Honing and Sharpening - The Difference

Hi, I used to wonder what the difference between honing a knife and sharpening a knife was.  I have a good idea now so I will pass it along.
This is important because a lot of folks tell me that "their husbands sharpen the knives at home" so out of curiosity I always ask how he does it. Most of the time the response is "with one of those sharpening rods"

So to get things straight right off the bat,  a "Steel" does not sharpen a knife, regardless of the fact that it may be advertised as a knife sharpener. A Steel, whether it is made of steel, or ceramic is designed to hone a knife and is for edge maintenance.

Honing

Honing or steeling will keep a sharp knife sharp for a period of time, one cannot say how long but I can say that the knife will stay sharper if it is steeled. A new or freshly sharpened knife has a series of micro serrations along the edge. Invisible but they are there and they bite into whatever it is your cutting. Over time, these tiny teeth are pushed over to the side, the edge of the metal is fragile and the metal along this point (the edge of the edge) gets fatigued and just folds over. A hone or steel when used properly as in the picture here will push that fatigued metal back into place.

There are some key points to this though. 
1. You need to begin the process with a sharp knife, you CANNOT pull a dull knife out of the drawer and hone it sharp, even if you have the best steel or ceramic in the world. 
2 You need to do this often, build it into your cooking regime, do it every day before you cut your food. So keep the steel handy, not somewhere you need to root around for it.
3. The steel that comes with a block of knives is usually very cheap, not worth the effort, get a new one.
4. Honing or Steeling only works for a while, once the knife remains dull after you steel it, i.e. if it doesn't feel any different, put the steel away, it is time for it to be Sharpened. 
5. Do not abuse the edge with over steeling, it doesn't do anything but make it more difficult to sharpen.
6. This is an important step in knife maintenance but it is not done by a lot of people. It is easy to do  and only takes 2 minutes. You only need to run the knife down the steel from heel to tip 5-8 times with a little pressure, ease off on the pressure the last couple of times.


So what is sharpening?:

Sharpening on a whetstone

To sharpen a knife, you need to remove that fatigued metal completely and expose the fresh steel underneath. A whetstone is the best way to do this, it doesn't take off much metal and can restore the edge to the factory level easily and with a little more effort you can make it sharper than that.

So Honing is knife maintenance, keeping a sharp knife sharp, sharpening is the removal of metal from both sides of the blade at the edge of the edge. 

Once is it is sharp it can be honed again until the cycle needs to be repeated.

Now there are diamond steels that claim to sharpen a knife by removing metal but again, that will only remove metal at the primary edge, what about the secondary bevel?  You can purchase a whetstone for 30 dollars and keep your knife sharp for a life time.

Now....it is possible to use a high grit stone to hone your knife by using a trailing motion like the picture above but the best setup is a good steel or even better a Ceramic rod and a whetstone or two.

Shapton Glass

You gotta love SHAPTON :)

Another older knife, well used and love Buck.  Took a great edge and polish

Let's go hunting

Every now and then I get a hunting knife to do, or 3 and often, they are in rough shape.

I can sharpen a dull kitchen knife in 15-20 minutes but hunting knives are a different kettle of fish altogether, an hour at least is what I am looking at.
It's a stormy day here in Halifax so I thought I would take some work in progress shots and some final pictures of a very old and hunting knife with some serious damage to the edge. In fact, I think at one point the from 1.5 inches of this knife may have been serrated.

So here we go, a really cool little knife, I think this one has a very high carbon content, carbon is cool, I love carbon knives.

Very old but very loved knife, very dark in colour, scratched up (battle scars) and very dull.

Diamond Plates

The first step was to re-establish the bevels and edge. I used the Edge Pro Professional for this job, it excels on these type of knives. The one on the right is an Atoma 140 grit diamond stone, the larger one is a DMT extra course, 220 grit, these are specially cut to fit the Edge Pro and are fabulous at the heavy lifting portion of the sharpening process. While it is possible to get the knife sharp with these, my goal was to establish a new edge. I chose an angle of 20 degrees, and all the work was done at exactly 20 degrees from start to finish, 70 minutes later.

New Edge cut in, ready to move to the water stones.

Latte 400

Now the fun starts, the idea is to maintain a constant angle which the Edge Pro forces me to do, now with the Latte 400, a really nice stone, I can begin to remove the deep scratches left by the diamond plates. This will start the sharpening process too, I had marked the edge of the edge with a sharpie to ensure I was on target.

From the 400 Latte, I went to the Edge Pro 220 stone, it is just a matter of patience and constantly checking the scratch pattern. I wasn't just going for a sharp knife, I wanted a mirror like finish to really give it that pop. It's an enjoyable process watching the metal transform from it's original completely dull and severely scratched/damaged edge into what I hope it to be at the end.

