Knife Edge Maintenance

Hi,
I am going to do another video on what I consider the best way to maintain your knife, there are a few and I'll go over them.

It's all fine and dandy to get your knives sharpened but how do we keep them sharp other than bringing them back once a month.?

I am sure most know this but you need to understand what is making the knife dull, this knowledge will help you appreciate what is required to rectify that and restore the edge.

The edge of a knife when sharpened or honed is a beautiful thing, the Apex, the edge of the edge, the sharp part is subjected to force, it's doing the work so that edge fails. Even though it may be composed of very hard steel, it can only take so much. If you are just cutting lettuce and being very careful that the edge doesn't impact the cutting board (that is not an easy thing to do), naturally the edge is not getting hit as hard as others. Most folks use the chef knife to cut everything and despite best efforts the edge is going to take a hit. It folds over, it crumbles so to speak and that is what makes it dull. Now it can happen slowly, little parts of the edge at a time but eventually, the entire edge is out of alignment. This is not an indication of abuse or anything, it is normal.

I have had very expensive knives in my hands that were just terribly dull so don't think you can avoid the problem by going out and buying a 500 dollar knife. In fact, that knife will probably get duller quicker because it will used more than others.

How do we fix it:

1. Have it resharpened, that fatigued metal has to go and it just takes a little while and the knife can me made razor sharp over and over and over.

2. Use a Hone like the ceramic hone in the picture, I prefer ceramic hones but a good steel hone will suffice and the Black MAC I have heard is an excellent Hone. When used properly as in the picture below it has the ability to push that fatigued metal back into place and thereby giving it some more life, more time before the metal has to be removed.

(My problem with this method is that it is only a short fix, that steel or ceramic is pushing fatigued metal back and forth. Now if is removing that fatigued metal that is good but still, it is not sharpening the knife, it is maintaining it. The issues arise when people continue this process for too long and stubbornly believe that they are sharpening the knife)

3. The best way to maintain a knife edge is on a water stone, a 1,000 - 5,000 grit stone, think of it as a  rectangular steel. This method takes a little skill but is easily done and effective as it removes that fatigued metal instead of just pushing it around.

This is the video I will work on and it is just a matter of using some light trailing strokes on a very frequent scale. Every day that could be done and I guarantee that edge will stay sharp longer than any other maintenance method.


Peter