by 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.
Don't like: wood, engines, electrickery, decorating, tiling, laying stone, plumbing, gardening or any kind of DIY. Not wild about spiders either.