Knife Sharpening

[jackhatty]

Turn off the fucking extractor fans.. disappointing.

[rosslinden]

wow

[donze52]

great video you have,

another video you may like is

(how to make money from your knife)

[utubequalitycontrol]

Grandma has her arms still....nobody listen to this dumb fuck....never sharpen a knife owards yourself...if someone bumped you in a kitchen (i.e. a busy server) gam over...your bleeding and off to hospital! always sharpen away from yourself! muppet.

[mryellow123]

@utubequalitycontrol sounds great as a "rule" to "teach people". In practise it's not all bad, you don't put your vital organs within striking distance, the stone isn't held in place by your guts. If something hits you hard enough to move your arm 3 feet then which way the blade is facing will be least of your worries. Sure, busy kitchen, more care. Must say, personally I don't like his rough back/forth technique.

[MustGrill]

you should never let your knives get to this point. I have a good way also of keeping them sharp as a razor. mustgrill taste and knives, watch the entire video.

[shermnduke]

I use all sorts of stones and sharpening tools, but can get a razor edge and narrow profile by simply using a scissor. Just pull the blade edge straight through the slightly opened scissors and you get a nasty sharp cutting knife. Strop as needed afterward.

[uddoss]

i use an 8000 grit wetstone and i do leather stropping after using the stone..my knives are getting razorsharp with it and i even change bevel angles with the

8000 grit stone..it works fine..

[azreal289]

@uddoss never cared much for stropping, I use 2 different ancestral stones ( they came from germany in the early 1800's over with us to america and we've had them in the family since) and finish off on a flat piece of ceramic rubbing it backwards (pulling the edge along the stone) I shave my face with a blade sharpened like that, no strop needed, no fancy stones either,

[uddoss]

@azreal289 this is very interesting..i would like to see it..i am very good with my method too..but i always

like to learn more..i do not use fancy stones either..i bought a very tiny belgischer brocken first and then a friend found a big one for me and gave it to me for free..i had this stones and made a stropping leather myself and

i learnd to keep my blades very sharp with this tools..i had no chance to try something else..but i am very interested in learning more about sharpen blades

[azreal289]

@uddoss well as for the 3,000 plus grit stones I have a very cheap answer. Copier paper stretched over glass. Newsprint works well too but not as well. The impurities in paper that dull blades fast do lovely to polish and straighten the edge. my routine from butter knife sharp to shaving razor sharp is as follows, rougher stone I give it 5 licks to a side, feel it till its right, drop to 4..then 1, then the finer stone I do the same. the ceramic plate gets 1 per side, and if I am going for shave

[azreal289]

@azreal289 sharp I take a piece of glass, the paper, and I (strop) across it like one would use a strop. The biggest problem people have is maintaining an angle and putting too much pressure on the edge. There should be enough to hold it steady on its angle, the weight of the knife is enough force to sharpen it. Too much pressure rolls the burr. The burr is what is refined and straightened by stroping and polishing. A rolled burr will grind on the stones till it snaps off, which is useless.

[uddoss]

@azreal289 i did read it here too..that somebody takes the newspaper paper to stropp blades..he said..

there is some sort of mud in the newspaper and the paper has 30000 grid..i tried the newspaper..but i wasn't convinced..may be i didn't have the right newspaper or i used it wrong..i am doing good with sandpaper on glass for very dull knives..but then i use my wetstone and leather..this is it..what works for me..

[CanItAlready]

BTW, audio quality in this video is not so great. Hard to hear what's being said at times.

[CanItAlready]

Everyone who makes it seem like freehand sharpening is some impossible skill to learn. Buy a cheap knife--outdoor knife or kitchen knife, whichever you use more--read up on how to sharpen knives and use the cheap knife to experiment on. It's not that difficult to learn.

I saw a comment here from someone who can't imagine taking his/her knives to stones because they were so expensive--how does he/she think the knives were sharpened to begin with?

[mrLOKNload]

why did i just watch 13 minutes of knife sharpening

[peteacher52]

The guy in the white shirt is too much in your face. He needs to stand back and let the expert do the talking. There are many successful ways of sharpening a knife, and this is but one of them. As the old saying goes, "Every flea has its own elephant."

[majorpainful]

the fat guy is disgusting. he has absolute no skills. a real asshole.

[DC180]

@majorpainful no skills??? Put up a video of yourself chopping a carrot then... you turn out to be the asshole.