The knife is sharp know, easily slicing telephone book paper, now to continue the refinement of the edge and move up in grit from the 140 to the exquisite Shapton Pro 15,000 grit stone.

Now I can see it becoming a much more refined edge, it is very sharp now and I could have stopped the process anytime, this is overkill but we love overkill. This is enjoyable. This knife deserves the attention.

15K Shapton, it doesn't get much better than this when talking Japanese Water Stones

(You can see all the stones I used here, 12 in total)

This is final stone in the process. 

It is hard taking pictures of the edge, the light doesn't do me any favours but you can see here that the bevel has a nice polish now. It looks like liquid in certain lighting conditions. 

After this, the final step was to strop the knife, I used a balsa strop laden with a diamond spray to put the final touch.

All done.

During the process, I put some dish soap, just a drop on the stones, it helps a little when trying  to achieve a mirror finish. This knife was sharpened at 20 degrees up to 15,000 grit and stropped with a 75,000 grit spray on balsa.  

I'm hoping the owner will be pleased. 

Let's get more Acute

Hi,
We know that Japanese knives and now some European knives come from the factory with acute angles of 15-18 degrees per side. Most of the European knives we buy such as the majority of the Henckels lineup come at 20 deg and some brands of knives can have an angle as high as 25 deg per side.
So what is the big deal, what's the problem with that you may ask:

There is no real problem, the reason that many knives you buy come with a 20 deg angle is that they (makers) know that the steel in the knife is not hard enough to support a more acute angle.  The edge of a knife is very thin, that is what makes it sharp, if the edge of that knife is composed of soft steel, it only makes sense that it will not hold up to much abuse.

What is soft steel and how the heck can steel be soft in the first place?

The steel in knife is measured on scale of hardness, the Rockwell Hardness Scale,  if you see a number like HRC 56 on your knife that is a medium hardness and very common. Now even one digit higher or lower on that scale represents a significant difference, so a less expensive knife have a hardness of 54 which is relatively soft, even if it is steel. Now Japanese hand made knives, the full carbon knives can have a hardness of 62-64 which is a very significant and the steel is extremely hard.

So if you have a "hard" knife it can be sharpened at very acute angles and stay sharp for a longer period of time, there is no way to say how long...it's just longer and it makes sense.

Japanese Nakiri - Full Carbon knife, very hard , 12 deg per side.

So can we sharpen a soft knife at 15 degrees per side?

Certainly, we can sharpen it at 7 deg and it will have an incredibly sharp edge. HOWEVER, that edge will fail very quickly, on day one even, the first time it cuts anything.

Basically, unless you have a knife that is 60-65 on the scale of hardness, you don't want to go below 15 deg per side, it just won't hold it's edge.  Also, keep in mind that there is price to pay for these very hard knives, they are brittle and can chip easily. If you dropped a 500 dollar Japanese carbon knife it could chip, the tip could break off or it could snap in half.  If you drop a 50 dollar Henckels, it will probably just make a mark on the floor or nothing at all, unless you bent the tip.

Acute is good if the steel can handle it, otherwise, keep it at 19 degrees.

Henckels at 19 degrees

Wusthof at 10 degrees - Edge Life Expectancy - 15 minutes 

My new Shun is chipped

Shun knives, while very attractive are prone to chipping when new, I believe this is due to the very tiny bevel at the edge, there is not much there to support the edge so they chip easily

This is is not necessarily an indication that there is something wrong with the knife or if it has been abused.

The good news is that they are not difficult to repair with a coarse water stone.

Chipped Shun and Global knives

Here is a quartet of chipped Shuns, practically new.  

To repair the damage, you need to remove the metal along the edge, how much metal do you remove?  Enough so that the chip disappears, you are going to basically destroy the factory edge and create a new one, a stronger one and it will be just as sharp or sharper than new.

Hold the knife on the coarse stone, 400 grit for example or 150 if you have it, take care, the objective here is to take away metal, there is no way around this. You cannot fill in the hole so you have to reshape the primary edge.

Grind on both sides of the knife at 40-45 degrees, and monitor the work by constantly visually checking, this can happen quickly, quicker than you think.  Remember, you are not worried about making it sharp now, just making it useable again.  

Once the damage is repaired, lower the angle to 15 degrees or so, this is a bit of guess work here so don't sweat it. Put 2 quarters on the end of the stone on top of each other and lay the spine of the knife down so it touches the top quarter, there is a good angle to use. Don't like that one, use 3 quarters.

Now you sharpen the knife, starting again with a coarse stone, 400-500 would be nice and then continuing through your progression up to 2,000 or 5,000 or just 1,000 if that is what you have.

