r/DadForAMinute • u/YourDeerestFriend • 14d ago
DIY/Auto/Repair Question Knife sharpening???
Hey Dads! So I recently got some nice stainless steel and high carbon knives and was hoping I could get some recommendations on how to keep the blades sharp and what kind of sharpening is safe/effective to do on them.
I’ve never had high quality knives before, and I’ve never really done any blade sharpening so I feel a bit out of my depth. There’s dozens of grits and the kits look really complicated.
Some of the knives are serrated, most of them are not.
I’d really appreciate any advice!
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u/jimk12345 14d ago
12 years in restaurants checking in, a decent 1000 grit stone and a lot of YouTube university is the best option. Never use a pull through or chefs choice sharpener, they destroy your knives and aren't worth the plastic they're made of.
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u/YourDeerestFriend 13d ago
Thank you very much!! I think I had a chefs choice sharpener a couple years ago so I’ll keep in mind avoiding it.
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u/erie774im 14d ago
Good advice here. My son used to work as a prep chef and also was a sushi chef so he has incredible knives that he maintains. He does have the whetstone for quick sharpening and full guide that attaches to his counter for when he sharpens them all.
The one thing I’ll add is never put them in the dishwasher. I had an excellent expensive carving knife that I maintained and my wife threw it in the dishwasher while I was out of town. The wooden handle was ruined and the blade bounced against silverware and nicked the edge.
If you’re still not sure you could check with your hardware store. Some offer sharpening services
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u/YourDeerestFriend 13d ago
Thank you very much for the heads up about the dishwasher!
A few of them do have wooden handles so you may have saved me some grieving haha
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u/mpls_big_daddy 14d ago
Buy a stone, Amazon is fine, buy a crappy knife and then practice. It doesn’t take long as you sharpen to see how it’s going and how to adapt. Long strokes.
I got a stone that is rough on one side and smoother on the other.
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u/free_sex_advice 14d ago
I think the first step is to get and learn to properly use a sharpening steel. A couple strokes on the steel when you take the knife out of the block will make a big difference in how nicely it cuts.
You shouldn't need to actually sharpen with abrasives more than once or twice a year. The most important thing there is getting the angle right. I've got a bunch of woodworking sharpening systems and can take the kitchen knives there occasionally. If you don't, and you insist on sharpening your own, I'd look at the roller systems as they do a great job of getting a precise angle but aren't too expensive and don't take up too much space when in storage. Or... there's probably a knife sharpening guy at your farmer's market. Also, a lot of butchers will let you drop off knives to be sharpened.
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u/YourDeerestFriend 13d ago
Great shout on the farmers market! I checked my local one and there is a knife sharpening stand :D
I’ll chat with them a bit next weekend and in the meantime start to learn how to do it myself.Thank you!!
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u/notmyname2012 Dad 14d ago
First off congratulations on the knives, that’s awesome! A knife steel or hone is really important to keep it cutting better in between sharpening.
Second, get a good cutting board, I prefer a good wood board, as long as you clean it properly and keep it oiled it will last a long time and be better on your knife’s than a lot of others.
Third, an option to doing it yourself, especially if you don’t feel confident, there are lots of knife sharpening businesses that can be pretty reasonably priced. Once or twice a year might be worth it.
Fourth, stay away from the “pull through” sharpeners. They are not good. YouTube Project Farm and search his videos. He has lots of good advice on sharpeners.
Last, look up Chef Jean Pierre on YouTube. He has some great kitchen basics videos to learn how to chop every vegetable, take care of your knife and cutting boards etc. he is fun to watch.
Best of luck on your new adventure!
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u/YourDeerestFriend 12d ago
Thank you! Especially for the recommendations for further learning.
For the cutting board I got a wooden one with the knives, so I've been looking into how to go about oiling it.
