Suggestion about beginners' sharpening

[Obsessed with Edges]

Thank you for the recommendations. I might try the smallest size of Simichrome to see how it works for me
Can it only be applied on uncoated metal like the stainless steel of kitchen knives? Where else can it be used?

Simichrome or Flitz can be used on many metals (steel/brass/nickel/etc.). Caution should be observed with plated metals, however, as the abrasive in either of them can strip gold or other plating from them.

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Btw, how do you find out the hardness of the knife steel? Since I just purchased my first "expensive" chef knife, that, ironically, being the cheapest one available ie Victorinox Forschner 8" Chef knife, I would like to find out the hardness of the stainless steel used on this knife and also of the knives, high end ones, that I plan on purchasing down the road once I become fed up of this one Also, since I've purchased the Norton Combination INDIA stone to sharpen my knives, what sort of knives can this stone sharpen? I mean to ask this so that I may know that which of the knives that I might purchase in future may be sharpened by this stone and for which ones would I have to upgrade to better stones? Thanks

I'm SURE you'll have no problems sharpening the Forschner/Victorinox knife on the India. Their stainless is pretty basic stuff, and not loaded with hard carbides. The India should do well with a lot of steels, possibly excepting heavy grinding on steels with abundant vanadium carbide content. Many steels contain some tiny amounts of vanadium (for grain refinement), but it only presents an issue when the vanadium content and the carbon content are both high (V above ~ 1% and higher, C above ~ 1% or more). The combination of high carbon + high vanadium is what makes very hard vanadium carbides which may slow sharpening on some stones. A steel like S30V is a prime example of this, with carbon at 1.45% and vanadium at 4%. In your uses, I wouldn't worry about not finding uses for your India stone; it'll get a lot of work done.

This is quoted from a .pdf document from Victorinox, re: sharpening them:

( quoted from site: http://www.swissarmy.com/medias/sys_master/8868238589982/Resharpen.pdf )

"Victorinox knives have a Rockwell hardness of 55-56 which offers the optimal hardness."

I've also seen/read that Victorinox uses X50CrMo stainless steel (sometimes listed as X50CrMoV15). Very basic stainless cutlery steel with 0.5% carbon, 0.15% vanadium, 14.5% chromium. I think Wusthof uses this steel as well. No worries about hard carbides at all. Can't guarantee the Forschner knives (after Victorinox aquired ownership of Forschner) are the same steel, but I'm sure it's not too different, in terms of ease of sharpening.


David