Knife Sharpening Using Traditional Methods: I've seen the light.

Hi folks

I want to share a very simple yet incredibly effective tool that I have been taking for granted a lot. This is not something I have been doing for years and years but a habit that I now depend on.

When you are sharpening a knife on a coarse stone and going for the raising of the burr, if you don't already do this, take a look the edge once in while under a good source of light. In the picture above, you can see glints of light, reflections along the edge in the middle area. The light from above is causing some of the metal along the edge to show up. So what does this mean:

It means that I have not completely closed the gap so to speak, we sharpen a knife by bringing both sides together as precisely as we can at the Apex of the knife, the Primary Edge. When we have done that, you should not see any light. So to take this further, take any knife out of a drawer and check the edge like this under light. If you see anything reflecting, it means that knife is starting to dull or is completely dull, the light you see is the metal that has folded over. When we sharpen, we remove that metal, we grind, adjusting pressure as necessary until the knife is sharp, when it is sharp you will not see any light.

When sharpening, the difference between the edge above and the one a couple of minutes later on the same stone is remarkable in terms of sharpness.

It is difficult to get a good shot of knife edges, for me it is anyway but in the picture here, and this is a 220 Shapton Glass Stone you can see the edge on the left, not yet finished and the one on the right taken just a minute or two later which is clean, no light reflecting. Once you reach this stage on the coarse stone or whatever stone you started with, you will likely see no more light.

My advice is to stick with the stone, continue to sharpen until the light reflections vanish and I guarantee that you knife will be much much sharper. This is just from a 220 stone. I suppose there was a time when I was unedgeucated :) that I would not be as vigilant as I should have been and not seen the light. Once I started doing this however, along with my variances in pressure, my edges have become much much sharper.

It's so easy and you are probably already doing this maybe without realizing it.

On another topic, STEELING, I want to show a picture of what improper steeling does to a knife, it does everything except what it is supposed to do.

A Steel should not, ever, come in contact with the blade of the knife just the edge. Now I know scratches can occur from other means but I know that this particular knife was steeled this way. This is the product of steeling the way it is often shown on TV, where the chef slaps the blade against the Steel. Completely ineffective and harmful to the knife.

To finish on a positive note, here are some beautiful knives to look at, I have these at home and they can be purchased. (Remember, I don't sell knives, I just carry them for someone who does so any money goes directly to them.)