Keep it simple

Hi.
Many people are interested in sharpening their own knives but they don't know how to get started, what they need. They are often afraid that they will ruin their knives.

I look at it this way, if the knife is dull and you don't want to give it to me then learn yourself, you paid good money for that knife, its' dull, fix it, it isn't hard.

You can start with one stone from Lee Valley, a 1,000 grit stone is all you need to get that first start, to see if you can do it, yes 2 stones is better, the 800 grit and lets say 3,000 grit or even 2,000.  ( I buy all my stones on line by the way but I started at Lee Valley, they have some good ones)

Remember what you trying to do, you need to remove that tired out metal that has folded over on the edge and expose the fresh new steel underneath and make Side A and Side B meet at the exact same plane at an angle of your choice, keep it simple though. Raise the spine of the blade an inch off the stone, put 3 quarters under it to use as a guide, or 5 quarters, the exact angle is not important.

The most important thing you can do is to mark the edge of the edge with a sharpie, paint the area you want to actually grind the metal away at. It's pretty simple, you just paint the edge with the sharpie, and go for it, you need to remove that sharpie mark. You can keep using that technique to gauge yourself, to ensure you are on target.

Raise the burr on both sides of the blade and then remove the burr. Lighten up on the stroke when you have done this, and just finish the knife with some nice, gentle swipes of the edge over that well lubricated stone (water).

Don't expect amazing results the first 10 times, just get a feel for it. 

Now pat yourself on the back for just considering it. You can do it, it just takes a little courage and patience. Practise on an inexpensive knife if you need to. Go slow and concentrate on maintain the angle you choose, don't worry if it is not exactly 19 degrees.  Who the hell can hold the knife at exactly 19 degrees and just look at it and say "yup that is 19 deg".

Good luck

Broken Bob Kramer knife

Folks, this beautiful knife just had a broken tip which as you can see is fixed. 

Now if you ever want to treat yourself to a beautiful knife, one that is extremely sharp, will stay sharp for a long time and is very comfortable, pick one of these up.

Bob Kramer by Zwilling (Henckles).  The only place to buy them in Halifax is at Paderno in Bayer's Lake.

What is a good knife to own - revisited

Hi folks,
I get the question often, what is the best knife, in fact, I get it all the time. I think that people feel like I judge them if they bring me an inexpensive knife or they just don't feel it is worth getting sharpened.

First of all, I don't judge people if they bring me a $7.00 knife, in fact I admire them because they appreciate the value of a sharp knife. 

Here are some good knives to get, and think about what you are cooking too, if you spend 90 percent of your time cutting up vegetables, you may like a Nakiri, (veggie knife).

8 inch chef knife: (Everyone should have one of these).

-Grohmann;
-Global;
-Shun;
-Henckels:
-Wusthof;
- MAC

I sharpen these brands often, they are all good knives and if you were to ask me which is the best one to buy I would choose a MAC or Henckels Twin Cermax (high end Henckels). 

If you cut a lot of bread, purchase an inexpensive serrated knife and replace it every year.

Global Knives

Japanese hand made Nakiri (vegetable) knife

MAC Chef knife

The secret to knife happiness is to have it sharpened, regardless of the brand or how much was spent  on the knife, there is just nothing like cutting up food with a very sharp knife. All these are good knives, but unless they are sharp, they are really no better than a 10 dollar razor sharp knife.

Thanks for reading this, I truly appreciate it.

Peter

My knife only cost $14.00 why pay $10.00 to get it sharpened?

This  is a good question and it's a common one.  It deserves a good answer and I have one so bear with me.  The answer involves much more than just a "because it is dull" response, please have a read:

First of all, not many people make the right knife choice when purchasing one.
You need to have a sharpening plan when you buy a knife, regardless of the price. Let's say you went nuts and purchased a $400 chef knife, it was sharper than your wildest dreams and made everything you did in the kitchen better.
Now I on the other hand got lured into the $30.00 Henckels Chef knife I saw at a store and I knew it was a good deal because it was a Henckels.
The truth of the matter is that both knives will become very dull and they will be dull in a short period of time. In fact, I would say that $400.00 knife will get dull more quickly. You will be some amazed at how beautifully it cuts that you will be slicing everything you can get your hands one, you'll go to your neighbours house and cut their vegetables up.  In other words, you're going to put a lot more wear and tear on the edge, it's good, that is what you are supposed to do.

Whatever knife you choose to purchase, you need to know that it will get dull, ( a knife worth three thousand dollars will get dull), so you should have a plan to get it sharpened again.

