Knife Sharpening Thread

[Legion]

I think I have decided on my go-to two stone system (for now.)

Big 10" soft Arkansas to raise the burr, then refine the edge with my 8" Llyn Idwal. Seems to be producing very good edges, particularly for the kitchen.

 

[Climb14er]

With my Japanese Convex knives, I use Shaptons, usually 5000, 8000 to keep the edge. The 1000 is used to... Bring it back. Regular knives, it's sometimes the Shaptons if I have them out, or the Sharpmaker that's always on the counter and I use it all the time. The diamond rods for the Sharpmaker are great for rehoming an edge that has net it's match in unusual use. Spyderco has had a Classic Winner in the Sharpmaker for decades!

 

[Scarry Knight]

I improved on my knife sharpening by rubbing the stone with bee’s wax. It cut the time it takes to get an edge, dramatically. Hot water to remove the majority of the wax/slurry. Has worked great on the puck I use for axes and knives and on another two sided craftsman/norton stone. I’ll keep experimenting with wax, but probably not on my razors or their stones.

 

[cotedupy]

I think I have decided on my go-to two stone system (for now.)

Big 10" soft Arkansas to raise the burr, then refine the edge with my 8" Llyn Idwal. Seems to be producing very good edges, particularly for the kitchen.

View attachment 1384012

Sounds pretty ideal! The more I use Idwals the more I'm convinced just how extraordinarily good they are.

---

I improved on my knife sharpening by rubbing the stone with bee’s wax. It cut the time it takes to get an edge, dramatically. Hot water to remove the majority of the wax/slurry. Has worked great on the puck I use for axes and knives and on another two sided craftsman/norton stone. I’ll keep experimenting with wax, but probably not on my razors or their stones.

Is this in comparison to oil or water?

I've done a fair bit of comparisons of oil vs water on all sorts of stones (synths, novaculites, slates, jnats), and pretty much invariably find oil faster. I can imagine wax would have a similar effect...

 

[Scarry Knight]

Sounds pretty ideal! The more I use Idwals the more I'm convinced just how extraordinarily good they are.

---



Is this in comparison to oil or water?

I've done a fair bit of comparisons of oil vs water on all sorts of stones (synths, novaculites, slates, jnats), and pretty much invariably find oil faster. I can imagine wax would have a similar effect...

Hi, happy new year, and thanks for the feedback. I haven’t done a side by side. It seemed faster than either, oil or water, in my estimation. Based on seemingly spending much less time to restore the edge. Will try to remember to make a more measured comparison as I do more edges.

 

[Whilliam]

First we'd hear the bell. Whoever heard it first would run into the kitchen and try to find our mother, or the cook, or the houseboy. (Yes, it was that kind of neighborhood.) Whoever was in charge would gather up all the kitchen knives and go out onto our dead-end street to meet our neighbors lined up chatting, waiting our turn for the knife-sharpener.

He was old, to us kids, Italian, I think. His knife-sharpener was a converted bike; he would wheel it from street to street, then set it up on a stand, mount it and pedal quite slowly to get the round sharpening stone to rotate on its axis. Water dripped from a bent coffee-can, wetting the wheel and knife. The workings were surrounded by a painted glass shield showing an erupting Vesuvius.

Lots of chat and gossip between our moms, the maids. The kids running around when not watching rapt the sharpening process. I don't remember how much he charged, but it wasn't much. I think he did a great job, but you sharpening gurus would have laughed him off the block.

Anyone else have a similar experience? This was San Francisco, early fifties.

I remember that bell . . . though it was more like a gong in my neighborhood (Queens, NY).

It signaled the arrival of the General Grinding man in his green truck. And, yes, things would stop at home as we gathered everything to be sharpened: kitchen knives, scissors, pruners, hedge clippers and who-knows-what-else.

That was in the early 'fifties. Sadly, the General Grinding man faded into memory, and things were never quite as sharp.

 

[Tricky]

I use a sharpmaker for most of my pocketknives, but I use shapton stones for the kitchen.

I gotta say, once I started using my jewler’s loupe to look at the edges I was creating, I improved my confidence. This had a trickle down effect on all my sharpening. Really happy with the idea.

 

[cotedupy]

There have been a couple of interesting discussions over on the hones forum recently about burrs and wire edges. I might write a proper post about it in relation to knives, but here's a just a small and easy thing that can help improve the edge of a kitchen knife, and why cutting paper is an important way to gauge your sharpening efforts...

