Professional knife sharpening?

[Kissaragi]

Hi, I'm still learning how to use my waterstones and I'm not very good with them, so I don't trust myself to sharpen my expensive Henckels kitchen knifes yet. Does anyone know of a good mail in sharpening service I could use?

I thought id found one in 'shark sharpening' but when I got the folding knife I sent to test him back theres a huge burr still on the blade, he obviously hasn't done any polishing on it whatsoever.

Would be lovely to do it myself but my 12 year old penknife is about all I trust myself not to completely ruin at the moment!

Thanks very much, Nick

 

[stevec]

try asking dave budd, he runs courses on sharpening as well.

as per usual no affiliations etc happy customer.

steve

 

[BorderReiver]

I can recommend the Spyderco Sharpmaker.

It's as close to idiot proof as you can get and gives as sharp an edge as you could want.

Works on any type of edge;plain;serrated;chisel grind;scissors;chisels;hatchets etc.

Comes complete with instructional DVD too.



(Usual disclaimer)

 

[robin wood]

I wouldn't send knives to anyone else you will soon need to do it yourself and its really quite simple. There are lots of different methods and it can seem daunting but many methods work well, read a few tutorials and try different things till you find what you are happy with. I can understand not wanting to practice on your best knives so buy a £10 carbon clipper or mora and practice sharpening that. 2 or 3 hours practice on the mora would be plenty and when you are happy that you can get that to your liking go on to you best knives.

 

[Zammo]

There's some good tutorials on here. Or for a visual tutorial why not learn from the main man himself:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...=71&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2

 

[Shing]

There used to be hardware shops in every town you could take knives, shears and lawn mowers to be sharpened, seems to be all gone now.

 

[Kissaragi]

There used to be hardware shops in every town you could take knives, shears and lawn mowers to be sharpened, seems to be all gone now.

I know what you mean, everyone has those evil knife destroying sharpening gadgets these day i guess.

I have looked at the Sharpmaker but i just felt id be better off in the long run learning to use stones.

The main thing thats put me off having a go at the Henckles is my repeated failed attempts at sharpening a Cold Steel Voyager, i swear this thing was forged in the bowls of hell. It's like trying to sharpen diamond. So i would at least like someone who knows what they are doing to put a proper bevel on the Henckles the first time theve been sharpened.

Thanks for information guys i'll follow up on what youve given me.

 

[Dave Budd]

There used to be hardware shops in every town you could take knives, shears and lawn mowers to be sharpened, seems to be all gone now.

And that's where I come in

I used to use a local shop as a drop off point, but they only open 2 days a week, so it stopped working. I still get lots of locals calling me up and bringing me everything from knives and scissors to lawnmowers and saws. I also go to some of the local pubs and restaurants to sharpen their knives for them on a regular basis, as it happens I'm off to River Cottage next week for a return visit

As Robin says though, if you use your knife a lot you will soon dull it and it gets frustrating (and costly) to send them off everytime they get a bit blunt. Which is why sharpening demos with waterstones is one of the things that I do at shows, it's also why I teach people how to sharpen anything that they need to be sharp Mostly it is down to practice, but if your technique is flawed then it will frustrate you forever

 

[C_Claycomb]

Since you are in the rare minority of people who have A) Bought reasonably good kitchen knives, B) Are bright enough to know that steel knives will need to be sharpened, and C) have taken the first step on being able to do something about B, how about looking up one of the instructional DVDs that are on the market?

These links are not examples of where to buy, but just to give an idea of what is out there.
http://www.bestsharpeningstones.com/how_to_sharpen.htm
http://www.korin.com/product.php?pid=193&df=knife
http://www.chefknivestogo.com/the-art-of-knife-sharpening.html

There are a number of tutorials on this site. One way or another you will have to learn to sharpen them. If you can find your way to a meet up there should be someone who can give you some pointers.

Of course, doing a Dave Budd course is the premium way to learn but most of us learned via trial and error. It is pretty hard to ruin a kitchen knife on hand stones anyway

 

[Kissaragi]

Hmm, i came on here certain that i didn't want to touch them myself yet but im very tempted to pick up one of those DVD's and a Mora to practice on now! You've inspired me and its really nice to find a forum full of friendly and helpful people for a change.

Ill have a browse through all the knife sharpening stuff on here again and order a tutorial DVD.

 

[C_Claycomb]

I haven't seen it, but I am biased towards the Murray Carter, having met him at the Blade Show in the US, bought one of his kitchen knives for my dad (it will split hairs) and watched him demoing sharpening at the show.

Since the mora is going to have a slightly differnet bevel to those on your kitchen knives, might you think of buying a cheap kitchen knife to practice on? I know that cheap steel is difficult to sharpen due to the wire edge not wanting to part company, but you will get the practice of working the angle freehand, rather than on the Mora were you lay the whole bevel flat on the stone, so can use it as a guide of sorts.

 

[Kissaragi]

How hard is the steel likely to be on the decent kitchen knifes? I can get a swiss army knife to shaving sharpness but if its harder than that then i struggle.

 

[C_Claycomb]

That depends on who makes the "decent" knife. The steel used in Japanese laminated kitchen knives is very hard at over RC60, and very thin. They are able to be sharpened and polished to a razor like edge. Western cutlery is usually a bit softer, and a bit thicker at the edge. Many are likely to be no harder than your Swiss Army Knife. Harder steel takes more time to wear down, but the final wire edge is more easily removed, the resulting edge is sharper, and it will last longer. The softer steels are likely to react better to use with a butcher's steel to keep the wire edge (which is hard to remove) aligned with the edge. The idea on these is that you cut with the wire edge (burr) itself.

There are some interesting sites about if you want to read more.
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/187/Knife-and-Sharpening-Steel-Hardness

http://www.japaneseknifecompany.com/sharpeners/sharpening-guide.htm

Obvioulsy the Japanese water stones will work just fine on the RC60-62 Japanese chef's knives, and I have used mine on Stainless S30V and D2 and even M2 highspeed steel, so they should be up to doing your kitchen knives if you stick with it.

As has been said before, use black marker on the edge so you can see where you are removing metal, and be sure that you are sharpening right to the edge. Harder steel takes time to wear down, and if you are sharpening at a shallower angle than was originally used, that last few microns, before the your new bevel reaches to the edge, can seem to take a long time!

 

[Andy]

for kitchen knives I like a convex edge, It's fairly easy to do with some wet&dry paper and a couple of strokes on a sharpmaker to give themsome bite

 

[Prophecy]

Send them to Dave Budd. I've used his service before and it's really superb.

 

[Dave Budd]

thanks Prophecy

I spent this morning (and some of this afternoon) standing around outside River Cottage HQ sharpening all of their kitchen knives. Not a bad place to spend a sunny day and the chefs there do make exceedingly good cakes