You have options and none of them include a machine of any type, unless it is a belt sander with some sharpening belts, you can get a knife very sharp with one of those. No..I am talking about gadgets, in fact, if it says "knife sharpener" on it, it is not worth the money, it isn't a knife sharpener.

Purchase a knife and purchase a Japanese Water Stone and learn to sharpen your own knife. Or just give it to me of course but really, why spend $400 or $150 on a knife if you are going to let it get dull.
You can buy a nice knife and a 1,000 grit stone and keep that knife razor sharp for many many years.

What about that $14.00 knife, why would you pay me $10.00 to sharpen it?

Well  you can sharpen it yourself, or you can pay the 10 bucks and have it sharper than new. Or you can throw it out and purchase another $14.00 knife and do that every 3 months. However, that knife won't be very sharp when you buy it. A $400.00 knife will be sharp but again, it will be dull soon.

You want to pay me because I can make that knife sharper than you would believe, you'll love it, you'll feel good about it and you haven't thrown anything away.  Now if you really want to feel good about yourself, imagine sharpening it yourself on a waterstone?

(By the way, not all Henckels knives are created equal and again that is a good thing, but there are 11 different types of Henckels, the top three are very nice knives)

Don't feel bad because you have inexpensive knives, feel bad because they are dull and you're not doing anything about it. The last thing you should do is go buy another new knife, more expensive.....remember, that one will get just as dull.

I'm here for you.

Cool Eh?

Sharpening serrated knives

This is an explanation on how to very inexpensively sharpen a serrated knife, it isn't exactly how I do it but it is close enough and with practice it should work for you. The idea here is to give you an option that is easy to do and affordable.

Remember, you need to form a burr on the flat side of the knife, i.e. the back of the blade by sharpening each serration separately. I didn't invent this, I got the idea from Ben Dale who created the Edge Pro. I have modified it slightly but I don't take any credit for it.

What you need: Here is a wooden dowel or a ceramic rod which is to the right of the wooden dowel in the picture.  Also some wet/dry sandpaper which I use dry.  (about 5 bucks for the dowel and sandpaper which can be re-used)

Just wrap the 320 grit around the dowel and hold in place with your finger, it is easy, no need to adhere it to the dowel, let's make this quick and easy and efficient. (Start with the coarse grit paper and work your way up, you can go as high as you like, I usually stop at 1,000 grit if using sandpaper. (I often use ceramics for this job)

Now to hold the blade, and again making it quick and easy, I just put it on the edge of a telephone book which was on the counter top. It just gives you access to the handle and provides a good firm platform to hold the blade. 

Now run the dowel down each serration at the correct angle. You can use the sharpie trick on the serrations to find the angle but it is pretty simple to determine the angle, about 45 deg. You just use a trailing motion on each serration, do a count of 8. You need to repeat the process with each separate grit of sandpaper of course.  (The count of 8 is not critical, use 10 if you like)

Assuming you have a burr on the flat back side, you need to remove it and here I am holding the stone over the flat side at about 5 deg or less to remove the burr. If you haven't formed a burr, go back and try again. You are not achieving anything if you haven't formed a burr, i.e. removed that fatigued metal.

This is just the quick and inexpensive but very effective method. You can send the serrated knives somewhere to be sharpened professionally I suppose but why.

Good luck, have patience. 

Let's talk about serrated knives

I just cut and paste the info below from wikipedia  to get things started


A serrated blade has a cutting edge that has many small points of contact with the material being cut. By having less contact area than a smooth blade, the applied pressure at each point of contact is relatively greater and the points of contact are at a sharper angle to the material being cut. This causes a cutting action that involves many small splits in the surface of the material being cut, which cumulatively serve to cut the material along the line of the blade.

So, what about serrated knives: 

There is no doubt that they excel (when sharp) at cutting bread, especially crusty breads. This is because of the multiple points of contact and those multiple pressure points, which are sharp doing their job.  However, when they get dull, it can be a challenge to sharpen them but not as difficult as you may think.

However, if you don't have someone to sharpen them for you and you don't want to sharpen them yourself you are stuck with a dull knife right? (no different than all the other dull knives that many folks use)

I recommend that if  you like the serrated knives, then don't purchase expensive ones. Get a cheap one for $20.00 and just replace it when it is dull. These knives stay sharper for a longer period than regular knives, so you can a year out of one, just throw it away and get a new one. 

Now.....let's say you have gone out and purchased a beautiful MAC serrated knife for 200 dollars and it's getting dull, or a Shun, they are quite beautiful knives and obviously you are not going to throw those away.

How do you sharpen them (besides letting me do it of course)?

Here is the quick and dirty of one way to do it but if you don't have the tools, well, you're going to have to send it to me or someone else.

