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Honing guide

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Re: Honing guide

Postby AJB Temple » 25 May 2021, 21:23

Matt - some knives are just very difficult. I have an expensive folding pocket knife that is like that: I'm very experienced at knife sharpening, but can't get a good edge on this one. It's supposedly Rockwell tested at around 62.

On the other hand I have a French mushrooming / truffle pocket knife bought with my paper round money in France when I was 15. You only need to show it a stone and it is scalpel sharp.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby novocaine » 25 May 2021, 21:26

The problem i see a lot is pulling a slicing motion to quickly so the burr never quite forms. Along with not hitting the bevel angle and forming a pear shaped bevel as mentioned. Because the isnt much bevel, its hard to work out what angle to go at. I was shiwn to atart high an work back but this isnt really correct.

As to steels,i have a ceramic steel that sharpens as well as dresses, not impressed with it. I also have a 14" steel given to me by a chef friend. Its awesome for dressing a blade but it scares the crap out of my wife and MIL when i use it. :lol:

Buy an opinol, carbon steel varity. Ome of my favourite knifes made and always takes a keen edge as well as keeping it.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby AJB Temple » 25 May 2021, 21:32

Yes, ceramic "steels" come in lots of grades. For high quality knives even fine grit ones are much too aggressive for my liking, but fine for workaday catering knives. I don't like them at all for single bevel knives. :shock:
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Re: Honing guide

Postby novocaine » 25 May 2021, 22:16

All my knives are western or western imitations off eastern knives (mainly kamagata or santuko with a curved cutting edge). I have one true kamagata ( still a double bevel) but I need to rehandle it. whilst I believe knives are the most important tool in a kitchen I don't see the point in stuff that I have to baby, I sold a few very nice knifes that had to treated with kit gloves and bought 3 stellar santuko style knifes (paid a fiver each for a normally 30 quid knife) and my wife got me a Robert Welch. Other than the occasional clever I don't use anything else now. They are all razor sharp.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby Woodbloke » 26 May 2021, 06:53

I can’t get along with water stones for any sharpening, but for my Japanese kitchen knives I use the Spyderco ceramic rods. Not foolproof by any means, but better than waterstones for me - Rob
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Re: Honing guide

Postby Pete Maddex » 26 May 2021, 09:49

I have been using a two cherries steel since retyring it from scraper sharpening duties.

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Re: Honing guide

Postby AJB Temple » 26 May 2021, 11:28

A lot of people on knife forums start off with Spyderco or similar systems. Never tried them personally but they seem to work really well for some blade geometries, and I image they are very consistent.

My experience was originally steels (ignorance) then two faced water stones (400/2000 or something). Was OK but not brilliant. Did a couple of knife making courses in Japan and there the makers all sharpen freehand on water stones with zero fuss. I spent hours and hours there grinding, sharpening and honing knife after knife and since then I've always done it on stones freehand. I find stainless steel (Misono in my case, which uses Swedish steel) far harder to sharpen than the Hitachi blue or white that most of my knives are made of. I prefer single bevel as users and none of them are Damascus. I have some German steel knives (Gustav Emil Ern) that sharpen very well, and some others of various brands such as Henkels that don't. The ones out in blocks my wife is allowed to ruin, I mean use, whereas the Japanese ones are kept in sayas.

Knife forums, like tool forums, are alive with sharpening threads. Everyone has their method, nearly everything works, and it's just preference or what you were taught. There is a lot of myth and cobblers about razor sharp this that and the other, but most of it is tosh. A knife is a tool and it needs to cut a tomato cleanly with no effort! If it does that, it's good enough in my book.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby Woodster » 26 May 2021, 11:32

Unless you sharpen knives a lot it’s probably easier for most folks to use a jig. You can buy them from £20 up to around £350. As its easy and fun to make your own though many folks have gone the DIY route.

http://induced.info/?s=How+to+Build+a+D ... n+Made+DIY

Edit: This one might appeal to wood workers?!

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Re: Honing guide

Postby Dr.Al » 26 May 2021, 12:19

Do kitchen knives really need to be that sharp? I sharpen chisels and plane blades to something like 6000 or 8000 grit (I can't remember which), but for kitchen knives I just rub each side of the bevel a few times on the fine grit side (1000 or 1200 I think) of an Axminster double-sided diamond stone. It only takes a few seconds and is enough for the knives to go through the skin of a tomato with zero effort, so I've never seen the point of doing more. That's with a couple of "Sabatier Professional" knives (I know that isn't very specific, but I can't remember more than that), a Global one and a Wüsthof.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby spb » 26 May 2021, 12:38

Dr.Al wrote:Do kitchen knives really need to be that sharp?

Well, the biggest tests used to demonstrate sharpness by the sort of people that like to sharpen kitchen knives are to slice through a tomato sideways without holding it, and to drop a tomato onto the blade and have it cut cleanly in two. Those are apparently quite doable with a 140 grit stone, which suggests that for all practical purposes, no they don't.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby AJB Temple » 26 May 2021, 13:16

Agree. There is no need. It's all personal preference. 99% of the time I touch up edges frequently on a 2000 grit splash and go water stone that I keep out for that purpose. An old belt serves as a strop, with a bit of autosol on it. Occasionally I repolish and sharpen fully, sometimes re-etch, but I enjoy that now and again.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby Andyp » 26 May 2021, 13:36

For cutting just about everything except raw meat I use Kitchen Devil serrated knives. Have lasted at least 20 years and never need sharpening. Copes with slicing tomatoes and cucumber as fine as you like.
I also use kirtchen scissors to cut smaller pieces of meat and fish.
The cooks knife just comes out for larger joints of steak and carving cooked joints.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby Lurker » 26 May 2021, 15:13

Andyp wrote:For cutting just about everything except raw meat I use Kitchen Devil serrated knives. Have lasted at least 20 years and never need sharpening. Copes with slicing tomatoes and cucumber as fine as you like.
I also use kirtchen scissors to cut smaller pieces of meat and fish.
The cooks knife just comes out for larger joints of steak and carving cooked joints.


Her majesty will use the serrated bread knife for everything. She says that the other kitchen knives that I have sharpened using a steel are too sharp. :(
Although it might be just a ploy to get me to do the chopping,cutting and carving.
I am otherwise pretty useless in the kitchen.
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Re: Honing guide

Postby Pete Maddex » 26 May 2021, 16:13

I am slowly working the wife away from using the bread knife for everything, but its taking a while.
Suprisingly I have to cut the bread.

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