Opportunity

Hi Readers.
Thank you for being here, I am very busy now with knives, that is why my Blog Posts are not as frequent.

  The other day I was given the opportunity to give a sharpening demo and talk to a group of paying customers at the largest Food and Film Festival in the world, Devour.  (I didn't get paid or anything for this,  it's a great opportunity, better than getting paid.)

   I didn't know what to expect in terms of an audience, they had to pay but every seat was filled and there were several folks standing in the back. Great to see this interest in freehand sharpening.

   The Devour organizers bring in celebrity chefs to each event, this was the 8th annual and Chef Kass, the Obama's White House Chef was there. I met him and he is extremely interested in knife sharpening. He asked me for 3 "take aways" tips and I had about 4 seconds to respond. This is what I told him, I gave him 4 points:

Chef Kass and myself.

1.      Burr Formation - It is critical and the time it takes to form a burr will differ with every knife, it depends on the knife itself, the stone being used and the skill of the sharpener;

2.      Burr Removal - It starts on the same stone used to form the burr and is accomplished with ever diminishing levels of pressure, it is the key to truly sharp knives.

3.      Control/Own the space between the spine of the knife and the surface of the stone. Muscle memory is the way to achieve this and this leads of course to consistency. I think this is hardest thing for a novice to accomplish yet once it is done, once you own that space, the door to sharp heaven is open.

4.      Learn to manipulate pressure to gain every single ounce of goodness out of every stone you use.  This alone, this one step helped me create the sharpest knives that I have every been able to see.

Enough of that:

I found a fantastic product that cleans ceramic rods. It is those Mr. Clean magic cleaning pads, really good, very cheap to buy and easy to find. Check them out. It is important to keep a hone clean, the glaze that builds up acts as a barrier between the knife edge and the hone. 

Thank you for sticking around folks. Please just email me if you have something you want me to add.

I intend to do a video on sharpening birds beak/hawk bill paring knives when I get one to sharpen. I also intend to explain how I deal with Asymmetrical knives.