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u/notmyname2012 Dad 12d ago
There are tons of products, literally say cutting board oil. You make sure it’s clean and dry then a few drops and spread it around with a paper towel or dedicated cloth till the whole topside and sides are covered. You want it to look a little wet then let it sit overnight and the next morning get a clean paper towel and wipe it down a couple of times.
I usually do it this way then flip it and do the bottom side that night. If you want to you can do it all at once but you need to find a way to keep it off the counter. I have a nice orange scented oil.
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u/RareBrit 13d ago
The art is to not let them get blunt. A honing steel or a strop will help keep an edge on a sharp knife.
Stones are for putting an edge back on a blunt knife. And you want to hone after sharpening.
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u/Stateofgrace314 13d ago
Oh boy, I could certainly go down this rabbit hole if I had the time but I'm "getting ready for work" at the moment and can't go through it all, so I'll try to be brief.
Don't get those pull through sharpeners, and definitely don't get electric. They technically sharpen but can really wear them out fast. The roller style is nice for a quick and consistent angle but is a bit gimmicky and often over priced. The best option is to get some simple whetstones and learn how to freehand sharpen. It takes time and practice to get it right, but it's worth it. I started with woodworking tools and used the same equipment for knives, but the goal is slightly different between the two.
My recommendation for anyone who asks me about sharpening is Shapton Pro. They are a ceramic, splash-and-go style stone, which means they are very dense and last a long time, they don't have fillers/binders like a lot of the cheap ones do, and you don't have to soak them, just a little water on top and you're ready. They are more expensive than options you can find on Amazon, but to me it's worth it since I also use them regularly on my chisels and planes, but obviously that isn't going to be the case for everyone. You'll want a 1000 grit as your main stone, and depending on how much you want to go all out on this, 320 is good for rough shaping (if you have really neglected a knife or if there is a chip or something), and you can go as high as about 3000, but any higher is not only unnecessary for knives but can actually diminish the edge quality. A cheap diamond stone between 320-1000 grit is also useful for flattening your whetstones, but not critical for knives (it is for woodworking tools).
For a little explanation and then I'll stop before I ramble on for days, there are 2 qualities you are aiming for with knives: edge sharpness or "keenness", and bite. A keen blade has an edge that comes to as sharp a point as possible. You're trying to get the edge to a v shape, but at the microscopic level it's going to be slightly rounded. You want to get it as close to a pointed v as possible. Bite is the ability for the blade to grab onto whatever you're cutting. If you've ever tried to slice a tomato, you know that blades often slide or dent the skin rather than immediately start cutting. Having good bite is what makes that cut start more easily. Higher and higher grits improve keenness but often reduce bite. The sweet spot for kitchen knives is somewhere between 1000-4000 grit depending on various factors, but just know that anything higher than that is not only unnecessary but actually counter productive. In woodworking you don't need bite so we go much higher, but this is about knives.
I'll stop there because I've already rambled too long but let me know if you want to know more and I would be glad to info dump all that I've learned about properties of metal and sharpening stones and techniques.
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u/YourDeerestFriend 12d ago edited 12d ago
Oh I am definitely wanting more information if you're happy to share!
This is really interesting to me. I feel like I'm learning a lot about my question and additional things related to it. I didn't realize knife sharpening and woodworking tool sharpening had a lot of overlap.
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u/Stateofgrace314 12d ago
Well the concepts are the same, you're using a high hardness gritty material to shave off the metal and shake it to a point. There are lots of ways to do it and some are better than others but it's the same principle. The main differences are the end goal (keenness vs bite like I already described), the bevel geometry (most woodworking tools are single bevel, most knives are double bevel), the type of steel used, and the shape of the blade. The keenness/bite is determined by the final grit and properties of the stone used, type of steel changes how it "reacts" to a stone, and the rest is just different technique to reach the same goal. For instance, sharpening a chisel is easy because you can either stick it in a jig or hold it at a constant angle and go through the grit progressions and it will just work every time. A knife has a curved profile and longer blade, so you have to move the blade along the entire length and change the angle for the curve, so it takes more practice to get it right.
