Straight Razor Geeks Honing Knives

I always thought my sharpening skills paired with my nearly 100 stones will do the perfekt honing on regular knives (especially kitchen knives as beeing a pro chef for nearly 15 years now.....)

This week we made a checkup on a german forum with a russian guy that stated that a sharpened kitchen knive with a Apex Pro Edge System would last longer, even with high polish, against my max. Chosera 5k sharpening method...... (edge with bite etc....)

I lost that competition !

I tested a handmade Gyuto with 1.2562 Steel (F2 Toolsteel, with about 67 HRC) cooked 345 meals, 160 desserts, cut off about 30 milkbags, many plastic tubes etc. and tomatoes and cucumbers for about 120 salads, and it is still sharp, just no more able to cut tomatoes and peppers.......

It was polished with Nakayama Asagi STick on the Edge Pro System...

With my approach of hand sharpening on benchstones i could only cut about the half of this. So freehand sharpening is really tough, to get good results.

Greest Sebastian.

Durability and polish aren't exactly inversely related. There's a lot of variables going on at the edge. I know a guy who keeps a Henckels with a VERY fat edge (large edge radius), but with an extreme level of polish on it. Why? He's used the knife two years now without ever having to hone it. It's not the sharpest thing out there, but it will slice a tomato just fine.

If you look at that knife under the scope, it looks like it's been breadknifed. It LOOKS dull. But he's simply shifted the balance of properties on the edge to an interesting extreme that works for his purposes.

Even if you keep all the variables you knowingly control equal in a test like yours, odds are there are plenty more variables you control without realizing it at play; so you shouldn't be so ready to say that your freehand skill is what cost you that edge durability. There's plenty more potentially at work there.

I have an edge pro and used it for a couple of years. In a perfect world with perfect grinds it works well, but when you run in to geometry issues it can be hard to correct. Since becoming proficient with free handing I'm getting much better results and it's a lot more fun to hone freehand. The bevel may not look as perfect as it does with the edge pro the performance is there. I don't see myself using the edge pro much in the future.

A couple knives that were both honed the same way. Coticule to diamond paste to leather. You will see on the first I laid the angle well over due to its small size and corresponding lighter duty. These are both customs from Van Hoy. He does a couple customs every year for Krieghoff and I picked them up.

Nice knives! Those bevels look great.

Thank you David! I need to touch up a few knives soon. I will try to post as I go.

YW! Do they blue the Damascus after its finished? I have a custom that looked just like yours above when I got it, but now you have to look closely to see the Damascus pattern.

Custom makers use many different processes to let the damascus patterns show. These two are both the fairly common acid etch method although even in this makers will often have a favorite acid combination to use depending on the types of steel in their damascus. I have seen bluing and many different treatments used to let the pattern show. I etched a piece of damascus once with ferric chloride I bought at radio shack! It actually worked pretty well. I have asked a few custom makers and most agree that the acid etch method leaves the most durable pattern because it eats the different steels at different rates so the pattern is cut into the steels like a relief map.

Thanks Brian. Here's what mine looks like now after 15 ish years of use and abuse.

That still shows well. It may have been a light etch to begin with. Might be a fun project to remove the scales, re-etch and replace the scales. Lots of you tube stuff on etching damascus now.

Sharpened a hand full of (4)kitchen knives for my neighbor. Ground them into shape with the "True Hone" and polished the edges with a Suehiro 6K and a good stropping on leather paddle with .5 micron diamond spray. Can shave with them all now.

Looking good Ronnie. My friend dropped off a set of used and abused wusthof knives for me to hone. It will have to wait for now, but I'll get to them soon.

Possibly replaced my favorite knife hone - a shobu suita - with a new monster (220x90x30) Okudo suita that leaves nothing to be desired:

I'll try to get some polish pics over the next couple days but it's fantastic.

Brooksie967 said:

Possibly replaced my favorite knife hone - a shobu suita - with a new monster (220x90x30) Okudo suita that leaves nothing to be desired:

I'll try to get some polish pics over the next couple days but it's fantastic.

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Very pretty stone Jeremy!

Thanksya!!

Bumping this one for goodness sake. LOL

Thanks for the bump Ronnie. I have a pile of knives on the bench that need to be honed....just waiting for a little free time.

Robster, It sounds like you may be using too acute of an angle when honing your knives given your description of the short lived edge you are experiencing. Here is a partial list I use for honing angles.

Common Sharpening Angles (degrees per side):
Pocket Knives - 20
Hunting Knives - 22
Euro/American Kitchen Knives - 20
Asian Edge Kitchen Knives - 16
Fillet Knives - 16
Tactical Knives - 23
Custom Knives - Varies by Designer

Brand/Series specific sharpening angles (degrees per side):

Chef’s knife:
Global - 17
Shun - 16
Wusthof - 14
Zwilling Henckel/Cronidur - 12.5
All other Zwilling Henckel - 15

Serrated Knife:
All Brands - Manual Sharpening; Serrated Slot ONLY

Santoku Knife:
Global - 17
Shun - 16
Wusthof - 11
Zwilling Henckel/Cronidur - 12.5
All other Zwilling Henckel - 15

Paring Knife:
Global - 17
Shun - 16
Wusthof - 14
Zwilling Henckel/Cronidur - 12.5
All other Zwilling Henckel - 15

Utility knife:
Global - 17
Shun - 16
Wusthof - 14
Zwilling Henckel/Cronidur - 12.5
All other Zwilling Henckel - 15

Boning Knife:
Global - 17
Shun - 16
Wusthof - 18
Zwilling Henckel/Cronidur - 12.5
All other Zwilling Henckel - 15

Had some homemade pizza last night. Remembered that my pizza cutter was busted at a church event, so I broke out my caveman pizza cutter. Wrecked the edge chopping pizza crust, so I touched it up on a diamond plate. This monster ERN is the highest carbon knife I own. Three or four strokes on 1K and it will shave you. Easiest knife in the world to sharpen.

Steve56 said:

I've finished kitchen knives on a La Dressant koppa I used to have - works fine and very fast on the softer knife steel.

I don't think you can tape the reed knife for a couple of reasons, but I'll check with the owner. One reason would be that compared to a razor, the angle is already very large so making it larger probably won't make it sharper. Second, the back may need to be flat in order for it to work properly - but this I do not know.

Cheers, Steve

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That is an interesting knife Steve. I find it interesting that this chisel ground knife has a flat bevel on the opposite side as most Kata Ha kitchen knives that I am familiar with have a hollow ground surface on the opposite side of the chisel grind. However, this knife may have been hollow ground when new, and repeated honing have made it flat.

I have never sharpened a Kata Ha style blade, but I do have a Deba coming in this style. I found an interesting video on YouTube by a Chef on sharpening this knife.


His method is to sharpen the chisel grind until a bur is raised, then sharpen the hollow ground side flat on the stone to remove the bevel.

Sorry Guys, this is the first I saw this thread. Did not notice how old Steve's post was.