also need my sewing shears sharpened, for which I'll have to take them to a WHOLE DIFFERENT NEIGHBORHOOD on a separate trip, undoubtedly.

I'd bring my chef's knife with me, Jaq, but I feel like security might frown on that.

"Now repeat the process but drawing the knife backwards along the stone"

This could be described better,

Draw the knife in a straight line pulling away from the edge at a slight angle to the edge.

i saw jaq pepin do something like the wet stone technique on the foot of some porcelain-ware (the part where there isn't glaze exposing the porous clay surface) on one of his cooking shows. i have tried this once or twice and noticed a transient increase in the ease of use of my chef knife.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ9sgpqPq-M

With Jaq, I use the Lansky sharpening system. Twice a year I'll put on a movie, lay back in bed, and slowly hone every straight edged knife in the house. A promotional video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW64B0MZVOE

After failing with a stone I new use the Cook's Illustrated electric sharpener of choice, the Chef's Choice 310. I lurve it.

i got mine done today at the farmers' market. i'm so glad! i never knew how bad my knife had gotten. everyone needs to do it. this is a reminder.

Revive for coronaproject time!

I still have the Chef's Choice electric but thinking I should go old school.

Please recommend videos; this is definitely something I need visuals on.

Also what knife sharpening stuff should I buy from Amazon.

I have a whetstone 1000 grit. ( I can't remember brand). I enjoy doing it, it takes about 10-15 minutes per knife for me and I probably should get an 800 grit at some point.

There is some stuff about this on the knives thread. I really like burrfection on youtube. He has a ton of videos though so you would have to sort through exactly what you are interested in learning about (it's a little endless).

but I thought this is fine for one video about sharpening on a whetstone. Ed probably has better ones he likes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fxL8v2dMho

the type of sharpening set up you get is really dependent a lot on budget and how serious you are about it.

There was a recent revive on the cooking board/knives thread -- Knives

I have a Lansky sharpening system that I've never been able to get the hang of, so I'm trying to decide on a whetstone to replace it.

That's a good video. Youtube has loads of knife sharpening videos.

You can spend a lot of money on fancy sharpening stones but there really is no need. What you need to get a good result is a probably 3 stones with roughness around 300 1000 and 3000 grit, you can go up another level to like an 8000 but not all knives need that and it starts to be showing off.

You can go for fancy Japanese stones or you can just get something like this. This has all the levels of grit and will last you for years unless you get into making sharpening YouTube videos.

https://www.amazon.com/Whetstone-Sharpening-Waterstone-Professional-Sharpener/dp/B08349HJPF/ref=sr_1_92?crid=3JRWPTUS3ZPU6&dchild=1&keywords=japanese+knife+stone+sharpener&qid=1585603074&sprefix=Japanese+knife+st%2Caps%2C583&sr=8-92

The base may come to annoy you in time.

You also probably want one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Naniwa-abrasive-Mfg-Flattening-IO-1112/dp/B00BB2SKH6/ref=sr_1_111?crid=2LHVBNRY51KJ6&dchild=1&keywords=naniwa+stone&qid=1585603383&sprefix=Naniwa+stone%2Caps%2C601&sr=8-111

Biggest learning from knife sharpening class is it is impossible to sharpen a knife on a stone that isn't flat so a stone flattener is essential.

NB, I haven't tried those specific stones but I'm sure they will be fine.

I can't remember over which grit it just ends up being polishing rather than sharpening...

From about 3000 on.

Oh shit this all seems somewhat intimidating.

Can I actually fuck up my knives or will it all be OK?

It will be ok!

maybe start on knives you don't really care about first.

the burrfection dude will chip knives on purpose to show how he fixes them on stones.

I care deeply about my two chefs knives (German).

I care less deeply about my paring knives, are those easier or harder to sharpen than a big knife?

it takes less time. I have a hard time getting near the handle on paring knives. but the premise is the same. Do you have any other non-serrated knives to sharpen, like steak knives?

I’ve taken out chips before and it just takes time really.

It’s hard to completely screw up but it will take a really long time at first. Both because it’s probably been a while since your knives were properly sharpened and secondly because it takes a while to get the feel for it. You’ll be so pleased once you get a feel for the along the edge and get ready to flip the knife over.

Start with small knives or buy a cheap knife to practice on. You can put a good edge on a non serrated dollar store knife (might not keep it).

I had my partner bring home every knife in their office kitchen and I sharpened them all to practice.

Ooooh good ideas, thanks. The link with the pennies only made me more nervous because I don't know the proper ratio on my knives!

I would love to take a in-person class. Maybe some crazy knife specialist will offer zoom lessons.

i don't do the pennies thing. I basically feel around for (on the stone) and use the pre-existing angle on the blade as a guide. Some knives have double bevels but i am pretty sure none of mine do.

I did watch a lot of videos before doing it though. Like probably a dozen and I referred back a lot.

i did an apple+F but no one has mentioned screaming at the top of their lungs while sharpening, so just want to make sure that's added

you can buy better equipment or you can invest in some lemon tea and scream twice as loud, it's up to you

I think the only way I have seen someone in real life mess up a knife while sharpening is my friend who scratched the f out of all of his knives because I think he was laying them totally flat on the stone. I have no clue what he was thinking. He said he watched videos too.

OK I think 14 degrees each side. So I guess I have double bevels.

Oh wait, maybe I am using the wrong term. All my knives have an edge on both sides but only one angle. Some knives have two angles for the edge.

Maybe it's called compound bevel.

Bevels on both sides is the most typical and most european knives are symmetrical. I have a couple of single sided japanese knives but that is somewhat specialist even in Japanese knives.

do you know what the edge is called when there was two angles on one side? I was looking up pics.

yeah, i had to make sure I got symmetrical knives because of one right hander and one left hander in the house.

You were wight with compound bevel

https://www.finestknife.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/knifeedges101.jpg I'though I always knew it as double bevel.

I just ordered this because it has the 4 different grits plus the flattening stone all together for $60. The product rating is good...hope it's a good buy.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074X7VB62/ref=crt_ewc_title_huc_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A112A30COSTPX4

That is even better than the one I posted. Everything you could possibly need. (Plus an 8000 stone if you want to get fancy). You could add a piece of leather and some stropping paste if you want to get really fancy.

I always loved the description of death sharpening mrs flitworth's old scythe in Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man,

The Lansky clamp sharpener is a pain in the butt with anything larger than a pocket knife. I have a knockoff of the Edge Pro, which works a lot better, and spent some months in early 2015 sharpening everything in the house to a shaving edge, ie with a loupe to check/adjust angles to the prior edges, leather strop etc. Only problem is now everything has a polished edge that isn't really the best for most utility tasks vs the microserrations that other methods leave.

In retrospect, I think most home knife users would be best off looking at the Spyderco Sharpmaker, which is very popular with "knife people", and works well for serratted/scalloped knives too. Maybe once a person has a preference for Shirogami #3 or Blue Steel #2 then its time to move up to water stones sushi chefs use.

that spyderco thing looks complicated for no reason.

That's more for non-cooking knives with weirds shapes. Good if you are a diver who wants to fight a rogue octopus or are a prepper with a collection of 'tactical knives'. It's a chocolate teapot when it comes to kitchen knives.

Courses for horses, but it does require less skill for most than freehanding on a bench stone. And compared to say the carbide wheel thing my father has used to ruin all his knives, a lot more forgiving.