knife sharpening guide?

Zach · Mar 30, 2015

All of this razor honing has gotten me to thinking that maybe I should try my hand at sharpening the kitchen knives. Do you have any recommendations for angled sharpening guides?

I realize that this question may get me skewered, so Ill say that eventually Ill be good at free-hand sharpening, but I need a point of reference to start with. I also realize that different knives may require different angles, so, is there an adjustable one, or a set of guides that I can get? Ill also tell you that Im thinking of using a BBW, or an old diamond stone I found, so nothing too serious for the moment, and that my kitchen knives are nothing special, just a random assortment of good-will finds, so I wont feel too bad about messing them up.
Thanks in advance for the discussion.

ChiTownShaver · Mar 30, 2015

I saw a recommendation on here to use a small binder clip with the metal handles taken off. I tried it and it worked ok. After a bit I decided to go freehand and found that it honestly wasn't that hard to keep a fairly steady angle. I also used a BBW to hone with. It worked great for getting my kitchen knives sharp in a very short period of time. The BBW I was using autoslurried like crazy which was very convenient since I don't have a slurry stone for it.

sir_mike · Mar 30, 2015

DMT makes one called the Aligner!

Neffarious · Mar 30, 2015

Spyderco Sharpmaker. inexpensive and easy to use. I sharpened my Spanish Henckels on it last night.

Merle · Mar 30, 2015

Neffarious said:
Spyderco Sharpmaker. inexpensive and easy to use. I sharpened my Spanish Henckels on it last night.

I too started looking at an 'easy way into sharpening' (to camouflage my desire to work up to str8s) with my kitchen utensils; I fell in love with the Wicked Edge pro pack II and have regretfully decided; I'll let someone at Shun/Kershaw do the sharpening of my blades in Oregon. SOOO much cheaper.

Alum of Potash · Mar 30, 2015

One way is to start out with a carbon steel kitchen knife. One I recommend is the Lee-Valley "peasant's chef knife": http://www.leevalley.com/US/garden/page.aspx?p=52770&cat=2,40733,40738,52770. Sharpeningsupplies sells a Norton medium India/soft Arkansas combo stone and the Norton food-safe honing oil, which are great for starters IMO. About the angle, 22-1/2 degrees is an easy standard to achieve without a guide. Start from perpendicular, or 90 degrees, divide this in half to arrive at 45 degrees, then divide this in half again to arrive at 22-1/2, and hone away, letting the muscle memory take over from there. Actually, going just a wee be lower than this, or moving slightly from 22-1/2 for general purpose knives like this one (to arrive at around 18-20 degrees), is even better, arrived intuitively with a little practice.

Honing knives like this, some folks hone on one side until a burr has been raised on the other side. Then they hone on the other side until another burr has been reached, before moving to the next stone in the progression. I've not had much luck with this, so I just go by feel, switching sides constantly like a razor. Afterwards, I strop on a hanging black latigo strop from Star Shaving (which may be difficult to order from right now). This really brings out the edge.

Many ways to do this and mine is no doubt far from the best. But it might get you started. For me, it is just like honing a giant straight razor. However, here I am artificially introducing the spine, which is a bit broader than a razor's, if that makes sense.

Zach · Mar 31, 2015

ChiTownShaver said:
I saw a recommendation on here to use a small binder clip with the metal handles taken off. I tried it and it worked ok. After a bit I decided to go freehand and found that it honestly wasn't that hard to keep a fairly steady angle. I also used a BBW to hone with. It worked great for getting my kitchen knives sharp in a very short period of time. The BBW I was using autoslurried like crazy which was very convenient since I don't have a slurry stone for it.

Cool! Have a bbw on the way, and was already looking at that DMT aligner, so I'll go with that and the binder clip. Did you have any problems with the binder clip damaging your stone?

Zach · Mar 31, 2015

Alum of Potash said:
One way is to start out with a carbon steel kitchen knife. One I recommend is the Lee-Valley "peasant's chef knife": http://www.leevalley.com/US/garden/page.aspx?p=52770&cat=2,40733,40738,52770. Sharpeningsupplies sells a Norton medium India/soft Arkansas combo stone and the Norton food-safe honing oil, which are great for starters IMO. About the angle, 22-1/2 degrees is an easy standard to achieve without a guide. Start from perpendicular, or 90 degrees, divide this in half to arrive at 45 degrees, then divide this in half again to arrive at 22-1/2, and hone away, letting the muscle memory take over from there. Actually, going just a wee be lower than this, or moving slightly from 22-1/2 for general purpose knives like this one (to arrive at around 18-20 degrees), is even better, arrived intuitively with a little practice.