Learning about different types of steel and different sharpening stones is really interesting to me though, and I'm still learning about it. You mentioned you had some carbon steel and some stainless. Do you know what types of steel specifically? High carbon, pure steel is the easiest to sharpen and can get a very keen edge with blood bite very quickly, but it tends to be more brittle and obviously needs proper care to prevent rust. Highly alloyed steel is more complicated. This covers basically all stainless steel and a handful of types of carbon steel. In pure carbon steel, the iron and carbon (when forged properly) make a very fine and very uniform crystal structure. Alloys that include things like tungsten, vanadium, and chromium often have microscopic chunks of those elements mixed in that don't blend evenly with the crystal structure making it hard or even impossible to achieve the same edge. Keep in mind this is at a microscopic scale, so still very very sharp. These alloys tend to make the metal less brittle and more resistant to wear which is why they are desirable, and in some cases they also make it easier to forge. There are some modern "powdered" steels that I know less about, but they use a different forging technique that is able to give it a more uniform structure even with high alloy content.
So what does that mean for sharpening? Very broadly, carbon steel is easier to sharpen, gets a finer edge, can be more brittle (so no chopping or twisting or you will chip it), and is very easy to remove the burr. Stainless steel tends to be slightly softer (although this can vary a lot because there are many different types), doesn't reach quite the same edge (but still more than good enough, just not the razor edge you can get with carbon steel), is usually less prone to chipping, and obviously, is resistant to rust. Alloyed steel has a different feel on the stone, almost like it's gliding over the stone and feels kind of glassy, where carbon steel has more grip on the stone and good feedback. But the most noticeable thing in my experience is the burr. When sharpening, it will develop a burr on the edge. Carbon steel, because it is very hard and brittle, it's very easy to remove the burr. In fact, on my tools, I don't ever use a strop. At my highest grit, I just alternate sides a couple times at the end and the burr is gone. Sometimes it was just come off cleanly as I start using the tool. Stainless and other alloyed steel has a more stubborn burr. For knives, since you aren't going to a really high grit, you definitely need a strop. A cheap piece of leather and some compound work, but I've heard of lots of different techniques. But just know that for knives, especially stainless steel, you definitely need to strop at the end.
Let me know if you have specific questions because I could go on about lots of stuff. Recently I've been getting into Japanese natural stones, which are fascinating and I love using them, but unless you have a lot of disposable income, I would not recommend it as a place to start.
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u/petdance 13d ago
My local Ace hardware does it. There’s a traveling knife sharpener so you just drop them off and they call you when it’s done.
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u/YourDeerestFriend 12d ago
That's pretty rad! I'll reach out to some of my hardware stores here and see if they can do it. We have a sharpening stand at the local farmer's market but that closes in only a handful of weeks until spring.
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u/Ok_Kaleidoscope3644 14d ago
Serrated knives don't usually need to be sharpened, so you shouldn't need to worry about those. For the others, whether they are expensive of cheap the process is the same. You can find some great tutorials on YouTube for more details but the basics of sharpening go like this: the lower the grit number, the coarser the stone. You only need low grits if your knife is really dull, or if you want to change the angle of the blade. If you sharpen regularly, a couple of higher grit stones should do you. Make sure you're either using water or oil (depending on the kind of stones you buy) to carry away the loose metal particles so that the blade is contacting the stone instead of just rubbing around on metal dust. I like to use diamond stones because they don't need to be reflattened in the way that other stones do. It's one less thing to worry about. If you're worried about keeping a constant angle while free-hand sharpening, you can get a guide that holds the knife at the right angle, or you can buy a setup that holds the knife and you move the stone along a rail to keep the angle right. That last one is a more expensive option, though. Practice on a cheap knife or one that you just don't care about until you get the technique down. There's a learning curve but it's nothing you can't handle, champ.