Comments on: Knife Sharpening Fetish

By: Conor O'Neill

Conor O'Neill — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:56:38 +0000

Thanks Regina. I’ll check those sites out.

By: ReginaPhalange

ReginaPhalange — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:56:16 +0000

Sounds like your problem all those years was you didn’t quite understand what you needed to do, which was to match the angle of the edge bevel. Sharpening freehand on a stone and then maintaining via strop or steel isn’t that difficult to learn. I learned when I got into woodcarving and needed to keep my knives sharp. Get a cheap Mora and that Scandi grind will just about act as an angle guide, helping you to learn what’s going on when you’re sharpening a knife. There are knife sharpening sub-forums at both bladeforums.com and knifeforums.com with plenty of people who are willing to help others learn.

By: Conor O'Neill

Conor O'Neill — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:07:55 +0000

Thanks Paul, I’m a big fan of simple catering knives with plastic handles. I think the whole Wusthof/Global/etc thing is there to serve the wedding gift market

By: paulklipp

paulklipp — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:04:39 +0000

If you want a really sharp edge that lasts, try a good carbon steel blade rather than a stainless steel knife. Mora makes very affordable carbon steel knives. They look cheap with their plastic handles and terrible plastic sheaths, but they feel rock solid and take a very keen edge.

http://gearjunkie.com/gear-review-mora-knives

By: Conor O'Neill

Conor O'Neill — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:58:39 +0000

Thanks for the tips Eric. My biggest problem with “normal” sharpening is that I can’t keep a proper angle. Love the sound of the strop

By: Eric O'Riordan

Eric O'Riordan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:50:54 +0000

Good choice, the Sharpmaker is excellent once the knife edge matchs the set ones on the sharpmaker.
The presets are 40 and 30 degrees, or 20 and 15 each side. Mark your blade edge with marker and try a few swipes to make sure your hitting the edge.
If not you can reprofile to these angles using Silicon Carbide wet and dry sand paper on a mouse mat or flat floor/wall tile.
I like Japanese waterstones for sharpening, but do get (or make from an old leather belt) a strop. Some Flitz metal polish on leather and polish your edges until they pop hairs off your arm! Good fun and saves wear on a good knife when it just needs a little polish.