Posted on 03/12/2022 7:37:02 AM PST by mylife
Any chef will tell you that you're only as good as your best kitchen knives despite your culinary skills. On top of that, if you have a top-of-the-line knife set, they'll quickly become useless if you don't maintain them and keep them sharp. It's kind of like a carpenter trying to frame a home with plastic nails or a hunter trying to take down a buck with a slingshot.
Even if you don't step foot in a kitchen but use knives for other things like work or outdoor survival, you need to keep them sharp. The bottom line is dull knives are dangerous. That's because you have a greater chance of misusing a dull knife and injuring yourself while sawing away at whatever you might be trying to cut, slice, or whittle. While proper handling is crucial, a razor-sharp blade should do the job in one stroke.
The art of knife sharpening can be intimidating and definitely takes some practice to perfect. However, learning to sharpen yourself is the prudent choice, instead of running out and buying a new knife every time it gets dull. Indeed, you can avoid the process altogether by paying a professional bladesmith to sharpen your knives. There are also knife companies that offer this service, and if you can't seem to get knife sharpening down, there's no shame in going this route.
But if you have the time and patience to learn, purchasing a whetstone (or water stone) and perfecting the art of blade sharpening will save you a lot of money in the long run. Like most knife experts, we believe using a whetstone to sharpen your blades is the best method for knife longevity. However, there are other methods available that we'll dive into a bit later.
(Excerpt) Read more at themanual.com ...
Beat me by a few minutes.
5.56mm
Buy a new one.
It’s not how sharp the edge it’s how hard it is applied. Ever seen aluminum cut steel? Think scary isn’t it.
Lansky ,,,
Uses the Same kind
Of technique at
About 40 bucks.
I’ve turned out some
Perfect edges with
Them!
Electric sharpener for inexpensive kitchen and pocket knives. Arkansas stone for good knives, chisels, and plane blades, plus a strop for final edge polish on knives. File for axes and such, and a pocket diamond rod for touchups away from home.
I always tell my wife when I have resharpened the kitchen knives, after an unfortunate incident many years ago.
Victorinox 3.25 Inch Swiss Classic Paring Knife with Serrated Edge, Spear Point, Red
Razor sharp use and dispose - although I have some that have seen service for 30 years - not as sharp as original but good for cutting veggies and other soft things. Got dull from years of cutting gill, seine and trawl nets
Red Sox / Braves
While someone mentioned a steel in reference to sharpening, the use of a butcher’s steel is generally in straightening an edge that is partially out of alignment from encounters with bone or other dense material. Having a straight edge has to be attained prior to the sharpening process. If that is not done, the sharpening will cause uneven edge faces to appear as the curved or out-of-true edge wears down first.
In sharpening the angle the knife, gouge, chisel or other blade was originally ground at will determine what angle, and therefore, type of sharpening process, should be used. I have a small spinning flat sharpener table for curved wood carving gouges, for example. Wouldn’t be that suited to a large Chef’s knife where I would use a Lanky or an electric or manual sharpener.
After sharpening, then the blade has to be Honed. Honing is often two stage. First stage is to remove any wire edge left by the sharpening process. Second stage honing is to polish any striations out of the sharpened edge face. Honing compound loaded into a flat or belt strop are the best for these uses.
The last thing I will add is some have mentioned sand paper. I have found that taping a piece of sand paper to a perfectly flat piece of glass is a great tool for a good edge. This flatness issue is something to keep in mind and any worn sharpening stone should be “dressed” with a hard coarse stone back to a flat state if it gets curved or unevenly worn.
Get a Finnish puukko..they’ll cut the Arkansas stone!
Rub the blade against the T1 vertebra of a Demoncrat . . .
All of my knives and swords have great edges on them now.
Have you tried it on your spears and arrows?
😉
Me too! total fail.
Just find someone who knows what they are doing, to sharpen your knives.
Doing it yourself is almost impossible unless you want to put months or years of practice into it and ruin multiple knives in the process.
