Any suggestions on a good kitchen knife sharpener?
Check out Henckels Knives website or Amazon. Any of those are the best and very inexpensive.
I use a Chef’s Choice 440 manual sharperner. It’s inexpensive, not fancy, and very effective. Just last week I cut the tip of my thumb off after I used it!
I use a Lansky sharpening kit. It’s not super fast but it produces the best edge of anything I’ve ever used. Easily shaving sharp. I’ve stopped sharpening knives for other people because they aren’t careful enough and cut themselves. It’s happened twice, once quite badly because they didn’t realize just how sharp a knife could be.
http://lansky.com/index.php/kitchen-blade/
My wife has a few knives from when she was a sous chef. They’re really hard steel and ‘normal’ stones don’t seem to work on them. What kind of stone would I need to sharpen it? They’re the higher-end Shun, not the top-of-the-line but below that.
I’ve cut myself a bunch of times because my knives were dull, but have yet to cut myself because they’re too sharp. If that lansky kit would work on the Shuns I might have to get one.
Which set you do have Gmac?
I use Japanese Waterstones.
I think that’s what I’d need to do on the Shuns. How hard is it to free-hand the angle? How important is it for the angle to be precise? Are there any guides that are worth using?
I have these like clamp-on angle guides for my hand files for tuning ski edges, I wonder if there’s something similar for knives.
I use an aluminum oxide (2-sides) and a 1000/6000 grit Japanese waterstone. By hand baby. It depends a lot on the quality of the steel on how much force you need to use and how sharp they will get and keep their edges.
And you will need a steel to keep your knives honed if you don’t already have one.
+1 on the waterstones, though good synthetics or arkansas stones are also good. I’m not a fan of the automatic grinder sharpeners. some are ok, but others shorten the life of a knife considerably and never approach the edge you’ll get with stones.
Hand held is the way to go, imho. however, there are guides available and some are quite good. in either case, with the shuns (or other japanese knives) keep in mind that the angle is shallower (about 15 degrees) vs 20-25 degrees on western knives. once you get used to the proper angle, it’s not too hard to maintain. keeping it as consistent as possible is best, but a little variation isn’t too terrible. ditto on the need to use a steel to maintain the edge. if you do so, your knife will seem sharper and will need actual sharpening much less frequently.
America’s test kitchen gave this their best buy, the one they liked $100 job.
I have one of these. It provides a decent edge with very little effort, but it removes a lot of material. I wouldn’t use one on an expensive knife.
I hone the edges every time I use the knives, but AFAIK honing just straightens the edge, and doesn’t make it sharper. She always had the knives professionally sharpened when she was working, but it’s been over a year since her last cooking gig, so they really need a proper sharpening.
I read on the higher-grit (3000+) waterstones, you’re not supposed to soak them in water. Do you guys with combo stones only soak half the stone? How does that work?
I found this: How to Sharpen a Knife With a Whetstone Kenji is my go-to guy when I have cooking questions. He recommends an 800-ish and a 2000+ stone.
I was thinking of getting something like this: http://korin.com/Togiharu-1000-4000-Two-Sided-Stone?sc=7&category=17370 but I’m wondering if I’d be better off getting two separate stones.
That is interesting. My instructions state that the stone can be stored in water or soaked for 5 minutes before use.
As I was thinking about this, I remembered that my wife has a sharpening kit. She’s out of town for the next month, and I have to do all my own cooking now, which is why I’m trying to get my knives up to snuff.
She has some Spyderco ceramic whet stones. They’re just labeled “fine” and “extra fine.” After some more googling, I found this: http://nihonzashi.com/SharpenGuide.htm#Grit. Apparently Japanese grits are different than US grits. The whet stones I have should be used dry. I guess I’ll give them a whirl and see how they do.
That is correct, but honing with the steel will preserve the edge and you won’t need to sharpen the knife as often. My understanding (and practice) is that japanese water stones need to be wet. Actually, you soak for 5 minutes or so to saturate them before use, and rinse them clean after use.
Yeah, Kenji says to soak them for at least 45min, because if the stone dries out while sharpening you’ll knick your blade. I’ve seen some western-style sharpening setups that recommend using some oil-type lubricant. I use oil when I cut threads and the like, but apparently oil is really bad for the water stones. I looked on the Spyderco website, and they specifically said not to use any oil or water when using their stones, so I don’t know how those work. I’ll give it a shot this afternoon on some of my crappy knives and see if I can get the hang of it.
Look on youtube for some sharpening videos. There are various techniques. I sweep the blade across the stone away from and then towards myself. You’ll get a feel for the angle. I do eight strokes on each grit and then hit it with the steel.
It went pretty well. I was pretty intimated by using the stones and free-handing it, but I managed to make all of the knives sharper than they were when I started. I did a cheapo cleaver, a cheapo chef’s knife, a cheapo paring knife, the Shun santoku, and the Shun paring knife. The Shuns were the hardest to sharpen, I’m not sure if it was because of the shallow angle, or the hard steel. The cheap knives were all pretty easy to sharpen.
I kind of eyeballed each knife as I was sharpening, and tried to end up with the point of the blade in the center of the knife. All of the cheap knives easily cut a ripe tomato when I was done. The santoku wasn’t evenly sharp, so one part was pretty good, but another portion wasn’t great.
None of the knives got sharp enough to shave with, but they all (except the santoku) could easily cut through onions, and handled ripe tomatoes pretty well too. So you don’t really need to do that good of a job for them to be “sharp enough.”
I’m sure they’ll get sharper as I get more practice. I can definitely see why people like the waterstones. After one or two knives, the ceramic stones would load up with metal shavings, and lost their bite until I washed them out.
EDIT: After I posted this, I read Euge’s advice. I didn’t know you’re supposed to use the steel after you sharpen the knives. Once I hit them with the steel, they were all sharper, and the cheap paring knife was sharp enough to cut hair.
I’ve been using a Chef’s Choice 110 on my Wusthof knives for 15 years. It is an excellent sharpener. I use a steel on my knives before each use. The steel is not for sharpening. It is for polishing out micro-fine nicks in the knife’s cutting surfaces.