Last night i was at a friend's and sharpened
two of his inexpensive 440C Japanese kitchen knives. I had brought some main equipment items (302UF, 204MF, Ruixin Pro III w/ stones set, 1 blank wood staff, oil, polishing compound flakes, masking tape, Sharpie marker). He was interested in learning, so on the fly i talked about some key aspects like sharpness testing, apexing, burr creation, burr detection (with flashlight, with thumb), burr removal, stropping, knife handling. We started with grinding on the Ruixin but time was flying so we agreed that
i should just go ahead with my preferred method and finish the two sharpening jobs
quickly. Which i did. Done. Fortunately both edges were in good condition (i.e. no chips, no recurves), so i was able to follow through without hiccups and within a reasonable time total (incl. our chatting and my teaching). I chose
the 204-freehanding method with 204M (for sharpening and deburring), then stropping on the compound-loaded wood staff. I explained that my quick method was unconventional, not to be found in any textbook or on other people's youtube channels. He was impressed by the sharpness (we sliced receipt paper and grapes lol) and by how fast-cutting the wood strop was, and i was glad/proud that i delivered with 1 stone only plus that wood strop: what an effective sharpening session, with no waste of time/energy/efforts/steps! Clearly, with kitchen knives i woht go higher/finer than 204M ymmv. Could masters
get those kitchen knives even sharper by using
more steps, maybe even within the same timing total? No doubt, for masters are masters.
But if you manage to demo your sharpening skills/result on a
single stone, the more impressive it is. The simpler, the shorter/faster, the more efficient you perform a job, the more effective and impressive it is. First time spectators aren't really patient anyway!
I could have gone through 10 Ruixin stones plus 3 Ruixin balsa strops, thus spending
45min on a 13-steps-total Ruixin Pro III procedure but that would have been the worst promotion of the craft.
And actually, when i am to perform/show,
i am not patient with myself either!
Rightly so, because i doht want my spectators to become bored or nervous or regretful.
As soon as they interject/utter/think an "auweia", it means that they're about to turn their backs and that you should rather stop (with an apology to have tested their patience) and pack your things for now (and continue alone on Sunday), game over, in their mind/eyes you've lost/failed in the demo show, no matter the end sharpness (because that's a given).
The way i see it: If your pal (or a relative) hands you a kitchen knife in decent condition and asks you to "quickly" resharpen it in favor of him (because that's what they'd expect, namely that it's quick and effortless, thus confirming that they were asking a small favor) and also asks if he could observe you at it, then you imho simply cannot setup your full-fledged guided set of Edge Pro, Lansky, Wicked Edge, TSProf, or Hapstone, because that'd be way too uncool and counter-impressive. No offense but that would be ridiculous and just wrong in the moment. If a big knife could be sharpened within "5min" with a single stone to crazy sharpness in front of an audience, like i did, then that's the only acceptable way to go. You'd ridicule/embarrass yourself, if you took longer than 10min/knife in front of them and had to use a massive guided set and go through several steps; you'd set a poor example of the craft. Well, you are free to do so, when you're alone by yourself on a long boring Sunday afternoon, but you simply cannot do so, when you must perform and deliver in front of impatient newbie eyes and want to show that you were the right man to ask in the first place. They'd instantly feel bad if they saw that the favor cost you apparent efforts (with handling all the parts of your guided system), and they'd be not likely to ask you again in future. If they see that you can sharpen quickly and effortlessly (like freehanding with full command and mastery), they'll be happy to ask you again. That's just my strong/clear opinion and attitude, how i see the situation. So i commend all youtubers who prove that they can sharpen fast, without wasting steps and time; they're masters after all like @NORTHWEST_KNIFE_GUY and others on this forum.
My pal asked me what the 204MF costs, and i told him 100EUR because it's imported goods. He wasn't impressed ("Why pay so much for so little?"). Then i told him that, as he just witnessed, he'd only need 1×204M. And that that would cost only 15EUR. Now he was impressed.
And from now on, thx to my exemplary performance/show (
sorry for tooting my own horn but i nowhere said that i am a master, yet i still wanted and managed to show that i was the right man to ask, so i am glad/proud of that), when he thinks about resharpening, he will think that, basically, he will need
1 stone only, e.g. 1×204M, to get the job done. And in theory, he's right, it's the minimum requirement. Masters doht need more than 1 stone to get the job done. He was actually willing to spend 500EUR on a Wicked Edge (because he thought that that would
guarantee him newbie to get the desired sharpness as a beginner). Now he is seriously impressed that all he'd need, in theory, is 1 stone.