Noob question: kitchen knife wont sharpen on stone?

H

hard pecs

Joined
Jan 6, 2018
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2
Hey all,

newly into knife maintenance. Decided to buy a honing stick and a couple whetstones (80/200 and 1000/4000) to get my two Ikea knives at home back to being able to cut vegetables instead of folding them.

I just spent 30 minutes on the most busted knife out of the two. 10 minutes on 80, 10 minutes on 200, 10 minutes on 1000. Used the honing stick liberally every few minutes to remove any burr, though I frankly didnt feel too much of one. Lo and behold it wouldnt even cut a slice of lemon when I was done.

Any ideas where I might have gone wrong? No clue what I did wrong.
 
The main issue I see is you are timing your stones. There is NO set time to using a stone, it takes as much time as it takes to bring the edge bevels to an Apex. The Apex is the sharp part of the knife where the bevel slopes come together and meet air.

Your most important step in sharpening is setting the bevel, if you don't Apex the bevel slopes at this point nothing else will matter. I think 80 grit is a bit on the extreme Coarse side but should make quick work of a damaged bevel. Although, at this point I might recommend starting with the 200 and working the bevel until a burr forms along the full length of the edge. Once the burr forms use light pressure and reduce the burr size as much as possible before moving on.

Remember that once the bevel is set every stone after is just refining the scratch pattern. This determines edge roughness and the type of cutting tasks the blade will perform best in. For example: your kitchen knives are likely stainless steel around 55 Rockwell hardness. I would sharpen to no more than 1000 grit (about 14 micron abrasive size) and completely exclude the honing stick using it only for touch-ups between stone sharpening.
 
The burr isn’t a problem, the burr is the solution.
Can you keep the right angle when sharpening?
How dull are your knives?
How many pressure are you using?
Which kind of stroke are you working to remove the burr? Leading or trailing?
Freeze your hands on a position you can keep the same angle in every pass.

10 minutes can be good enough or not.
Time, counting stroke doesn’t mean nothing for me.
The burr, is the key, or one of at least. But try reach a tiny one.
Once you reach the burr flip the blade and keep sharpening until you can feel the burr on other side or the bevel is simetrical (after reach the burr).
Try remove the burr with very light strokes before you progress to next stone.
Use leading stroke to remove the burr.
The burr may be breaking.
If you are rebeveling, sharpening on lower angle than the previous it can take more than 10 minutes, don’t stick in time. Stick in patience.
You can feel the burr in many ways:
Cotton swab, loupe, direct light over the apex...
My advices?
Burr
Practice
Patience
Practice
Keep the angle
Practice
Read read read about sharpening process
Practice...

Edit: there is a sticky thread here that is very helpful to understand sharpening process:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/what-is-sharpening-a-knife-about-2015-updates.1014274/
 
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hard pecs said:
Hey all,

newly into knife maintenance. Decided to buy a honing stick and a couple whetstones (80/200 and 1000/4000) to get my two Ikea knives at home back to being able to cut vegetables instead of folding them.

I just spent 30 minutes on the most busted knife out of the two. 10 minutes on 80, 10 minutes on 200, 10 minutes on 1000. Used the honing stick liberally every few minutes to remove any burr, though I frankly didnt feel too much of one. Lo and behold it wouldnt even cut a slice of lemon when I was done.

Any ideas where I might have gone wrong? No clue what I did wrong.
Click to expand...

Don't progress from one grit to the next, until you actually see or feel (with your fingertips) an OBVIOUS burr forming along the full length of the cutting edge. The burr is what proves the edge is fully apexed, i.e., as thin as it can get. There's no use in counting minutes or the number of passes on the stones, as there's no predicting how long it takes without actually seeing the burr form. If just timing it, and not actually looking for the burr as you go, it's likely the burr never formed in the first place. That means the edge is not fully apexed, which is why it's still not cutting.

When you do see the burr, then take very, very light passes on the stone (I'd avoid the 'honing stick' for now) to gently remove/reduce the burr. Do that before progressing to the next stone. Then test sharpness on the fruits or whatever (paper-slicing, etc), to see how much progress you've made. If it cuts reasonably well after the first stone, then and only then move to the next stone. If you see a loss of sharpness as you progress through each stone, you need to go back to the previous stone and make sure you get that crisp edge back (form the burr again, to verify it's fully apexed), before moving on.
 
Last edited:
hard pecs said:
Hey all,

newly into knife maintenance. Decided to buy a honing stick and a couple whetstones (80/200 and 1000/4000) to get my two Ikea knives at home back to being able to cut vegetables instead of folding them.

I just spent 30 minutes on the most busted knife out of the two. 10 minutes on 80, 10 minutes on 200, 10 minutes on 1000. Used the honing stick liberally every few minutes to remove any burr, though I frankly didnt feel too much of one. Lo and behold it wouldnt even cut a slice of lemon when I was done.

