What I use to sharpen your knives

I thought I would share a few pictures of the items I use to sharpen knives.

Coarse Stone

When I get a knife, any knife to sharpen, I start with a coarse stone, this could be a new knife. I set the bevels with the coarse stone. This one is a Naniwa Chosera 400 grit stone, absolutely amazing product.   The coarse stone is the most important stone in my opinion. This is the stone that will set you up for a successful sharpening. I raise a Burr with this stone on both sides of the knife, and then I remove it.  Now if the knife is relatively new or it hasn't been sharpened before the burr will come quickly with a stone like this. If the knife was unfortunate enough to go through a grinder of some type, it will take longer. I use a 400 or 500 stone, you can use an 800 or even 1,000 grit stone, it will just take a little longer to raise the burr. (you know by now that raising the burr and then removing it is essential, it is the key to knife sharpening)
Your goal here is to remove fatigued metal from the knife, the parts that have rolled over, this is why the knife is dull, you are going to a fresh new edge with the first stone.  When done properly, your knife is sharp, the dull parts are now gone, Swarf on the stone or in the water is all that remains.

From the coarse stone, I go to a medium grit stone, 1,000 or 2,000. I DO NOT move to this stone until I have raised the burr with the coarse stone. Time spent on this coarse stone is anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes, it just depends on how dull the knife is. You can go lower than this, you can get a Nubatama 60 grit or Sigma 240 grit to start with.

Medium Stone

This is a Naniwa Chosera 1,000 grit stone, many consider this to be one of the best 1K stones in the world, i.e. synthetic stones. I absolutely love this one but any 1k or 2k stone will do the job.
NOW I am refining the EDGE, it is already sharp from the first stone. I have removed the fatigued metal and now I am going to progress in stones and remove any scratches left by the coarser stone.
It will get sharper and sharper but I am not trying to raise a burr now, one will likely form but now my goal is to refine the edge and to REMOVE any burr that forms. (Remember the formation of a new burr means you have removed metal from the edge, you don't need to do this again but doing so is no problem, it means you are hitting the edge correctly so just make sure it is removed)

Now some sharpeners will stop at this stone, in fact, many believe there is no need to go beyond 1,000 grit with European knives, even Shun knives are sharpened to 1,000 grit at the factory. Your knife will be perfect now for normal kitchen use, if you have used the right technique, the knife is likely sharper than when new. The time spent on the medium stone is not as long as the Coarse Stone. It could be five minutes.

Take the time to inspect the edge as you sharpen, a Loupe is great for this. Don't just blindly grind away and remove metal needlessly. If you are taking the time to read this and if you have gone out and got yourself some nice water stones than take the time to do it properly.

Impatience will be rewarded with poor results. Remember, don't go to the Medium Stone until your work is done on the Coarse Stone. Patience grasshopper.

Now lets go on some more, heck yeah, we don't to stop here. Lets use at least one for stone, a Fine Stone.
This is a finishing stone, your hard work was done with that all important Coarse Stone, then you removed the scratches and refined the edges with the Medium Stone. Now you are going to do some more refinement, make that edge looked polished and beautiful. You're about to cross the line here between a toothy edge and a more polished, smooth edge.

COOL eh.

Now here is a fine stone, and it is one of my favourites.

Fine Stone

This is a beautiful 4,000 grit Imanishi that I got from Lee Valley. It is fantastic and the feel of this particular stone is like velvet.....oh yeah, now we're talking.

You will see that the stones are wet, always keep them wet with WATER (NEVER OIL), don't feel the need to was away slurry and swarf that forms on the stone, just keep it lubricated.

At this stage you are really just polishing the edge, removing scratches left by previous stones. You don't need any pressure here, be gentle and patient. FOCUS here, the edge will be quite polished after this stone, you will be startled perhaps by the way it looks and feels now.

For most knives, you really don't to go any further, you can of course but remember that if you polish the edge too much you are taking away any micro serrations, the tiny, invisible teeth in the edge that help it bite into something like a tomato.

Now I usually just polish my edges up to 4, 000 or 5, 000 grit. If I am doing a Japanese knife, I mean hand made Japanese knives (not Shun or Global or MAC), I will take it up to 8,000 grit.


Now if  you applying compound bevels, creating a Relief Face, you can polish that right up to your highest grit, I sure do.  Here is a very fine Japanese Water Stone. Overkill for sure folks.

Shapton Glass 16,000

This is my current collection  but remember, this is a culmination of years of saving and and collecting. I sharpen professionally, you don't need these. In fact, you could get by with a single stone, a King 1,200 from Lee Valley for example.

For regular sharpening however, i.e. to take a knife that is very dull to extremely sharp I use 3 to 5 stones. If there is damage to the edge I need to fix that first of course. It happens a lot and greatly increases the time required to sharpen it.

Never hesitate to ask me to help you with sharpening, whether it is stone selection or just how to sharpen knives.

REMEMBER- Raise a burr on both sides of the knife and then remove it. This is what you need to do to kick start your knife sharpening session. Every single time with every knife, no exceptions. (Except Ceramic knives, they don't raise burrs)

Thanks for being here.

MY KNIFE IS SHARP ENOUGH

Friends,
I will admit that my standard for sharpness exceeds the majority of people out there and that I also have the luxury of being able to sharpen my own knives daily if necessary.
However, what I have noticed over the last couple of years is a common misconception that people have in thinking that their own knives are already sharp because they are new. Also....they are considered new by many if they were purchased within the last couple of years.

We all know how good it feels to use a brand new knife, it is really nice and sharp and it just enhances everything you do in the kitchen...................HOLD ON THERE:

That new knife in the vast majority of cases is not truly sharp,  nobody like me has sat down, hunched over an array of exquisite Japanese Water Stones and fretted about that knife, nobody looked at the edge under a loupe and made sure it was absolutely perfect and ready to go. No..in fact, it is likely that no human touched the blade. This is not to say that the knife isn't good or sharp, obviously it will be sharp enough to cut but it is just the starting point.  That new knife will not hold it's edge long, yet it will continue to be used, in many cases for years and years. Every now and then, the owner will take out a Steel and try to sharpen it and then think, ok it is good for another year. (Sorry it doesn't work that way)

The edge of the knife, the cutting edge is actually quite fragile, different steels will cause different results in edge retention but that edge will very soon start to roll over in places, that is what makes it dull. Hold the knife edge under a bright light, if you see the light reflecting back in spots along the edge, that is pieces of metal that has folded over. It happens with every metal knife and again, it happens very quickly, i.e. within a month of purchase.

This dull knife or knives will do nothing but cause frustration, all the things you love about cooking will start to fall off, you're going to hate those knives after a while. Did you know that cutting food with a dull knife is not only dangerous and frustrating.........you are changing the the way the food should taste.

The awesome part of all of this is that this can be all turned around. I can change that and make that knife sharper than it was when you purchased it. I will remove that fatigued metal, create a new edge and refine it, make it a joy to use, a knife that you will be looking for all the time and telling your friends about.

(I can do that to that knife for many years and it will still look the same, the amount of metal removed is extremely minute).

If you have not given me your knife to sharpen recently.....I'm sorry but it is not sharp enough.

Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate you reading my Blog..........I am truly grateful.

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