How far do you take your kitchen knives?

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uofaengr

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Jan 9, 2014
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Curious to see how others sharpen their kitchen knives. 400 grit? 600 grit? (Edge Pro grit equivalents) Or do you like yours taken all the way through the grits and finished with mirror polishes at sub 1 micron? What's best for your needs?

Edit: Feel free to include your angle.
 
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As of now, learning free hand on shapton pro waterstones. 320-1000-5000 light strop that's if the bevel edge is trashed.
I'll touch up occasionally with 5000 or strop to maintain the edge.
 
On my cheaper ones, the unglazed underside of a coffee cup, followed by a "steeling" on the glazed rim. Has a lot of bite but will dry shave stubble.

On my better ones with nicer steel, I stop at 320 grit wet/dry on my paring knife, the utility knife gets a stout stropping with my white compound on Washboard - approx 4k JWS - still has some tooth. My 10" Chef's pattern gets the added step of wiping the larger grit off and some extra passes - takes it up to 6k maybe a touch higher - is a very refined chopping/mincing edge.

Martin
 
On typical low-alloy stainless kitchen knives in unknown 'mystery steel', it seems lower grit is better. I've liked the toothy edges coming off something like 220/320-grit wet/dry sandpaper, and have noticed they respond well coming off the 'Fine' side of a Norton 'Economy' Stone (SiC) as well; this mimics the tooth coming off 220/320 sandpaper. These knives don't seem to hold much 'bite' at finer grits; the fine 'micro-teeth' seem to just crumble away very quickly in use. A polished edge on them serves little, if any, advantage; really noticeable on something like a tomato, as the more polished edge loses it's ability to slice it, in low-quality steels like this.

Knives in better steels, with finer grain and higher purity, respond better to more refined finishes and hold edges quite well. Good examples are VG-10 and Sandvik steels, like the 12C27Mod used by Opinel. I've kept stropping & polishing mine to somewhere beyond 2000+ (mirror/near mirror finish), and they've continued to slice like lasers in spite of it all. This means I can maintain them almost entirely on a strop (hard-backed), without having to periodically go back to a coarser grit stone or sandpaper to restore the 'bite'.


David
 
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I'll take high hardness gyutos to a 4 -8k finish, nakiris to 4k, and softer Western knives to 2k. Sometimes I go higher with my gyuto, but I don't usually find it is worth the effort unless I'm cutting fish.
 
400 1000 4000 8000
Most of the times it's just the 8000 and about once a month I'll re sharpen.
 
Most of my kitchen knives get sharpened to 600 grit then 'steeled' before each use on a borosillicate glass rod.
Two of my kitchen knives, a sushi Yanagiba made by Masumoto, and a hand-made meat slicer, I take to 10,000, also 'steeled' before each use on a borosillicate glass rod.


Stitchawl
 
I take them all up to a mirror polish with a Wicked Edge.

Maintain on Syderco sharpmaker white rods and a couple strops.

If I'm cutting meat (not fish) I'll go a few passes on the sharpmaker brown and white rods with no stropping, this gives them a bit of "toothiness" which I like for cutting flesh.
 
Dexter v- lo knives general crap at work 600 DMT then strop. Joe calton 1095 1200 then strop. The nice stuff shapton 6000 then progression of CBN on mirrored edge strops. Getting away from stropping on my good stuff. Just starting to have doubt's... Russ
 
Ok, add-on question: What angle do you generally go with on your kitchen knives? I've used 18 dps on some of mine, and it works well. Seen some kitchen shops that say they sharpen Western knives at 22 dps and Japanese knives at 17 dps.
 
uofaengr said:
Ok, add-on question: What angle do you generally go with on your kitchen knives? I've used 18 dps on some of mine, and it works well. Seen some kitchen shops that say they sharpen Western knives at 22 dps and Japanese knives at 17 dps.
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That seems overly thick to me--and I'm not sure that it's reasonable to make blanket statements on knives like that.

A kitchen knife should be sharpened for the purposes and the specifications of the individual knife. For example, I sharpen my nakiri (in Blue #1 at 63 HRC) to 13 - 18 degrees inclusive (6.5 - 9 degrees per side) and my gyuto to 18 - 20 degrees inclusive (9 - 10 degrees per side). Both are Japanese and are much more acute than 34 degrees inclusive (17 per side).

Some single beveled knives can get even lower.

The ubiquitous Henckels and Wüsthof knives I've even sharpened to 30 inclusive (15 per side) and they hold up fine.
 
Chris "Anagarika";13257926 said:
Hwang,

Borosilicate rod = smooth pyrex
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Still doesn't matter, you simply don't steel a yanagi-ba.
 
120 grit belt on a belt sander then buff off the wire edge. I'm also practicing with Murray Carter's waterstone instruction starting with 220, 1000, 6000 and 8000 - obviously I added on the coarse and fine sides of the grit recommendations. :)
 
I used to sharpen everything to at least 4K. Push-cutting implements like my straight razors, chisels and plane irons I'll repair and set the bevel with my Trend diamond stone 350/1K, move on to a Norton 4K/8K, then finish with 12K Thuringian stone and CrO on a balsa paddle strop. Or sometimes I'll use my Belgium blue/cotocule.

Used to do most of the same, even with kitchen knives, but more recently I've found that I get better function with a toothier edge, even on my sashimi knife by not taking them beyond the 1K diamond stone.
 
My yanagi has not even touched a stone under 4000 grit. I would NEVER want a yanagi 'toothy'. Mine is super polished and most competent sushi chefs usually polish their yanagi's.

When I see a chef steel their yanagi I cry inside. Even if Pyrex or ceramic.
 
20140123_190029_zps120494e1.jpg


If it won't whittle paper thinner than hair it's time to sharpen.
 
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