Any ideas where I might have gone wrong? No clue what I did wrong.
Click to expand...
Eh, takes practice but your on the right track.
It's not about how much time per stone either. You just use each stone until you make a burr and all the previous scratches from the last grit are gone.

You also need to hold a low enough angle to get good results but not so low that you can't control it.
Put your knife edge at 90° to the stone. Now cut that in half, 45° now in half again, roughly °22.5 degrees.
You can't go higher then 22° degrees if you want a good edge. I finish everything at about 15° degrees. Killer edges bro.

Nothing is exact with regards to angle degree numbers so don't obsess about those numbers, just use as a reference.

If the edge is absolutely flat and dull it should only take a few minutes on the coarse stone and under a minute on the finer stones when you get good I'm saying that so you have perspective.

Here's what your doing wrong,

angle inconsistency

It's killing your edge.

Focus on locking down that wrist.

Use only enough pressure that you can control.

Get a sharpie and sharpie the edge. SEE your your scratches are and reapply liberally.

NEXT

Keep working on the same bevel and stone until you get a burr.
No skipping ahead. It will kill your results.
Practice feeling for the burr.
Get it consistent and all the way tip to heel, no shortcuts.
Next, deburr
How.
Use EXTREMELY light pressure and alternating passes at the same angle.
.edge leading or edge trailing? Doesn't matter for you right now, just pick one.
Do a light deburring after every stone so you don't have to battle a super strong burr at the end.

Here are the results you should strive for.

Your 1000 grit edge should be able to cut paper clean and pop arm hairs. Especially with a strop.

About your stones.

You need to keep them flat and remove the load up swarf.

The 80 grit is too coarse for a usable edge. You need to deburr that 80grit stone edge on the 80grit stone but keep in mind it's difficult to deburr on coarse stones. Just reduce it and move to the 200 grit.

Your 200 grit should be used with light pressure to clean up those 80grit scratches. Make the 200 grit Burr small so you don't have to battle it on the 1000.

Depending on what the stones are a 200 to a 1000 grit stone is too big of a jump. It can be difficult to remove the deep scratches. That's why it more common to see a 400-500 jump to a 800-2k stone.

Stones are about jumps not strict numerical sequence

You won't do a 500 stone, then a 600 stone then a 700 stone etc.

But don't buy any more stones right now you need practice, not gear unless you don't have a stone flattener, get the cheap Silicon Carbide one for $20ish bucks just Google stone flattener.

FINALLY, back to Sharpening
You have a deburred 200 grit edge. It should cut paper, but not very clean. Otherwise repeat the 200 grit stone and check for flat spots on the edge in bright light.

Now if you ready, get the 1000 grit edge. Should be a hazy finish, depends on the stones but most of the lower end 1000 grit stones leave a hazy finish. Make sure it's consistent all that way. Make your burr small so you don't have to fight it.
Deburr and BOOM you should have a sharp knife.
I'd skip the 4k stone for now until you master the 1k edge. You'll thank me later.
Troubleshoot it if you don't get a sharp edge, Sharpening takes problem solving so you have to have an understanding of what your doing. So read up
Use the sharpie to SEE what your doing not what you think your doing.

Alright I've shared too much
Probably lost ya

Haha just go Sharpen more that's the most important thing.

Just go Sharpen.
 
Wow, brilliant advice from everyone, thanks guys. This is clearly a very helpful community. Ill take a few of the things mentioned on board, and let you guys know what did the trick in this particular case tomorrow when I give it a second try.
 
As someone who only recently learned about creating a blur as part of the sharpening process, I've found that I can feel a very slight blur just by dragging a finger or thumb backwards over the edge (from spine to apex). If you compare the feel on both sides you can quickly learn to detect the burr. I've been amazed at how many of my knives (talking traditional slipjoints here) I've picked up -- knives that I thought were sharp -- and discovered they still had a burr! Once I removed the burr I found that they were very sharp. If I'm not sure if I feel a burr or not, just dragging the edge backwards over a fingernail will determine: if it scrapes the nail it has a burr. As far as getting rid of a burr, I use an Opinel mini-steel. Usually a few light strokes will do it, but keep checking -- sometimes I end up chasing the burr back and forth quite a few times. (I just need a "working" edge so although I have a home-made strop I seldom use it.)
 
Feel the hook on the opposite side of the blade your working, you feel that hook, you have the burr. I remember the 10 minute thing also, it's a matter of not over working your bevel on one side, not how long to work till you progress to the next stone. Work 10 minutes, find the burr, if not, work the other side, find the burr. So, I remember the 10 minute thing. Once you find the burr on the first stone, both side, the next and follow stones, avoid the burr. A lot of people will say the three (someone might have said this already) stones that make a good package are the 400, 1000 and 5000 but as someone mentioned above, kitchen knives really don't need to go above 1000, I do it anyways, I like the smooth stone and cleaning up the scratch's, just me.
 
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