Honing knives like this, some folks hone on one side until a burr has been raised on the other side. Then they hone on the other side until another burr has been reached, before moving to the next stone in the progression. I've not had much luck with this, so I just go by feel, switching sides constantly like a razor. Afterwards, I strop on a hanging black latigo strop from Star Shaving (which may be difficult to order from right now). This really brings out the edge.

Many ways to do this and mine is no doubt far from the best. But it might get you started. For me, it is just like honing a giant straight razor. However, here I am artificially introducing the spine, which is a bit broader than a razor's, if that makes sense.

Going to check out this knife. I've heard that you can fold a paper diagonally once (to get 45 degrees,) then again (to get 22.5.) As for stropping, I think SWMBO would have a fit, touching kitchen knives to something that has touched something that has touched my face. I'll just have to get another dedicated strop, o darn.

mretzloff · Mar 31, 2015

The absolute easiest way to maintain a knife's edge is to send the knife to a professional sharpener (I used Dave Martell's service) and then use a Suehiro Rika 5000x waterstone and this clip-on knife sharpening guide to maintain the knife.

Alum of Potash · Mar 31, 2015

Zach said:
Going to check out this knife. I've heard that you can fold a paper diagonally once (to get 45 degrees,) then again (to get 22.5.) As for stropping, I think SWMBO would have a fit, touching kitchen knives to something that has touched something that has touched my face. I'll just have to get another dedicated strop, o darn.

The material used for Carhartt and Duluth carpenter's pants works very well as a strop for knives too. Before I took to stropping my kitchen knives, I was using a fine steel to maintain the edge, by placing it point down on a surface to stabilize it during the pass with the knife, rather than holding it freely in the air. BBW for knives is good too. A Pyrenees stone is a good precursor to a BBW as needed, or whatever 1k-ish synth stone you might already have.

Edit: I reread the instructions that come with the Peasant's chef knife, and the recommended angle there is 10-15 degrees, rather than 18-20 I mentioned. Personally, I would just divide 22-1/2 in half to put me in the ball park, but they also mention a way to arrive at the desired angle freehand which is determined by the width of the blade.

ouch · Mar 31, 2015

mretzloff said:
The absolute easiest way to maintain a knife's edge is to send the knife to a professional sharpener (I used Dave Martell's service) and then use a Suehiro Rika 5000x waterstone and this clip-on knife sharpening guide to maintain the knife.

Dave has been "the knife sharpening guide" to many folks here. :thumbup1:

Clans1971 · Apr 4, 2015

I use the edge pro system. Only problem I have now is finding a knife dull enough to sharpen.

Deltaboy · Apr 8, 2015

I been using a Smith's sharpener and it keeps my Old Hickory Set shaving sharp.

http://www.smithsproducts.com/product/ccks/

Tea-bott5000 · Apr 8, 2015

Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kzGvtX-h8g

It's from Jon at Japanese Knife Imports. The dude knows how to sharpen stuff. This particular clip shows you a fairly basic technique (but super helpful if you're learning how to sharpen): you basically run a sharpie along the edge of your knife, and as you're sharpening you can see if you're on the edge properly or not by how the sharpie comes off. Ultimately, some kind of angle guide will be more of a hindrance than a help (it'll be cumbersome, and your ultimate goal is to ride the bike without the training wheels, right?), and the only way to get good at free hand sharpening is to sharpen free-hand.

After you watch that video, watch the rest of them. I'm a chef by trade, and learned just about everything I know from those videos (and some others, of course). With practice, you can become a sharpening ninja.

Good luck!

sir_mike · Apr 8, 2015

Best thing to do is to buy the Econo Norton stone from Home Depot with a coarse and fine side for only about $7 and get some cheap knives and just practice sharpening. Use a magic marker on the edge, then take a few swipes on the stone and see where you are hitting it at, then adjust and repeat. Once you get that down then use a Sharpmaker for quick touch ups to keep the knives sharp. That is what I do and I like the Sharpmaker alot and very easy to use.

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