Here is a simple and cheap way. Get yourself a wooden dowel the same size as the serrations, i.e the diameter of the dowel is such that it will fit nicely inside a serration on your knife.  NOW get some wet/dry sandpaper in various grits, 320, 600 and 1000 grit. Not expensive at all.
Now hold the blade on the edge of a table or counter top in such a fashion that the edge is hanging over the side but you can grab the handle so it would be on a corner for example.

I will get some pictures posted soon.

Now you just run that dowel with the sandpaper (320 first) wrapped around it and you hold it at an angle that matches the serrations and run the dowel down the serrated side. Basically, you are sanding off the dull parts of the serrations and you do this on every single serration with the different grits. Do the whole blade with the 320 grit then repeat with the other grits.

Now, the goal is to for a burr on the back (flat) side of the knife, if you have done that, you are going to have a sharp knife assuming you remove burr and that is the tricky part if you don't have water stone.  If you did have a water stone you could flip the knife over and just carefully run the stone over the back of the knife at a very low angle to remove the burr. 
If you had a ceramic rod you could do the same but you need to remove that burr. 

I will publish some pictures that illustrates what I am talking about. 

(Now you know why I say to buy an inexpensive serrated knife)

What about ceramic knives

I think at some point most of us are lured into the idea of using a ceramic blade. I know I was and I picked one up ages ago. I believe that the best ceramic knives are made by a company called Kyocera but you can also get them at Paderno in Bayer's Lake and many other spots.
They are not expensive and some may like the very light feel to them.

I HATE them, Im just putting it out there right now, I would never own another one. I didn't find it particularly sharp when new and they are brutal to sharpen. Now I think Kyocera offers free sharpening if you want to ship the knife there. I just don't know why anyone would want one with all the beautiful steel knives out there that are easy to sharpen and are much much sharper.

Now if you have ceramic knives and you love them, as I suspect you do, I can sharpen them. I had to purchase some special diamond plates for my Edge Pro but it isn't something I enjoy doing.

Now having said that, I do believe a new ceramic knife will do a very nice job in the kitchen on both veggies and proteins, they are easy to keep clean and will likely hold their edge for a long time. I think that would be the one advantage that I can think of, a sharp ceramic knife will stay sharp longer than a sharp steel knife.

However, once they are dull, they will stay dull for a long long time.

This is a ceramic knife that I repaired and sharpened, it took me forever to repair the edge and then even longer to sharpen, I mean longer than forever.

The funny thing about sharpening a ceramic is that there is no burr formation, you will NOT get a burr.

(I have never seen a serrated ceramic knife.....I wonder if there are any)

Did I tell you I don't like serrated knives either, I should talk about that.

I appreciate you visiting my blog. 

Why we need to thin

Folks,
I found a couple of good diagrams that will help illustrate what happens when we don't thin a knife, i.e. this first picture is where the vast majority of knives are at now.

So in the picture above, you can see how repeated sharpening to the primary bevel only (cutting edge) will gradually move that edge up into the belly of knife. Metal is removed when sharpening, it has to be otherwise it is not sharpening. Imagine a 10 or 20 year old knife that has been sharpened a few times or more, the original geometry of the knife is altered and the knife is not performing the way it should or could.

So I thin the knife by removing the metal as depicted in red in the diagram below:

It's a process that just knocks some of shoulder of the bevel off as seen in the bottom of this picture, and  then to maintain the factory geometry or just create a better cutting knife, I keep the knife thin over time as I work on the primary bevel.

Machines don't do this.

Naturally Sharp

Hi,

I suppose you all know that there are different whet stones:

Oil Stones,
Synthetic Water Stones
Natural Water Stones

My favourite are Synthetic Japanese Water Stones and some of the best in the world are Shapton, Chosera and Arashiyama.  There are many others too, Nubatama Bamboo, Imanishi for example

But what would happen if we took a beautiful stone like the Arashiyma 6,000 and created a slurry with a natural water stone, something in the 10, 000 grit range?

Well, I will tell you, it creates a beautifully polished edge that is both quite sharp and very functional in any kitchen. My friend Ken Schwartz, a gifted sharpener gave me a piece of a natural water stone that comes from caves in Kyoto Japan and with that piece I created a slurry, or muddy paste that can enhance the sharpening effect.

I was very pleased with the results.

The picture below is the amazing Arashiyama 6,000 grit Japanese Water Stone, man made with the natural water stone that I used as a Nagura stone to create the magical paste on top, the slurry.

Sharpening knives is pretty freaking cool, this is just something that is fun to do, the results will vary with the knives/steel of course.  At some point in time I will own some full size Natural Stones but that isn't something on my radar yet.  I am not even saying that they are better for sharpening knives, however on traditional Japanese knives, you can create some beautiful finishes on them bevels with them.

