You can Sharpen Knives

Hello Friends:

Random Picture of some knives I sharpened.

In my experience in talking to knife shop owners, my customers and just from life experiences I think there are many people who are interested in sharpening knives and have undoubtedly tried it.

FIRST OF ALL..why not just buy one of these, professional sharpening machines??

The Ultimate Knife Sharpener.........ok

So why not just get one of these  nifty Chef's choice electric sharpeners, surely a machine with this much advanced technology is going to do a better job that old Peter Nowlan who uses stones and water, come on...take a step into reality Peter.

Try to imagine a little old Japanese man hunched over a water stone and lovingly brining the edge of a knife over an exquisite water stone ever so delicately and precisely where he should be hitting the edge of the knife to the stone. He can do this because he has been doing it for 50 years.....I know such a man by the way.

Now why doesn't that nice old man just throw those stupid water stones away and instead use one of these machines?

Friends, I am going to tell you why and remember this particular machine is the pinnacle of machines, there are hundreds of them and this is the best. So what I am going to tell you pertains to every gadget that has been produced.  (NOTE the Edge Pro or Wicked Edge Precision Sharpener are not gadgets and do not fall into this category at all, they are precision instruments and work beautifully)

The machine pictured above will sharpen the primary edge of your knife, i.e. the cutting edge and it will be sharper,  it will remove metal, a little more than necessary I might add but it will sharpen a knife.

NOW.....what about the secondary bevel, i.e. the edge behind the edge. Picture the edge of a a knife, if you just kept removing metal from that edge to make it sharp, eventually that edge angle is going to increase and increase and the knife will become quite useless over time, and not a lot of time either.

Here is a picture of a knife edge, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine what would happen if you just keep sharpening that edge, that Included Angle is going to get wider and wider and  you won't be cutting anything. This is pertinent to any method of sharpening by the way, even with water stones.

YOU Need to sharpen both edges, the Cutting Edge or Primary Bevel and the area behind that or the Secondary Bevel, you need to keep that thinned as you sharpen, or at least know that what you are doing to the primary edge and it is going to have an impact on the secondary edge.  

The machine pictured above does not do this, so for first few months or year, that knife will be sharper but eventually, you are just grinding away metal and you've wasted the money spent on your machine and knife or knives.  This is why any sharpener worth his weight in water stones will never use anything but water stones (or an Edge Pro or WEPS) but really, Japanese Water Stones will produce edges on knives that will just blow you away.

Don' t waste your money and take the easy way out, it is not the easy way it is the path to frustration and it is an illustration of a lack of knowledge of knife geometry and knife sharpening.

So what about you, can anyone sharpen a knife?

I say "yes" to that folks, oh yeah, heck yeah you can get a knife sharper than new with practice and you can do it in 15 minutes. 

Coarse Stone

Now over the years I have collected some pretty nifty water stones but remember, I am obsessed with sharpening and collecting them. You don't need expensive, top of the line stones to sharpen a knife. Heck, you can go to Lee Valley or Paderno and pick up a combination stone, a coarse and medium stone for 60 bucks or so. With that one stone you can remove the dull metal and reveal the crisp clean edge underneath and there you have a sharp knife again. You can do this for about a hundred years and that knife will still be fine.

Too many times I hear people say that they are afraid to try because they will ruin the knife. Unless you are holding the knife straight up and down and driving it into the stone, you won't ruin it.  There are so many videos now on You Tube  as well to help.

If you are in my area, I would be more than willing to give one on one instruction and I won't charge the $400.00 that I've seen in other spots, not even close.

You don't have any excuses to not  learn, if you are interested just give it a shot, go buy a 30 dollar water stone, watch some videos, ask ME questions and then enjoy one of the most rewarding experiences you have ever had.

You don't need expensive water stones, you just need some patience and a desire to learn...oh and a knife.

You'll be KING.......go for it.