How far do you take your kitchen knives?

There are a few reasons,

The edge being very thin would be severely stressed by "steeling" and possibly cause chipping.

The backside needs to be sharpened flat on a stone to maintain geometry. If a micro bevel is induced major repair will be needed.

Simply put it is incorrect. It would be the same as doing so to scissors or a straight razor.
 
If my wife complains it's dull, it gets the India stone/soft arkansas treatment followed by the ceramic stick. Most of the time I just give it a couple swipes of the steel, though.
 
I reprofiled all my kitchen knives.
Each time I use one, I strop 5 to 10 passes per side. I have green chromium oxide on the suede side at .5 microns and bare leather on the other side.
If I need to touch up a blade, I break out the Lansky 4 rod turn box. I believe the white rods are around 1,000 grit. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gns2QsQufB4.

Every three or four months, I sharpen everything on Spyderco stones up to 1,800 grit.

The constant stropping lets me extend the bevel life. 1,800 lets me do what I want. A uniform 20 degree bevel lets me use the turn box for routine maintenance.
 
Thanks k you knifenut, I could never explain better than you could

I have seen chefs steel their yanagi, then they ask me to fix it for them.... sigh
 
for most knives (vg10), I use a chosera progression 400 to 10000, with blue super I tend to use jnat's after, going with a Nakayama Maruka and stropping to finish.
 
HeavyHanded said:
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
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I do what Martin does, the coffee mug. I like the toothy bite of the coffee mug/ceramic edge, especially on foods. Slicing tomato's for a salad or meat off the grill, the toothy edge makes a better food processor.
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Its true that the super hard laminated knives shouldn't be "steeled".

My knives are harder than "western" knives but less hard than the typical Japanese knife. I don't need to sharpen very often because I use a steel frequently and treat my knives properly. After all, any decent knife is much harder than anything a chef's knife should be used to cut.

When I do sharpen I do so on water stones, usually starting at 600 or 1000 (depending on the state of the edge) ; then up to 4000. I sharpen chef's knives to 20 degrees inclusive (10 per side)

-mike
 
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