BFC

This is the largest cleaver I have sharpened. The owner drove two hours to bring it to me, it's about 70 years old, had no handle and no Edge to speak of.  It was severely blunt from years of hammering away at something so this was a lengthy challenge.

Coarse stones are vital with this type of work, I started on a Naniwa 220 to reset the bevels and basically make it look like something useful again. This was 30 minutes of grinding and again, it's where you need patience because without the ground work you are not going to achieve what you set out for.
Now, you could just use a grinder and put a decent edge on it but I suspect that if you are interested in that type of thing, you are not here reading this Blog, it certainly wouldn't be anything I would be looking at.


I went from the 220 to a 400 Chosera then, 1k, 2k, 4k and that was it. The owner is a woodworker so he can do the handle. I would love to see it when it was done. The angle was approx 25 degrees. I don't even know if he is going to use it, he just wanted his cleaver to look good again.



(Yes, If I was intelligent man, I would have taken some "Before" shots.)

Just some random pictures of a recent project, all the knives in the three pictures above are new and belong to the same individual. They were not sharp though, they had been "sharpened" on a grinder by the makers just to sell them.  Some folks just love collecting knives, he has over 100 of them.


I will be making another video shortly on how I sharpen the tips of kitchen knives, it was an area that always caused me some stress but I think I solved that riddle, well someone else did it for me and I learned from watching someone else, I jus't cant remember.

( the picture above has been in one of my earlier Blog posts)

Thanks for looking and hanging in there.

Peter

FLOWERS

I never thought I would have a title "Flowers"

I just thought they were nice freakin shots :)

Grohmann knife made here in Nova Scotia, finished with a Shapton Pro 15k.

Thanks for looking.

Something Different

This is a big knife with a recurve which made it a challenge to sharpen free hand.

I chose the Edge Pro to tackle this one and I used the 1/4 inch Edge Pro stones for the recurved portion of the blade. You can see the difficulty one would have doing this freehand.

The knife is nothing special, that is to say, the steel is not the best but the contour of the blade is different than what I am used to.

I finished it off with a Chosera 10.000 grit stone and I am pretty happy with the results.

I put the Spyderco in there just to show how large the knife is. ( By the way, the scratches in the Spyderco were already there when I was given the knife to sharpen)

Just goes to show you that there are many different knives out there and many different approaches to sharpening them.

My progression was a 400 Latte, 1.5 Shapton Pro, 2k. Shapton Glass, 3k Chosera, 5k Shapton Pro and 10k Chosera.

Lots of stones but they worked.

Peter

Learning to sharpen, what you really need.

Now this picture does have a few things that I consider a must if you are learning to sharpen.
A water stone, the stone holder, a Sharpie, a dull knife and some water. This just happens to be in  a tray that I used to use to help keep things a little tidy. Sharpening knives can be messy.

Now the things you ABSOLUTELY need the most are things you cannot buy:

PATIENCE/PERSISTENCE and enough passion to drive you to practicing, building layers upon layers of confidence is essential.

I know that these things are a some what cliche they really are important, it's a bit of mental game and you need to be able to manage your expectations.

The main reason I am posting this topic is to talk about Japanese Water Stones. Yes I do love my Naniwa Chosera and Shaptons but don't feel you need to have these to make your knives sharp. Don't think you need a 10,000 grit stone either, you can get a knife incredibly sharp with a 400 grit stone, so the 1k is quite okay.

Stay away from the oil stones sold in hardware stores for 7 dollars though.  King stones are quite okay, they are very inexpensive at about 30 dollars Canadian for a King 800, 1000 and 1200.  You can get away with one water stone although it would be nice to have a coarse stone  in the 400-600 range or even the King 800. Your knives are probably a little dull when starting so a coarser stone will speed up the process but a 1k water stone is pretty much perfect if you just want to get one.

Don't feel pressure to go out and buy a lot of stuff to get started, one stone and a 2X4 over a kitchen sink will do the trick. Once you find out if you are hooked or not you can explore other nifty items.

The key to successful knife sharpening is developing a technique that is repeatable and effective.
Don't practice on a 2 dollar knife, it will lead to frustration because of the inferior quality of the steel, so it will be hard to sharpen and you may set yourself up for failure, you'll lose confidence.


Start on a knife that you use and if you are worried about scratching it, tape the blade up.




The purpose of this post is not to provide an instruction on sharpening but to tell you not to feel the need to go spend a lot of money.  ALSO, I am quite sure that you can do it.

People spend a lot of money on gadgets for sharpening, believe me, with one stone you can get your knifes sharper than any gadget and NOT TO MENTION how satisfying the work is.
Every single time you sharpen your knife, you are rewarded with the satisfaction that you have done it yourself and then be prepared to get sucked in because it really does feel great.

If you can take a lesson from someone that is the best route but that is not always possible.

never hesitate to contact me if you have specific questions.