[75SilentWarrior]

Diamond steels are for sharpening, steels are to realign the burr after use.

[vulcan1429]

Poor teachers....bad communication skills

[laclipperrepair]

I use 1000, 8000 Naniwa stones, and a 6000 waterstone. I do japanese scissor and german scissor sharpening.  Removing nicks, and repairing the bad sharpening are possible.

[Goatoftheforest]

Australians have to best accents : )

[bearwoodcarpentry]

go murray go!!!

[hugecumshot]

steel doesnt take the bur off, it will straighten the bur, and if after sharpening you have a bur and you cut with it the bur will bend and you have a dull knife again.

[ChronicMist]

no, if the knife is made out of good steel, with use the edge will not wear out, but it will roll over itself. the steel straightens it back up. that's all it does. have no idea where you got that "bur" idea.........

[3toso]

this dude really wrong and don't know how. after 3000 grid and then use steel? stupid idea...!

[hawkdlb06]

i have japanese's water stones, i got one that's 320 grit, a 1200 grit ,a 4000 grit wheel, and a 6000 grit.. thats how i sharpen i get the burr and then i leather strop it.. makes it razor sharp

[turbo311]

Three finger test is better than paper. You learn the feel of a good edge and no you won't cut yourself. Scraping your thumb perpendicular to it tells you nothing! And chopping like that dulls a blade very fast. Slow down and use pulling strokes.

[turbo311]

There are some things here that are not the best methods. STEELS ARE BAD FOR KNIVES, PERIOD. Don't use them! Use a ceramic rod for honing if not a 6000 grit stone. This dude needs to see Murray Carter's DVD's. Chefs are always misinformed on knives and knife care, like most people.

[ProudDu]

yo shut up dickhead. whats with the racist fool. get a life man. lets watch the thing in peace you white count.

[chanmenh]

nice knife test there. you thought of it yourself or someone showed you it?

[hawkdlb06]

damn i would never be doing that to knives on a stone, i spent close the 10 grand on my knifes for school

their bob kramers, i had to order them

[turbo311]

That's an obscene amount of money for chef's knives. Murray Carter customs would be far more affordable and there's nothing better. How many knives did you buy anyway?

[turbo311]

Oh and if you think a belt sander or V sticks are better than this, you have a lot to learn. Water stones are the most effective and caring way to sharpen good knives. What would you use?

[Howie262]

German Knives Pwn Japanese knifes.

[turbo311]

Hahaha! No.

[majorpainful]

the siegfried and roy of knife sharpening. gay as hell. disgusting people these 2.

[killer88695]

couple of twats

[keithbontrager]

man, these guys might know what they are doing but they are terrible teachers + people to have in front of a camera.

[CohanDigitmatta]

churches, mormons, hotels, crazy people preaching on street corners.

[CohanDigitmatta]

an even better test is a page out of the bible, they are free and probably the thinnest paper you'll get for free.

[Br2veHe2rt]

Without an expert in my kitchen to make sure I'm keeping the blade at exactly 75 or 20 degrees angle, I'll probably ruin the knife instead. I have no clue how to tell what's a 75 or a 20 degree angle. Especially if I'm standing OVER them and not looking at them from the side.

[JoshuaRamires]

they chip them from japan and then they chip them back to japan lol

[peterm3964]

gaydar alert .

[ind20000]

LOL

[brodo900]

really good video thanks

[wilknight12345]

that's one sharp stabbing device!!

[adrianrubi]

oh, you're scaring me.

[retroandreas]

The Japanese Synthetic Stones are OK for the softer steel (kitchen knives) but not for the latest harder laminates like 3g (powdered steel).

I'll stick with diamond stones and a mechanism that ensures I have the correct angle throughout the blade length

Thanks anyways.

[MisterBaz1]

Your reasoning makes absolutely no sense. The hardness of a European knife is somewhere around 57-59RC. Most Japanese knives are hardened to the same Rockwell hardness. Some may be slightly higher around 63RC.

Either way, these stones will work perfectly on either knife.  Actually TRY IT before you spount off misinformation.

[retroandreas]

Where did I say I never tried the Japanese synthetic water stones?

japanese sharpening stones were around long before 63RC so who is making little sense?

The Japanese stones will work but the diamond stones work much faster with less wear.

I use what works for me.

[maxguitarhero]

You should invest some time in obtaining skill, rather than try to be an elitist about something catering to those less skilled than a freehand sharpener.