Some more before and after stuff.

So this is a nice little Japanese hand made knife that has seen better days. These carbon knives can rust and chip easily if not taken care of properly but I promise you, they will perform better than your average European knife.  (well not this one)

So the first step is to remove the rust and I use Bar Keepers Friend for that, I pick that up at Cucina Moderna. It's great for removing rust without scratching, I use a cork and make a little paste with the product. It is like Comet or Ajax but better for this particular purpose.

I then repaired the edge with a Belt Sander and some special Trizact belts, it's just a matter of being very cautious, using good lighting and taking your time.

After that I sharpened it up to 10,000 grit.

This is about an hours work in total, I hope the owner will be pleased:

Thanks for being here, I appreciate it.

Scissors

So I finally jumped off the fence and purchased the Scissors Attachment for my Edge Pro Professional.
I have not seen many reviews but I fully trust the designer. I was confident it would do a nice job on the everyday scissors. I am still waiting to find out how the salon shears are doing that I did.

The system is quite amazing actually, I took this dull scissors back up to factory level sharp in 10 minutes using the same Japanese Water Stones that I do knives with.

I also did some grass shears with them, not the big shears, these are the smaller, scissor like Fiskar clippers that I use and they turned out great.

So give me your scissors, for $8.00 they will be sharp again, that's for the average size, smaller ones would be less.

Can I sharpen my own knives - I don't have any training?

Ok,  you are wondering if you can actually get a knife sharp, you've never had a lesson.

I would say YES definitely, the fact that you are reading this means that you have an interest, that is a fantastic starting point.  The process of getting a knife sharp is not difficult, you need to realize that there are many different levels of sharpness. All you need to do is make your knife sharp enough to work in the kitchen. It probably is dull now so if you measure a knife edge on a scale form 1 to 10, with 1 being dull, all you need is to take it up one notch.

It is only people like me who are not satisfied until we reach level 12, seriously, you have the ability to sharpen your knives.

I am amazed by people who would spend $200.00 on a Chef's Choice, which is likely the best of the electric sharpeners. Now for $200.00 I could buy some incredible Japanese Water Stones and get knives sharper than 95% of the people on earth have ever seen.

For $30.00 you could buy one water stone and get a knife far sharper than any machine. Now if you don't have any interest in sharpening knives by hand than yeah, go get that machine or just go buy new knives every 6 months or something but because you are reading this, I am guessing you have the urge to learn....good for you.

The knife pictured here cost $3,500 US. So imagine if someone gave that too you as a gift, or you won it or something. Knives like this, believe it or not, are no sharpened, the owner is expected to sharpen it.  (This is a  whole new topic). Now the knife is sharp, it will blow any new Henckels away.

Anyway, what do you do, imagine running a knife like this through the knife slayer, the Chef's Choice, gees, it was even hard typing that.

Don't hesitate to learn to sharpen a knife on your own, all you need is one stone to get started.  All you need is to get to level 1, I could teach you that or just watch some videos.

You just need to understand what it is you are doing, what makes a dull knife sharp.

You are removing the fatigued metal by abrading it away with the water stone, you are exposing the fresh new metal underneath.You are getting side A and side B to meet. Pretty easy isn't it.

Get off the fence, and don't worry about ruining your knife, gees it isn't jewelllery, it's just a knife, you are not going to break it.

Here is the key, the Burr.

Now get to it friends.

Thinning

So what is thinning anyway,  what's the big deal with thinning?

Is it important??

HECK YEAH!

Simply put, and I am not putting this in simple terms because I don't think you would understand it otherwise, I'm putting it simply because the concept and technique is quite basic, nothing complicated about it but not many people that I meet are aware of the importance of it.

So imagine sharpening that Primary Edge Bevel and every time you do it a little metal is removed, that is what is supposed to happen, so that is a good thing.  Well imagine doing that often, over time, that edge would become quite thick, it would move up into the secondary edge or back bevel as depicted above. The angle of the knife, the factory angle of 20 degrees for example would become wider and wider.  Basically the knife becomes too thick and in fact most knives are too thick when they come from the factory.  

So Thinning is the process of sharpening the secondary bevel (back bevel), you are not really sharpening it but removing metal in that area by careful positioning of that portion of the knife on the stones and grinding away the unwanted metal, the metal that is making the knife thick. 

So how do you do it you ask?  

If the primary edge is sharpened at let's say 20 deg (typical of most European knives, Grohmanns) well to thin the knife you would lay the knife down closer to the stone, almost flat on the stone and go to work, so you are working at 15 or 13 degrees. You are not making the knife sharp now, you are thinning and making the knife much more effective. You can  polish this Relief Face or Relief as it is called to a very high polish if you like, if you have the patience and right water stones, this Relief Face can become like a mirror.  I really love doing this to a knife, it's pretty cool.