It like working on modern day cars, if you don’t know what your doing, take it to a pro.
My arrows are those little crossbow-pistol arrows with round pointy tips. No good for sharpening.
With stainless?
Arkansas stone is nuch softer than glass-bonded size-graded SiC grain.
When I was in college I worked summers in a packing house on the kill floor. When most kids were making $3 an hour I was making 10.50, my job was cutting the heads off hogs with a straight 8 inch knife and skinning the jowls, leaving the head hanging. Three of us did approximately 600 and hour. I still have my F Dick steel and I can sure as hell sharpen a knife with a stone in my hand and a steel. Once you got good at it, I could do my 1400 head with one knife and never touch it to a stone till the next day. What a horrible job it was though!
Dull knives drive me nuts. Every time I go to certain friends’ homes I bring my sharpening stones to sharpen their knives. One buddy of mine had a set of knives so dull. When I showed him the sharpening steel that came with the set he had no idea what it was.
Sure. I’ve got a couple of Arkansas stones that I use to finish an edge with. I don’t use them often but I can see why people like them and stick with them. Slower and old school but it does a really nice edge if you’re patient, which I’m usually not. You learn how to use them with oil and then clean the stone with oil after you’ve used it.
I will admit, somehow I have never learned to make the finest shaving-sharp edge on cutlery or pocket knife. My heart has leapt, though, for spotting very fine steel and shape in a second-hand store, actually in two knives in with a bunch of others I wouldn't give a dime for.
The maker etched its identification on the right face of the blade was:
ZWILLING J.A. HENCKELS [ O-O ] NO STAIN FRIODUR xFor the 3-incher the only difference was 80mm (3"). There are twins dancing in the square block at the middle, as above; ane some kind of figure just to the right of the lettering. the 31070 must be the alloy ID which is on the the 4-Star knife blades.
____SOLINGEN__GERMANY [ X|x ] 31070 - 160MM (6")x
I looked up the cost of the 6 incher, and their price even reduced is $140, while the 3 incher is somewhere between $55 to $65. I bought therm out of that box at the thrift store for $1.41, same as any other cutlery that was in the box. And until this moment, I didn't relly have a grasp on their true evalation. The thing is, I thought I had been trying the stoning method described in this article, but it seemed not to be working very well with other knives, and I have been greatly disappointed at my lack of skill in this art. but when used with these two knives, there seemed quite a leap forward. Not as what I would like to get with my Kershaw pocket knife, but markedly forward.
My skills seem to still lack a lot, though. I can use any hint that works! Perhaps I should do the rough part on the carbide stone, then risk the Arkansaw stones for the finishimg stage, eh?
arkansw
Practice, practice and you'll get better at it. With my new kitchen cutlery that I bought a few months back, I feel like I'm about to graduate from beginner to novice.
One thing to keep in mind is Japanese steel tends to be hard, European (esp. German) steel actually tends to be less so. The reason for this is that the German/European/(Sometimes) American chef or butcher keeps his steel handy, and is always seen giving it a few strokes before he cuts off a couple of steaks or chops up some vegetables.
Thus if you search around on the internet about knife sharpening, you'll find an English chef who says "Yes, give your knife a few strokes on your steel, like this: (strokestroke) and that's it". BUT they will take them to a professional to be reground every now and then, as you're doing. My MIL has a full set of Henckels knives that have been kinda neglected over the years. Very nice and clean, but in need of a new edge. She graciously allowed me to practice on one of them with my diamond stones. I think I did OK but I haven't had occasion to do a second one.
One thing that helped me was a youtube channel called Burrfection. It's run by a young asian dude out on the west coast somewhere who seems to be making a living out of sharpening kitchen cutlery. I watched some of his videos and it helped me. He prefers water stones. You might check him out, but caveat, the dude does like to talk... after a few videos I said it's time for me to stop watching youtube and go sharpen something... :)
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