[maxguitarhero]

previous comment was to retroandreas

[retroandreas]

An elitest?

I said I use a mechanism (angle guide) to sharpen.

My point was that I prefer definitives and the diamond stones with a guide works fast for me.

So don't go away mad, simply go away.

[QuietBearr]

Just wondering why after final polishing you dont use a leather strap or glass polisher?

[MisterBaz1]

Not necessary really. Plus, these knives will be coming in contact with food.

The stropping simply reomves the burr from the edge. You can actually remove most of the burr with high grit stones and a micro-bevel. Then, your sharpening steel will hone that burr out anyway.

Like I said, stropping with green rouge is not necessary on kitchen knives. It probably isn't even a good idea.

[cowboyardee]

Baz, my experience has been nearly the opposite. Stropping makes the edge both sharper and more durable (by refining the scratch pattern, buffing away irregularities, and convexing the edge, albeit at a microscopic level). All you sacrifice is some toothiness or bite. Not much either. I can see making an argument for keeping certain knives toothy (for tomatoes only or something), but saying that stropping is a bad idea for any kitchen knife is quite a leap, and probably just misinformed.

[MisterBaz1]

Misinformed? Apparntly you don't dable much in the world of bladesmithing. There is a large debate about the usefulnes of stropping.

My argument was that stropping a kitchen knife is completely unnecessary. For one, you end up with chemicals left on your knife that were NOT designed to be used on knives used on food products to begin with.

At a microscopic level, your 'convex' edge isn't any more durable that it was before.

Learn some more, then come back later.

[cowboyardee]

That there is a debate raging implies that not all bladesmiths agree with you. That's besides the point. You state that stropping is useless, but my first hand experience dictates otherwise.

I have taken fairly sharp knives to a strop and seen immediate improvement in shaving ability and, presumably, in sharpness for pushcuts. I have also noted improved edge retention in these knives, esecially with repeated stroppings. And I am not alone in my observations....

[MisterBaz1]

Most bladesmiths disagree with stropping on camp/kitchen/multi-purpose knives. Only on special purpose knives (like straight razors) do they suggest stropping.

If your stropping helped edge retention, then it had a crappy sharpening job done from the beginning. You are probably one of those fanboys that strop even their cheap Buck knives and claim the edge sharpness is retained longer than VG-10, D2, 1095 knives. Do the actual science behind it and you'll see why it is just plain silly.

[cowboyardee]

... So if you state that stropping is a bad idea for kitchen knives, it remains to you to illustrate why. Please... go ahead and do that if there is some good reason.

As for compounds -- while I have my doubts that chromium oxide is especially toxic in small amounts (its a simple and fairly inert chemical with no documented ill effects), that is also besides the point. You do wash your knives, right? After a rinse, it shouldn't pose any more of a threat than the carbides in your knife itself.

[MisterBaz1]

Just google chromium oxide health, and you will find numerous technical articles. Not only is the Chromium Oxide bad for you, the binders used in green rouge can be equally as bad for you.

And no, you will not remove all of these chemicals from a simple rinse.

[cowboyardee]

Please quit flaming. Thanks. Commenting on my supposed love of buck knives does not make you seem any more right. I'm a big fan of science - if you understood the science behind your argument then perhaps you could explain it to me rather than alluding to its existence.

And i did look up chromium oxide. There are a great many notes of industrial precautions where its effects are not known. It is a known skin and eye irritant. Info varies on lungs....

[cowboyardee]

...The only statement of long term data i could find said that workers exposed for 25-30 years to chromium oxide showed no ill effects in the long term.

If you're worried, you could always strop on bare leather. That is also effective, though it seems to take longer.

[MisterBaz1]

Didn't search hard enough then ;)

Using high quality waterstones of correct grades/grits will do all you need. You also will need the skill of course. Name a professional Japanese knife/sword polisher that strops.

None of them strop, but yet can attain shaving-sharp edges. Murray from Carter Cutlery has a video on here that proves it. He is one of the few Americans who have been trained in Japan by a real Japanese swordsmith. He 'strops' on the stone.

[cowboyardee]

Please provide link address, if you can, cuz I'm curious. In the meantime, just use aluminum oxide powder instead and drop the issue. Presumably, you find that safe enough.

Anyway, Dave from Japanese Knife Sharpening, the premier sharpening service for Japanese knives in the US - he strops, last I heard. And Murray Carter has a video on this very site in which he recommends stropping and demonstrates on cardboard...

