I get mine professionally sharpened every 18 months or so and use the steel in between to keep the edge. Going to get them sharpened at the end of this month actually.
That’s a good point. If you’re like me, and your knife skills aren’t great, your edge won’t last long, whether you hone the knives or not. There is an episode or two on Good Eats that cover knife skills, and Kenji at Serious Eats has a whole series on knife skills.
I’m obviously still new at this, but that Lansky kit seems too coarse. The Spyderco stones I used were 1200 and 2000 US grit. The 1200 was plenty coarse to get a decent edge on the cheap knives in 15-20 strokes. I’m sure the Lansky kit will get your knives sharp, but I wonder if it’d take off more material than you really need to.
I’m not sure what your point is. As I mentioned before, without knowing what I was doing, I got the knives from too dull to dice an onion well to sharp enough to easily slice a ripe tomato. I also got some nice, very thin radial slices of onion, something I was having trouble with before I sharpened the knives. What else would you want the knives to do?
If you can take a page out of a magazine, roll it to create a curve and take the knife (watch your hand) and take a slice out of the page to create a long skinny ellipse…your knife is sharp.
Important in maintaining a sharp knife for a prolonged period of time, the use of a sharpening steel is critical. You are not sharpening, or buffing any spots out, but aligning steel sheathes on the cutting edge vertical to the cutting surface of the blade. Two or so strokes are sufficient. The same principle is with the leather razor strop. This whole process keeps us from grinding precious metal from the blade.
Could be. But you don’t need to use the coarse stone very often. I only use it when I have to remove a nick or re-angle a blade. I also think that there are differences between the way that stone grit is measured between different styles of stone but I’m no expert on this. One thing I do know is if you go for japanese waterstones, you will need to lap them periodically on glass. Not a big deal but you basically rub them on a piece of glass with diamond dust to ensure that they are perfectly flat. Otherwise, after repeated use they will develop a divot where you use them a lot.
I asked my better half about this, because I’m a newbie as you know. I’m not saying she’s an expert, but she was a pro cook and spent many, many hours doing prep work.
I’m paraphrasing here, but basically she said most knives don’t even need to be sharp enough to cut tomatoes. There’s no reason a knife needs to be sharper than necessary to complete the given task. She also said with a very fine edge, you’re more likely to bend or knick the edge, and that, all other things being equal, a “less-sharp” edge is going to be stronger/more durable than a razor-fine edge.
I’m not arguing knives should be dull, but unless you’re shaving with it, I don’t think there’s anything inherently better about having a razor-sharp knife.
I often go to my parent’s house. My mother is able to cut an astounding number of things using knives I wouldn’t use as a screwdriver. Yes, I agree, you can cut a tomato with a fairly dull knife. That doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it that way. (FWIW - Ma doesn’t use a cutting board either)
I sharpen different knives at different angles. Filet knife is about 17 degrees because I want it razor sharp, paring knives at 20-25 and chef knives at 30 because it gives a tougher edge but I agree the wrong angle for the task will really cause problems because the edge will fail too easily. A steel between uses is also a must and if you really care get a magnetic strip to store them on.
Also glass cutting boards should be illegal!
I don’t know that the knife blocks are bad for the blade or not, but I worry about what happens when a little dirt or moisture gets down in there. I have a ‘block’ attached to the side of a little kitchen cart, it is open on the bottom and is really just a wooden box with slits in the top so the knives are hanging with the blades open to the air but no edges are exposed for accidental cutting.
Our house rule is if it comes out of the knife tray it is washed and dried before it is put away. We have some other knives in a plastic knife tray that get abused, but the good ones reside in the wooden tray