Even quite a blunt knife should cut through paper reasonably well, but even so after finishing sharpening I always do a paper test - not for sharpness but for a wire edge.

This edge looks quite good; it feels pretty damn sharp, and I can't feel a burr of steel folded over to one side any more:

But when I try to slice kitchen towel it does this. It's clearly quite sharp to be going through like that, but it's also catching. It might not always tear like this, but you can feel it or hear it as well:

Now if I zoom right in on that picture of the edge above, it looks like this. The dark bit is hardened steel, the grey bit is the edge that I've sharpened, but that slightly fuzzy looking white bit at the very end is a wire edge. You can't really see it with the naked eye (but could with a loup):

The best way to get rid of this is going back to stones and deburring properly, which is what I'd do. But deburring can sometimes be quite difficult, and if you're having trouble then you could end up just making the knife blunter again.

So here's a quick fix that works reasonably well, if not perfectly: Slice the entire length of the edge through a cork a few times. Takes about 5 seconds, and with a bit of luck it can pull off a wire edge entirely, at the very least it will align, reduce and weaken it somewhat. So our paper test now looks like this:

 

[Dnallehekaj]

I'm very new to sharpening on a waterstone. That cork trick has already helped me out, thank you!

 

[Billski]

This is good to sharpen the knife.

 

[Dnallehekaj]

That King 1000g stone I started on dishes like crazy! It works great, and I like the feedback, but it doesn't seem like it'll last long!

I read around and saw there was a pretty nice sale price on a Naniwa Chosera Pro 1k, so that'll be the replacement when the King dies out

 

[Jnatcat]

I’ve been using a Chosera 1k and Shapton Glass 4k but seriously thinking about getting a Apex Edge and use Shapton stones with it as I have a hell of a time maintaining the correct angle and I honestly struggle getting a good edge all the way across.

 

[cotedupy]

That King 1000g stone I started on dishes like crazy! It works great, and I like the feedback, but it doesn't seem like it'll last long!

I read around and saw there was a pretty nice sale price on a Naniwa Chosera Pro 1k, so that'll be the replacement when the King dies out

Sounds like a good plan; the King 1k is a good stone, but it's certainly quite dishy as you say. NP1k is very widely liked and respected, and won't have that problem .

 

[cotedupy]

FWIW - If there's one stone that anybody who sharpens knives or is going to start should get, first and before anything else, it's the Shapton Glass 500. I can't believe I didn't mention it in some of the earlier posts.

Everybody loves the SG500, it is an insanely good stone. It's slow-wearing yet very quick, feels remarkably nice but is splash n go, cuts well while leaving a light scratch pattern, and finishes a knife quite high enough for normal kitchen use. It basically beats every other stone from 400 to 700 grit in any metric you care to look at.

Other SG stones are good too, but so are other companies' equivalents. The 500 though is way, way beyond anything else around that grit level, and I'm baffled by how they've done it. A remarkable whetstone.

 

[Dnallehekaj]

@cotedupy what would the SG500 do for me that would warrant a purchase? I only have 1000g stones, but I don't have chipped or super dull blades that would need a coarser grit to get started.

I ask because I sharpened a bunch of my friends' knives yesterday, and one of them asked what I'd want for a second stone. Looking into it, Idk that I NEED anything finer or coarser, but one in either direction could be fun.

In your expert opinion, would a better second stone be something coarser like the SG500, or something finer like a Rika 3k Ouga or Rika 5k?

Logging this day as the beginning of my Stone Acquisition Disorder.

 

[cotedupy]

@cotedupy what would the SG500 do for me that would warrant a purchase? I only have 1000g stones, but I don't have chipped or super dull blades that would need a coarser grit to get started.

I ask because I sharpened a bunch of my friends' knives yesterday, and one of them asked what I'd want for a second stone. Looking into it, Idk that I NEED anything finer or coarser, but one in either direction could be fun.

In your expert opinion, would a better second stone be something coarser like the SG500, or something finer like a Rika 3k Ouga or Rika 5k?

Logging this day as the beginning of my Stone Acquisition Disorder.

Haha!

It’s a good question though. And my thoughts are going to correlate with your own thinking...

If you have a good 1k stone and look after your knives, then that alone can be fine. You can do maintenance thinning and minor chip removal (if it happens) on a 1k. Takes a bit longer than a lower grit stone, but perfectly do-able.