Thanks folks
Peter

Miscellaneous Sharpening

Hi,
Every now and then, about once a month I go to a really cool little restaurant and sharpen for about 5 or 6 hours. It is a great little spot and folks in the area bring their knives and I pretty much sharpen steady the entire time.

I get to see some pretty nifty knives and I often end up taking them home to finish off.

It is a good workout for my water stones, this is pair of 220 coarse stones, the one on the right, WAS the same size as the Imanishi on the left but this is over period of 3 months, I don't wear these out in one day that's for sure. You can see the Naniwa on the right needs a little flattening which is pretty easy with these stones. That is the problem when I am so busy sharpening, it is easy to neglect the flattening, especially when people are waiting.

I am very often asked the same questions, or hear the same comments.

"My knives are probably not worth sharpening"

I always tell folks that they are or to let me see them at the very least,  and in most cases they are worth sharpening.  Now if it is 3 dollar paring knife that has gone through hell then no, I tell them just to buy a 6 dollar paring knife or a good one and keep it sharp.


The other thing that is common is Steel abuse, or Gadget abuse. We have all seen knives for sale and in the same place is a "sharpener" of some form, a wheel or triangle thingie and it is easy to see which knives have gone through them not just by the condition of the edge but by the marks on the blade.

However, I don't blame people, they are just trying to keep their knives sharp and fall victim to trying out the "worlds best sharpener, guaranteed to work"

I have said it before but I think that in the cases of men, most of us have had an urge at one point to sharpen knives but we didn't know how exactly, not at first anyway, most of us learned from mistakes. When I started there was not computers, no Blogs, no Jon Broida videos, so I was pretty much just going from what my dad taught me and undoubtedly repeating mistakes in technique.
Of course, making a mistake isn't life threatening in the world of sharpening (not in most cases anyway, unless you are using a grinder or something that can throw the knife ).  The important thing is that we had the urge and interest and in my case, that just continued and luckily, over time I met the  right folks and learned a technique that works for me.

The other common statement/question is concerning technique, when I sharpen in the restaurant, people can see me, it's right up front so a lot of people ask about technique, different patterns, and so on. "I thought you had to use figure 8"s" for example.

I tell people the technique can be different but it has to be something you can repeat over and over and over and be comfortable with. Also of course, you need to be abrading the metal, so the stone must be removing and refining as you work.  The key question is, "Is the knife sharper than when you started?"
Try to cut a tomato, if the tomato bends before the edge digs in than the knife can be made sharper so that it slices effortlessly. If you can make the knife slice instead of tearing that is awesome.

The knives in the two pictures here all belong to the same person, I will have a good time working on these. The one immediately above will be tricky though, how the hell am I going to get into that curve :)

Until next time.
Thanks so much for looking and reading.

Respectfully,
Peter

Video on knife edge maintenance

Folks,
This is long and don't feel the requirement to watch the whole thing. However,  it is what it is, I needed to discuss certain aspects of knife edge maintenance and I found it difficult to shorten the narrative.

Remember, you have a lot of options in keeping your knives sharp, first and foremost is the act of getting it sharpened in the first place. You either do it  yourself or have someone do it professionally and not somewhere that uses a grinder of any type.
If you call a place and they tell you that they have very expensive equipment....run.

If you call a person and they tell you that they use Japanese Water Stones, pat yourself on the back for finding the individual, contain your excitement and then take your knives to that person.


Edge maintenance is part of cycle, your edge maintenance may just be having me sharpen your knives once every 2 months, thats fine.

I see a lot of knives that have been abused by a Steel, folks who stubbornly insist that all they need to do is use a Steel and that is just plain incorrect. You need to have the metal removed eventually, but anything you can do in the meantime, in between sharpening on stones may be of benefit.


I hope you enjoyed the video and if so, thank you for watching. If you didn't enjoy it and watched it, thanks for watching.
Peter

Hang in There

Hi,
I have been working on my next video which will be on knife edge maintenance.
Instead of just putting something together quickly I have been talking to several chefs and folks in the know from different parts of the world. People that I have a lot of respect for and people who have taught me some new things about the subject.

I also need to write up the script which I have almost done so bear with me.  Another thing I did was get myself a good ceramic hone, I've owned several but ended up either selling them or giving them away so I went to my fav online Canadian knife place, Paul's Finest and ordered an Idahone ceramic hone. (Of course the other very cool Canadian spot to shop for knives and sharpening supplies and other very nifty items is Knifewear, great people there)

In the meantime, I have been busy, here is a well used Naniwa Chosera 400 grit stone beside the new one I just got from Paul's Finest. Now the one on the right is the Professional series so it was never as thick as the one on the left but still, you  can see it is well loved.

I spent a good part of the day yesterday at a beautiful restaurant called Le Caveau in the Valley, a fantastic location with a winery too.

So, thanks for hanging in there, I plan to have my video up sometime this week.


Respectfully
Peter Nowlan