Kitchen Knife Sharpener?

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
21

I just bought this Amazon.com

Edit: First post!

22

I tend to fall far down rabbit holes on many things and while my wife doesn’t mind (too much) my kitchen knife collection I’ve been forbidden to also sharpen them as I’d soon have 10 different stones, most of which would be heirloom Japanese stones and would be compulsively sharpening, stropping etc…

So I go to the very very good Japanese knife store that’s less than 2 miles from my house and for $10 each I have an expert use their heirloom Japanese stones sharpen them for me while I watch, chat and try not to come home with more knives than I left with.

23

This unit looks really intriguing and relatively easy to use. Build quality is pretty incredible.

24

I’ve been using a Tormek T8 for several months now after a decade of hand sharpening with water stones. It’s probably overkill for just kitchen use, but it’s been a godsend for our growing pile of things that need to stay sharp.

25

Welcome to the board

26

Friendly bump. Can any of our resident knife experts weigh in on my question above?

27

I haven’t been able to find a consensus answer on this as well, but I have read that I probably shouldn’t use my ceramic honing rod on my newly purchased carbon steel blades.

I recently purchased a stropping leather to use in lieu of the rod on such knives. I will continue to hone my SS knives but stropping seems like an easier version of using my waterstone.

I’m a fan of the Burrfection Youtube channel - Burrfection - YouTube - there’s a guide in there to picking a stropping leather material.

Edit - To clarify - I meant the use of your honing steel is not indicative on the blade type (western vs japanese) but on the material of the steel (stainless vs carbon)

28

Hey Clifton- thanks for the info.

29

I don’t use them on any high end Japanese knives. I do it all the time on my Global knives and it works great. I use a diamond steel like this one.

https://www.amazon.com/Kota-Japan-Professional-Sharpener-Sharpening/dp/B06W9J9RTN/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1521074832&sr=8-3&keywords=diamond+steel+sharpening+rod&dpID=31ZZvD3XZXL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

If the knife is made from stainless it works great, brings them close to razors. On carbon steel I would be afraid of taking off a lot of metal.

30

Just bought stones. Want to learn. Norton IM-313

will start w my cheaper knives and go from there.

31

I am up there with bill on number of jknives owned, and used almost daily. Even more so now that I am almost a vegan :slight_smile:

I use this

Its not hard to learn to hand sharpen, if you watch jons videos on the site above you will be well on your way.

There are a variety of ways to get a feel for angles. While I agree you can learn to feel the edge and learn to keep your stroke consistent, its also easier to start with some sort of guide till you get it down. There are plastic ones and even relevant angle guides that are cheap on amazon.

32

There a guy who sets up at our local market Noon Sharpening I’m assuming if he’s sharpening garden tools I shouldn’t let him near my Shun set which badly needs sharpened.

33

I have tried stones and could never seem to get my knives sharp enough - maybe I just needed more practice. I got one of the machines one year for a Christmas gift and the knives came out more dull than when they went in. Now, I exclusively let professionals sharpen them and at $5/knife it’s a no-brainer for me. I only have about 4 knives that I use regularly. I need to get them sharpened maybe once a year. The rest of the year, I just run them over a honing steel whenever it feels like they need it.