My interest in joining this community is in learning more about sharpening.
The Pussycat and I bought our first good kitchen knife, a carbon Sabatier chef’s knife, in 1972. With it we bought a sharpener comprising two columns of overlapping metal disks. Horrible thing. It ripped at the metal of the knife, and fairly quickly formed a hollow spot in the edge of the knife, just in front of the finger-guard.
We replaced it with a Norton India combination stone, used with water rather than oil, which was much more satisfactory. My definition of sharp was not very exacting—I was satisfied when a knife cut into a tomato when drawn across the surface under its own weight—and this has been achievable freehand (in theory every three months) on Sabatier and subsequently Henckels and Global knives.
But I’m conscious that the edge left by a Norton India fine stone is both coarser and less sharp than is possible on the these knives. And, now that we have bought our first hard steel Japanese knife—a Tojiro petty—we really need something better.
Question 1: Is this assessment correct?
As somebody who has spent 38 years not getting around to learning proper freehanding, I was delighted to find that really good jigs are now available to hold the knife at an accurate angle to the stone. The most highly regarded seem to be the Edge Pro Apex and the Wicked Edge. My imagination was caught by the Edge Pro Chocera kit from Mark Richmond at chefknivestogo.com, so that’s what I now have.
The first things I’ve learnt from using it are that Chocera stones generate a huge amount of mud compared with a Norton India, and that my freehand sharpening angle was a little over 20° ... varying somewhat from knife to knife.
Ben Dale’s instruction leaflet says a beginner should use 18° for all kitchen knives, so that’s what I’ll do. This afternoon, I tried slimming down a Sabatier knife edge from 21° to 18°. It took 60 there-and-back strokes on each side with a 400 grit stone before I raised a burr at the new angle.
Question 2: Is this about right? Or am I pressing too hard or too softly?
Once I’ve got the hang of things at 18°, I plan to sharpen some of the knives at a more acute angle.
Question 3: Am I right in thinking that the Sabatier, Global and Tojiro knives will take 15°, but that 18° is about the limit for a Henckels knife?
Question 4: Should I polish all knives up to the maximum 10,000 grit that came with the kit, or are some knives, or knives for some purposes, better left at 5000 or 3000?
And finally: Ben writes, “You should know that all forged knives will develop a hollow spot in front of the heel eventually, no matter what you use to sharpen them.” Bother!
Question 5: Can I avoid this by grinding away the finger-guard at the heel—for example, by grinding the heel at 45° on an India coarse stone—or will this just take too long to be worth doing?
Later,
John
The Pussycat and I bought our first good kitchen knife, a carbon Sabatier chef’s knife, in 1972. With it we bought a sharpener comprising two columns of overlapping metal disks. Horrible thing. It ripped at the metal of the knife, and fairly quickly formed a hollow spot in the edge of the knife, just in front of the finger-guard.
We replaced it with a Norton India combination stone, used with water rather than oil, which was much more satisfactory. My definition of sharp was not very exacting—I was satisfied when a knife cut into a tomato when drawn across the surface under its own weight—and this has been achievable freehand (in theory every three months) on Sabatier and subsequently Henckels and Global knives.
But I’m conscious that the edge left by a Norton India fine stone is both coarser and less sharp than is possible on the these knives. And, now that we have bought our first hard steel Japanese knife—a Tojiro petty—we really need something better.
Question 1: Is this assessment correct?
As somebody who has spent 38 years not getting around to learning proper freehanding, I was delighted to find that really good jigs are now available to hold the knife at an accurate angle to the stone. The most highly regarded seem to be the Edge Pro Apex and the Wicked Edge. My imagination was caught by the Edge Pro Chocera kit from Mark Richmond at chefknivestogo.com, so that’s what I now have.
The first things I’ve learnt from using it are that Chocera stones generate a huge amount of mud compared with a Norton India, and that my freehand sharpening angle was a little over 20° ... varying somewhat from knife to knife.
Ben Dale’s instruction leaflet says a beginner should use 18° for all kitchen knives, so that’s what I’ll do. This afternoon, I tried slimming down a Sabatier knife edge from 21° to 18°. It took 60 there-and-back strokes on each side with a 400 grit stone before I raised a burr at the new angle.
Question 2: Is this about right? Or am I pressing too hard or too softly?
Once I’ve got the hang of things at 18°, I plan to sharpen some of the knives at a more acute angle.
Question 3: Am I right in thinking that the Sabatier, Global and Tojiro knives will take 15°, but that 18° is about the limit for a Henckels knife?
Question 4: Should I polish all knives up to the maximum 10,000 grit that came with the kit, or are some knives, or knives for some purposes, better left at 5000 or 3000?
And finally: Ben writes, “You should know that all forged knives will develop a hollow spot in front of the heel eventually, no matter what you use to sharpen them.” Bother!
Question 5: Can I avoid this by grinding away the finger-guard at the heel—for example, by grinding the heel at 45° on an India coarse stone—or will this just take too long to be worth doing?
Later,
John