How Do I Sharpen a Knife?

I follow the steps below for every single knife:
1. I examine the edge for any little nicks and chips under magnification. I repair the edge if there as damage at all. This is a crucial step prior to commencing the actual sharpening process.
2. I determine the factory angle on the knife or I choose one myself depending on what your knife is used for and I then lock in the angle.
3. If the knife is quite dull or I had to repair it, I commence profiling the edge with a diamond plate. This plate is perfectly flat and will establish the perfect working angle and is the initial step in actually sharpening the knife.
4. I now start with the water stones and I select a coarse stone, the first of up to eleven stones. This first stone is the key, I will get your knife as sharp as it has have ever been on this first stone. (These are exquisite stones and work fast).
5. Once I am satisfied that the knife is now very sharp, I progress through the stones from medium to fine to ultra fine grit. Depending on what I am doing with the edge, I will either stop at the 2,000 grit range or go as high as 5,000 grit. This stone will leave a beautiful mirror finish and an edge that many people have never seen or felt.
6. If I am creating a Relief Face on the bevel (basically a second bevel) I will go as high as 15, 000 grit to achieve the polished bevel I seek and you will enjoy.
7. Once I am satisfied that your knife is at the very least as sharp as it was when purchased I move to the stropping stage. (Your knife will most often be sharper than when new by now.)
8. I strop the knife edge on either leather or balsa which has been laden with special formulas. This is the process that really takes the knife to another level.
9. Now that the knife is sharp, I polish the blade with a series of polishing compounds. This is final step.

Start to finish time varies from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Patting myself on the Back

Here are some nice testimonials from some very nice people who graciously took the time out of there hectic schedules to comment on  their knives after I returned them:

"Every chef cherishes their knives, but being a good cook doesn't mean you can sharpen a knife properly. It is a skill that takes years to perfect. Far worse is letting someone put a knife on an automated machine…it ruins the edge. Hand sharpening is the only way to go. Preparing food with a sharp knife is a true joy. My knives have never been sharper than they are right now…thanks Peter!"

Chef Craig Flinn
Canadian Chefs' Congress 2012 | Congres des Chefs de Cuisine Canadiens
Nova Scotia Committee Chair | Le président du comité de la Nouvelle-Écosse
ECD Restaurants Inc./Fork in the Road Productions
1537 Barrington Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 1Z4
Chives Canadian Bistro: (902) 420-9626

"New Edge Sharpening" has become an integral part of Paderno's goal to achieve complete customer satisfaction. Peter's work has restored life to edges that seemed hopelessly dull and made misused and abused knives a joy to use again. What he can accomplish with a qualty blade and an hour of his time will startle you if you thought the "factory edge" was the pinnacle of sharpness.

Mr. Malcolm Smith, Manager, Paderno Bayer's Lake Nova Scotia.

I would recommend without reservation that anyone who has a knife that needs sharpening treat themselves to Peter's services.
He did an incredible job on all of my kitchen knives (french knife, boning knife, filleting knife, slicer and others); most impressively, he repaired the tip of my favourite chef's knife so skillfully it's hard to tell that it was ever broken.

Liz Feltham
*www.foodcritic.ca
liz@foodcritic.ca

"Pete Nowlan and his company New Edge Sharpening is passionate and knowledgeable on knives and sharpening techniques. As a chef it is very important to keep a sharp edge and Pete is the person I trust with this. He has also consulted with me for knives that I will be purchasing for my butcher shop and continuously provides me with great advice. I will be working with Pete for many years to come and I suggest that you work with him as well. As a passionate chef it is wonderful to work with someone I trust and who has a mirrored passion for his work in sharpening knives"

Jessi Gilis
Executive Chef/Owner Highland Drive Culinary Lessons-Catering

Let's get to the Point!

As far as sharpening opportunities goes, it doesn't get much better than this.

I don't need a professional sharpener !

Very frequently, I receive dull knives from ladies who have wrestled them away from their husbands. I can hear it now: "why are we paying someone to sharpen these knives, I can just go buy one of those electric grinders at Walmart  and do it myself?"

I was there once myself actually, thinking that I could achieve the same results at home, with no practice/technique/love for the art of sharpening etc. Heck yeah, I could do this.

Yes you can sharpen your own knives with one of these gadgets,  you can also take your wife to McDonald's to celebrate your anniversary.  (I haven't done this by the way).

The nifty little gadgets you can purchase are just that, gimmicks, there is absolutely no comparison to the edge that a machine like these can produce to the edge achieved  by someone using Japanese Water Stones on a guided system like the Edge Pro Professional. Also, remember that this system and beautiful water stones are being used by someone (me) who is absolutely obsessed with achieving a ridiculous degree of sharpness on a knife and someone (me) who has had this interest (obsession) for over 20 years. So if you think you can pull out an electric machine from the cupboard, plug it in and run your knife through it 3 times and get it as sharp as I can, I understand, you're misguided but I do understand. ( I threw those same machines out long ago :)

(Seriously, these grinders will remove metal at an alarming rate. If you are convinced that I am wrong and don't know what I talking about. I appreciate you reading my Blog anyway)

Do your knives a favour and listen to your wife. Women are very intelligent when it comes to these things, brilliant actually.   

Bring it on:)

Some nifty Globals

I really enjoy sharpening Globals, they always seem to get an edge quite quickly. I applied a Relief Face to these two for the owner, polished up the bevels to 15K with Shaptons and worked on the micro edge up to 5K