Remember, you are not trying to make the knife sharp during this process, you are thinning the knife, you can do this to a new knife.

Once you have the Relief Face accomplished, now you can sharpen the knife by raising the angle slightly and you will find the knife will become exceptionally sharp and it will become sharp very quickly. I'm telling you, this is the way to make your knife sharper than you have ever seen before. 

Also, once thinned, you can just sharpen the primary edge the next time, just keep an eye on the thickness of the knife as time passes. 

I know I make it sound simple and it isn't as simple as it seems but I firmly believe that a knife is meant to be sharpened. 

If you go out and get yourself a water stone and try to sharpen your own knife, GOOD ON YA, so what if it doesn't work, at least you tried. It was dull anyway.  (Bring it to me, I'll fix it for you).

So thinning is essential to maintain the geometry of the knife, to keep it an effective too.

NOW this is why gadgets do not work, the electric sharpeners for example. Do you think you can create a Relief Face with an electric knife sharpener??

Knife sharpening is cool, it is fun and extremely rewarding. The Relief Face (thinning) is somewhat advanced, you don't need to worry about it at first. There is sharpening and then there is Extreme Sharpening. 

Bottom Line - If you have one water stone and you sharpen your own knife, regardless of the results, you need to pat yourself on the back for attempting. One lesson could make a huge difference but there are many great videos out there. Check out  Jon Broida on You Tube or visit Japanese Knife Imports. Jon is a very nice man and gifted sharpener. His videos are exceptional.

Awesome sharpening videos

Bob Kramer Sharpening Kit

Folks, I just picked up the very nicely put together sharpening kit by Zwilling and Bob Kramer.
It is the complete system except for a strop but that is easy to get around.

Sharpening Kit

The video linked above has it all and I have had the pleasure of trying it out. The sink bridge is very nicely made, it looks good too, made of bamboo. The 3 stones are the perfect combo,  the 400 is in my opinion the cornerstone of any sharpening system. To be more accurate a coarse stone is the critical component and the 400 stone is a perfect choice, the 500 grit stone is great as well.

These are Chosera stones and they are mounted on glass and with the 400 is the 1k and 5k stones. As I said, I use this combo quite often.

Pretty nifty kit I do have to say, comes with a video which is not too bad, it provides enough information for anyone to get started and to create a very nice edge if you pay attention.

I don't actually need the kit myself, I already have the stones and bridge, I'll probably sell it if I get any one who wants to buy it.

I highly recommend it.

Sharpening Lesson Testimonial

My first lesson at the Ikebana Shop on Quinpool went well, had a lot of fun with the Student.

Here is what he had to say:

 I worked with Peter on this for about 2.5 hrs, Pete said I had it down to a fine science in under an hour as I have been taking lessons from him off and on for over a year now, but wanted to refine my technique using all Japanese stones. I took this knife up to 8000 Grit and she is some fine knife. The selection of Japanese water stone Peter Nowlan has for teaching and for use in his own shop is unreal, he is a perfectionist and every aspect of doing it right but at the same time his teaching methods is laid back comfortable and most enjoyable.
Peter had Japanese flute music going and treated me to very nice Japanese tea, I think it was green tea but very nice indeed

The shop is on Quinpool Road and is all about Japanese culture, lots of books on cooking, sushi cook books are stunning, many nice crafts and best if you want to learn the art of Ikenana, Flower arrangement then this is the place not to mention my Favorite is working with a Master at his craft of knife sharpening Mr Peter Nowlan to whom I would recommend lessons or having your own kitchen / Chef knife sharpen by in a heartbeat.

CONTACT

Folks, if your number is unlisted and you call me it will come up as "Blocked" on my phone.

I can't get back to you unless you send me an email (sharp knives@me.com) or call me back.

I've lost a couple of customers this way, so please know that I am interested in sharpening your knives,
but I just call you to make final arrangements.

This just happened with a nice lady and her Globals, her number is blocked.

Peter

what if I get a complaint

Holy crap, someone complained.

After well over a thousand knives a customer emailed me and told me he was unhappy with his knife. 

Well, I can honestly say that in 2 years it was the first and for some reason unknown to me, I was kind of excited about it, I knew an opportunity was ahead of me. 

There is only one way to handle a complaint.  First of all, here is a fella good enough to trust me with his beloved knife, regardless of the cost of knife, it was important to him. (I never judge people by their knives). Also, he went out of his way to drop the knife off and paid ten bucks to get it sharpened.

