How long will my knife stay sharp?

Hi,
This is probably the most common question, or "how often should I get them sharpened"?

I purchased a Shun about 5 years ago and distinctly remember reading the little instruction booklet which indicated the knife would stay sharp for 1 year.  I have since given that knife away, no knife will stay sharp for a year, unless it is put away in a drawer and even then,  unused knives seem to lose their edge for some reason.

In experience, people get their knives sharpened by me once a year which means that for 2-3 months their knife (knives) are sharp and then they used them dull for 9 months. (Not all customers of course, many have a regular routine)

When I sharpen a knife, the edge is very fine, even with hard steel that edge is an extremely narrow strip of steel that will fail over time and there are just too many factors involved to say what the time frame is. Now I just say 3 months but in fact, the dulling process starts on day one.

Understanding that for most people, a 3-4 month sharpening rotation is the ideal situation, why not have a Sharpening Plan/Guide in place, like you do for you car, a book that tells you when you should get the oil changed.


I'm currently working on such a Guide in conjunction with Paderno and the Guide will be started with the purchase of a knife which includes a free first sharpening. Anyone can pick up the Guide, which is a sharpening schedule (free) it just have the first sharpening for free.

(I will try to put one up here so anyone can use it).

For the average home chef, an 8 week sharpening rotation is ideal but 12 weeks is fine too, I don't think it should go beyond that though, the idea is to have sharp knives all the time. If what you are cutting and cutting with makes the knife dull in 3 weeks than perhaps a monthly rotation is best.  For Paderno customers, the schedule is designed to reward folks who stick to it with regular free sharpening.  It will be up to the customers to use the Schedule and tweak it so it keeps their knife sharp.

Sharpening Schedule 
Gold Plan is a 3 month rotation
Platinum Plan is a 2 month rotation
Executive Plan is a 1 month rotation. 


A lot of people don't want to spend the money on a monthly or 3 monthly sharpening, so a 6 month rotation should be used, as long as they know that the knife will be dull after 3 months.

(When I say dull, I mean it is definitely not as sharp as the day purchased or sharpened by me but in many cases the knife is still slicing and not tearing the food.)

There is no penalty of course for not following the plan, it's a guide, the purpose of the guide is to answer the question: "How often should I get my knives sharpened?"

The easiest way to answer that question is not with a time period but a test, if your tomato is being compressed by the knife before it breaks the skin, it's time.


Thanks for reading.