More on Knives - Sharpening

E

England_Rules

New member
(crossposted to RFE) Since there's more knife discussion going on in RFC...

How are people here sharpening their kitchen knives? I'm not referring to
honing/steeling or any debate over the correct term for it. I'm talking
sharpening. All knives can eventually lose their edge and need to be
sharpened, a process that actually removes a small amount of metal in the
process of renewing the edge.

Do you use an electric sharpener or a stone, or do you sharpen them at all?
If you're using a stone, do you use it wet (oil or water) or dry? If
electric, what kind? Do you find the electrics remove too much metal? How do
you finish the process, with a steel, a strop, or something else?

I've been going through my knives which have been used and some abused over
many years. There are forged Henckels, a full set, stamped Chicagos, a full
set, and a couple Dexter slicers (way too long for my stone, but razor sharp
anyway). I'm using a two sided stone, dry. I find the Henckels forged to
require significantly more work to accomplish the same amount of improvement
in the edge. I finish the job with the steel that came with the Henckels
set.

MartyB
 
Nunya Bidnits wrote:



I have them professionally sharpened about once every 18 months and
then use a steel before each use.

I am fairly certain the pros use some sort of electric wheel sharpener,
possibly with some manual honing afterwards.

Steve
 
In article , [email protected] says...

I have tried different short cuts, including diamond stones but I always
come back to my old Arkansas set and a little bit of thin oil. Years ago
when I ran the pub, we had a retired Merchant Marine who sharpened our
knives once a week, and I watched him;) He was a bartender so when the
place was slow, I paid him to sit there for hours and hours and sharpen
the knives. He uses to say "of course I can sharpen a knife, I was in
the MM, what the *** else is there to do on deck all day long"? I
learned the three main rules to sharpening knives, from him.. They are,
and not necessarily in this order:

1) Patience
2) Patience
3) Patience..

;)
 
Steve Pope wrote:

It used to be that many supermarket meat departments offered free knife
sharpening, basically including your knives in with theirs when they had
the professional sharpening guy come by. Some may still offer this
promotional service.
 
"Nunya Bidnits" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
I use a "Chef's Choice" sharpener on a variety of knives, mostly German,
and I'm happy with it. http://chefschoice.com/page2a.html
It hasn't, after years of use, done anything adverse to the blade, including
sharpening the blade off. Mine is an older 3 stage model. I don't know
which of the current models it's closest to. These products are "pushed", as
you probably know, by the higher brow cookware retailers, like William
Sonoma.

Kent



Kent
 
On 2/28/2011 12:05 PM, Nunya Bidnits wrote:

I use an electric sharpener then follow up with my Arkansas stones,
coarse, moderate, and fine. For just general use on an every day basis I
use the electric sharpener which has an Arkansas stone in it.

I generally just buy reasonably priced carbon steel knives and then take
care of them. They are hand washed and dried after use, sharpened on a
regular basis, and stored in a knife block, one of those with the
plastic pegs in it. I take the insert out of the block every few months
and hand wash it and hang it up to dry. Works for me and I can cut meat
or veggies with no problem.
 
Nunya Bidnits wrote:

Jacques Pepin says you should always use oil or water,
otherwise the stone will load up with metal particles
and lose its effectiveness. If you use water, you can
always switch to oil, but if you use oil you can't
switch to water.
 
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:31:13 +0000 (UTC), [email protected]
(Steve Pope) wrote:


I have an old Chef's Choice and a cheap Chinese two sided sharpening
stone. The Chef's Choice is in an easy place to get to, but I use the
sharpening stone more often. I used to have my knives professionally
sharpened once a year just before Thanksgiving but got out of the
habit as my time at work increased. I'm going to get back into that
habit again, because there are more convenient places nearer to me
where I can do it now vs. driving across town to North Beach and
double parking while I run them into the shop.

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:08:09 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


I did that exactly once. My knives came back looking awful and were
noticeably ground down. Never again.

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:44:21 -0800, "Kent"
wrote:


Singing: My Chef's Choice is older than your Chef's Choice!

Mine is only two stages - there was no option to buy 3 at the time.
:P

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:48:36 -0600, George Shirley
wrote:


Ditto on hand washing and storage... but I don't do anything on a
regular basis, including eat and sleep. :)

--

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
 
"ImStillMags" wrote in message
news:9db12a62-90d7-4b95-8856-8d05d2b4df4e@d12g2000prj.googlegroups.com...
On Feb 28, 1:49 pm, sf wrote:

I have the Chefs Choice as well....two stage. I also have one for
serrated knives and it works well on putting the serrations back in
line and keeping the knives pretty sharp.
What have you used on a bread knife? There's a point where you'd like to
sharpen them.

Kent
 
Nunya Bidnits wrote:

I got tired of the down time it took to have my knives sent out
by a local hardware store so I bought a stone last year. It uses
oil. I'm happy to be able to sharpen my own knives on occasion.


I gave away my Chef's Choice years ago, to someone on rfc.
Why I didn't care for it, it left a point rather than going smoothly
to a sharp edge. Sorry I can't explain that better. It just wasn't
for me.

nancy
 
In article ,
[email protected]d says...

I use a set of DMT diamond stones and finish with either an ultra fine
ceramic or black Arkansas.

I have a clone of the Tormek however I haven't found that it gives
results any better than the stones. It's dandy for chisels though.
 
Re: [email protected]

Mark Thorson wrote:


I did not know that about oil or water, but then that's why I asked, because
I figured there was a reason. Jacques Pepin is a master of culinary
knifework and if he says so, you can "carve it in stone". ;-)

I love watching him on TV. He'll be talking and looking at the camera or
something else while he cuts something like mushrooms in perfect 1/8" slices
at a rate of about 2 seconds per mushroom. Watching him break down poultry
is really cool. The only problem is he's so fast it's sometimes hard to
catch his exact technique. Still, I've worked hard on my knife technique and
watched a lot of demos and videos, but I've picked up more watching his
relaxed technique than from any other place. Watching him is what really
inspired me to try to move beyond raw basics. Finally I'm starting to get
halfway good with the blades.

MartyB
 
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:05:07 -0600, "Nunya Bidnits"
wrote:


I have oilstones, but I've given up using them out of pure laziness. I
have the Chef's Choice 130 and the 316, and they do fine jobs.

I'm gradually taking all my blades except the cleaver to the narrower
15 degree edge of the 316 -- I don't really care if the blades outlast
me or not. I just like the razor sharpness. 8;)

-- Larry
 
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:39:18 -0800, "Kent"
wrote:


I've always liked magnetic holders, but I don't understand why
everyone uses them blades-up. That would seem to be an unnecesssary
safety hazard.

-- Larry
 
Re: [email protected]

[email protected] wrote:


I can understand that desire for the sharpness. You really get a feeling of
power when a heavy chefs knife practically falls through it's target. For
me, especially when cutting a lot of meat such as breaking down packer cut
brisket, or breaking down ten or twenty pounds of chicken quarters into
perfect thigh pieces, that sort of angle doesn't hold up. I don't like
having to constantly stop and clean and steel the blades all the time. I'm
actually at about 20 degrees on my kitchen knives if my eyeballs serve me
properly. My Q team partner likes his finer though, and has to keep
resharpening. Maybe it's so I will do most of the work!
 
Back
Top