First of all, I would assume that this nice person did his homework and this is how I ended up with his knife. He was expecting nothing less than perfection and I let him down. 

Only way to handle this is to apologize and fix the problem, any other solution is unsatisfactory.

Here is how I handled my first complaint. 

I called the man and asked him to come over with his knife, I gave him the opportunity to watch me sharpen it. (Also, I went out and bought 4 very ripe tomatoes, the ultimate test)

He came over, a very nice young fella, no hard feelings here, this is about correcting a problem. Sharpening a knife by hand isn't like putting a piece of bread in the toaster and getting a perfect piece of toast every time.  Gees folks, give me a freakin break, remember this is my first complaint :)

He brought a cutting board, a tomato and a lemon.......COOL. 

Keep in mind that I knew that I was going to get his knife sharper than he has ever seen, I wasn't worried, I was excited. I never get a chance to sharpen a knife in front of someone.

Anyway, for the purposes of perspective, his knife was sharper than 90% of the knives I see,  which again was cool for me, it meant that this guy knew what a sharp knife was.

I re-sharpened the knife and within 5 minutes the knife was ready to go home with him, problem solved and he was happy, we hugged and high five'd, all good.

Now came the fun part,  I asked him to let me experiment with the knife, using the tomato and the lemon  as a guide and this is important folks, what I am about to tell you is the important.

I sharpened the knife at 1, 000 grit (albeit on one of the best stones in world....sorry about that). The edge was beautiful, he was able to slice the tomato without using any pressure, so just the weight of the knife was enough to penetrate the skin. (SOUND EASY?.......go take your sharpest knife in the house and try it ).

We repeated this process up to 6,000 grit at which point he took the knife home, very happy. I  gave him his money back ( he didn't want to take it but I forced him too, he was a nice fella)

Anyway, what I got from this was the opportunity to sharpen a knife and be able to have immediate feedback from a customer as he tested his knife on the skin of a tomato. 

Bottom Line...Customer happy and a lesson learned for me. 

So what was the problem in the first place you ask?

The knife's Bolster had to be reduced  a little, it was preventing the edge of the knife from making full contact with the cutting board.

I may have sharpened it at too high a grit, so the edge would slide over the tomato and require a little force in order to break the skin.

In any event,  it was not to the customers liking so I fixed it, it was actually pretty cool. 

The Chosen One

I often get the "what is the best knife" question, I will give my answer here.

First of all, here is a list of the knives not to buy:

• KNIFE BLOCKS - Unless you paying a lot of money for  a block of knives, and I mean $700-$900.00, don't bother.  
• Ceramic Knives - I don't get the hype, I don't find them all that sharp and they are a bitch to sharpen.
• There is a brand of knives that used to be sold door to door and you can get them online now at ridiculously expensive prices, don't bother with them either.

I understand that the block of 9 knives that you see at Costco or Walmart or other places is tempting, you can get 9 freaking knives for 100 bucks.  Here are the facts, the knives themselves are not that good, they are cheap and very soon you will have a set of dull knives. You will be constantly reminded of that 100 dollars you wasted. It's a trap folks, don't fall for it.

Instead of purchasing a block of cool looking knives, buy ONE good knife.  A single Chef's Knife from MAC, Grohmann, Wusthof, Henckels, Shun and Global, is likely better than that entire set of knives. (Keep in mind that not all these brands are created equal).

The knife in picture above is a Nakiri, (veggie knife) hand made in Japan, brutally sharp and cheaper to purchase than most high end Global and Shun knives. 

When you go buy a knife, you should be thinking also of how you are going to sharpen it. That is the mistake people make and I've been there. Regardless of how much you pay for a knife, it will be dull before long, or at least lose that crisp edge that some new knives have. 

Note that many new knives are not sharp in my opinion.

So, instead of thinking you are saving money buy buying 8 or 10 knives at once for the price of 1 knife, you are not, you are punishing yourself because soon all those knives will be dull. Even if they weren't, you don't all of those anyway.

Here is a nice Global Chef knife, nothing special to be honest but this one knife is probably better than all of those knives in the block and isn't it easier to keep 1 knife sharp than a bunch of them. Globals are easy to sharpen and take a nice edge, they will hold the edge for quite a while but need to be re-sharpened 2-4 times a year depending on use. If this is the only knife you have, look at getting it sharpened 3 times a year at least and if that knife came to me for sharpening, that is $30.00...for the whole year. 

There are so many knives to choose from, I know it is difficult but the folks at Paderno or Cucina Moderna here are knowledgeable and will steer you in the right direction.

Now my next knife will come from Mr. Kevin Kent at Knifewear in Calgary and now in Ottawa. He sells exquisite Japanese hand made knives.
AWESOME KNIVES