And a 1k stone is a very good catch-all grit for knife sharpening. You can put a very nice, fine edge on posh Japanese knives, but it’s not too fine for softer steels and Western knives. Being able to use a 1k well, as you can, is probably the most important thing in all kitchen knife sharpening.

Because of that - for a second stone I’d definitely go with something coarser. It’ll make thinning or repair work faster and easier. And particularly important if you’re sharpening other people’s knives who might not look after them as well as you do. (I sharpen other people’s knives a lot and it’s miracle that some people can prepare food at all!)

And SG500 is an amazing stone in that it’ll do reasonably quick metal removal, while finishing fine enough for a very good working edge. On smart Japanese knives you’d notice that a 1k finish is a bit better, but on more ‘everyday’ knives you may not. The SG500 is that good.

The other option, which is cheaper and will do the job as well, albeit messier and not as nice feeling, would be a Norton Coarse and Fine Crystolon or India combi stone. These are really well designed stones for fast removal material. And the ‘fine’ sides will will put a great edge on a knife. Though probably slightly less easy to use than the Shapton.

Though if you were to get a third after that, then again - your thinking in that direction is spot-on imo. The Cerax 3k / Ouka* is a properly superb stone too. Wonderful edges and feels glorious to sharpen on. A 3k edge might be too fine for a lot of western knives, but on Japanese steels it’s killer! I don’t actually own any synths finer than 3k.

In general; being able to use low and mid-grit stones well is a far more useful skill to have, than having a load of increasingly fine finishing stones. And after a point fine finishes on kitchen knives become detrimental to their use - you need bite and teeth on a knife edge.

So yeah... get an SG500! And you’ll have the stone that almost everybody who’s into kitchen knife sharpening thinks is the best synthetic waterstone ever made .


* The Cerax 3k and the Ouka are the same stone. They jist have two names for it, god knows why! Ditto the Cerax 5k / Rika.

 

[JPO]

What are your thoughts on using something like an Atoma 1200 on western kitchen knifes? My knifes gets abused allot. Educating my family really don't seem to help much. So lately if i am fixing a rolled over edge i just use my Atoma 1200 with dish soap. I finish on a shapton gs 3k and some balsa stropping. The process takes just a few minutes. I feel like i am not gaining much by us using more stones. The feedback from the Atoma plate is really not what i would call grate, but it does cut really fast.

 

[Legion]

What are your thoughts on using something like an Atoma 1200 on western kitchen knifes? My knifes gets abused allot. Educating my family really don't seem to help much. So lately if i am fixing a rolled over edge i just use my Atoma 1200 with dish soap. I finish on a shapton gs 3k and some balsa stropping. The process takes just a few minutes. I feel like i am not gaining much by us using more stones. The feedback from the Atoma plate is really not what i would call grate, but it does cut really fast.

My family is much the same. I keep some fast (but less chippy than diamond) stones near the kitchen. These include soft Arks, fine India, and recently a nice Turkish. These are all fast stones, but don't really need much refinement after the touch up honing.

10-20 laps, and maybe a strop or steel, you are back in the game, and they don't eat the knife like diamond hones can.

 

[cotedupy]

What are your thoughts on using something like an Atoma 1200 on western kitchen knifes? My knifes gets abused allot. Educating my family really don't seem to help much. So lately if i am fixing a rolled over edge i just use my Atoma 1200 with dish soap. I finish on a shapton gs 3k and some balsa stropping. The process takes just a few minutes. I feel like i am not gaining much by us using more stones. The feedback from the Atoma plate is really not what i would call grate, but it does cut really fast.

I've never had an Atoma 1200 tbh, only 140 and 400. And I wouldn't put a knife on them (a second time ), just because of how they chew up steel. Though a 1200 is obviously going to be quite different, and there's no reason it shouldn't work grand.

I know someone who's a very highly respected knifemaker and sharpener, who now does all of his sharpening on two slightly worn, cheap Chinese diamond plates (he doesn't know the 'grit') followed by a SG4k... so you're not in bad company!

 

[cotedupy]

Inspired by all this Shapton Glass 500 talk - I put a couple of my knives that needed thinning and profile work doing on it earlier:

Used only the SG500, and nothing fancy after - simply stropping on the Yellow Pages.

Going through kitchen towel like this is happily sharp enough for anything you'd ever need. And it's not just because I'm alright at sharpening knives either - anyone who knows the basics will be able to get pretty close to this with the SG500 immediately. It's a very easy stone to use... and it's feckin awesome!