[MisterBaz1]

In that video, murray is using anything you could readily have on hand in order to sharpen a knife.

Look at his video where he shaves with his kneck knife. No leather stropping there. Just the stone.

[unicorms]

He actually stropped on newspaper, which is comparable to stropping on cromium oxide. I can tell you from experience that shaving straight off a stone like he used isn't very comfortable, it needs a little more.

That's not to say you can't shave straight off a rediculously expensive natural japanese waterstone. Strops, pastes and balsa wood hones tend to be cheaper though.

But an edge this fine would be destroyed very quickly cutting food, so it's all a bit academic for this purpose.

[cowboyardee]

...Anyway, I am fairly skilled as a freehand sharpener. I have made a common observation - that stropping appears to improve my results to a small degree... if there's some counter-intuitive reason that stropping is bad, I'd love to hear it. But either stop appealing to the expertise of others and tell me why stropping is bad, or else direct me to wherever these experts state their opinions. Why would stropping be good for razors and not for knives?

[MisterBaz1]

Appealing the expertise of others?

I'm a bladesmith and professional knife sharpener. The expertise I reference is of that agreeing with me. Stropping an everyday kneckknife if a waste. The first time you cut something harder than paper, that stropping has been put to waste. A properly sharpened knife will retain its edge better than crappy sharpening technique substitued over with stropping on a bad edge.

[cowboyardee]

FYI - I have no real knowledge of or interest in outdoor knives. My area is kitchen knives.

Now, I think I see where some of the disagreement may be coming from. In the kitchen, most everything you cut should be softer than paper. There's a trend towards maintaining very fine edges. With Japanese knives, stropping is also often recommended instead of stealing, because steals can damage a harder (more brittle) edge.

[MisterBaz1]

They make ceramic/glass rods now that are fairly affordable. These rods are WAAY better than your steel hones, and they can be used on pretty much any knife (serrated blades excluded).

Pretty much all of the bladesmiths and sushi chefs I have talked to never hone their single-bevel knives. The sushi chefs will either resharpen their yanagibas after each day of work, or have someone else do it.

I have met one guy who strops his Japanese blades....but he also doesn't sell very many either...

[cowboyardee]

For the record, we were never arguing whether a well sharpened edge was better than a poorly sharpened but stropped edge. We were arguing whether a stropped edge was superior assuming equal sharpening jobs otherwise (and also whether stropping is useful for maintenance.)

I still fail to see how it isn't. It doesn't make sense and my experience says otherwise.

[marcleh]

Great demo, I learnt a lot. Have been doing this wrong for years I now realise. @ColdSteelcollector. i don't need to know why it damages it. Just want to know how to sharpen a knife. But I understand your passion ;)

[ColdSteelcollecter]

sir may i HIGHLY recommend something? people dont understant knives like you and i. explain why it damages it as has less edge retention because theres less metal to support it. ive never used a japanese water stone, but remember that from edge to spine it has support, the sharpening pressure from bevel to bevel, does not. it is weak. use less pressure you should see a difference. i can slice a single hair in two holding it between my fingers, getting ultimate sharpness is my hobby. good video!

[guyfishervideo]

Great video ! Learned a great deal and purchased a stone today.

What is that fantastic funky didgeridoo music in the beginning ?

[olivierturgeon]

i learned that when u sharpen the knife its important to move you fingers across the blade to create equal pressure whil eu sharpen

[power2win2]

Very good demonstration. The newspaper slicing test for sharpness proves Leigh knows what he's doing. Thanks for the lesson.

[MisterBaz1]

Agreed, too many people think that slicing through one single piece of computer paper proves how refined the edge is. This newspaper test is much better suited to proving edge refinement.

[mangalese]

Awesome stuff! My stepfather was a butcher and he did teach me how to bone, tie and clean out meat. Of course before that I had the menial jobs of sharpening the knives....well what 15 years of office jobs and restaurants can do to atrophy your knife skills! I had forgotten to soak the stone and was using circular motions...no wonder I killed the knives. Thank you very much...now I can break down a pig and my wife think I am all crap!!

[latro123]

cool sharpness test !

[johnjecon]

Excellent video. This is the first time I have seen this technique of sharpening a knife forward and backwards on the same side.

[emomorules]

this will help me

[wing54]

Awesome, thanks guys!

[expotv]

nice