Sharpening stainless steel blades

[Chrisf]

I normally think that I am good at sharpening knives and tools. I have all the kit from Japanese water stones, Dmt diamond hones and various natural and synthetic stones. However I just cannot get stainless knives sharp. I bought the wife a set of expensive stainless knives and I have a Buck stainless knife and they won't sharpen. Does anyone have any luck sharpening stainless and what do you use.

Many thanks regards Chris

 

[mountainm]

I do my stainless on micro mesh and have no issues.

 

[Robbi]

just keep doing what you would normaly do but for longer

 

[Jomo]

i have an 800 grit 1200 grit and 6000 grit set of jap waterstones that i use to sharpen all of our stainless kitchen knives and all our friends kitchen knives,i struggled to get the correct edge when i first started using them but perseverance paid off and just practicing with various blades gave me a sense of which side needed touching up!! i constantly check and recheck the grind after ever few strokes testing with my thumb across the blade and testing on various thicknesses of paper and when it go's through newspaper with ease i then use a strop to really smooth out the cutting action. I also use the light from my lamp to check for reflection on the very edge of the blade if there is no light reflecting off then you've got it just right,then the final test for me is shaving my arm. It honestly took me ages to get my first few knife attempts sharp but now just through instinct from practicing ive probably halved the time,practice honestly is the only answer, oh and youtube vids they helped me alot especially the footage of Japanese knife makers sharpening their knives,those guys really know what they're doing and how to get the most out of their stones,hope this helps

 

[Sappy]

All I've ever used is a DC3 on all my knives and they are all butchering sharp just takes longer.

 

[Chrisf]

Thanks for the post - not sure what's going wrong as I get on great with traditional high carbon steels. Interesting my best effort is with my dc3.

 

[HillBill]

Do you have any idea what type of steel it actually is? Stainless steels come in many different types. So are quite soft, easy to sharpen but dont hold an edge for long. Other are hard as hell, hold an edge for a very long time, but are total pigs to resharpen. Others are similar to carbon steels. Stainless has high wear resistance as a general rule. This makes them tougher to sharpen.

 

[Chrisf]

No sorry I cannot remember what grade of stainless. I bought them as a set 10 years ago. Victorinox brand. All the blades have different number but I think just date stamps. 5.2003.19. I suspect something hard as my stones don't touch them. Japanese water stones don't touch them, best result using Dmt course.

Thanks regards Chris

 

[grey-array]

I use to sharpen some hardened stainless knives from a befriended cook and as had been said before me hard stainless, is a pig to sharpen more and more often I refuse to do so ^^. But it is exactly what you do with other carbon blades but then longer, so it is a tad harder to over a longer period of time keep the same angles to end up with a superb blade.

As Ian once told me, the cutting surface is just where two planes intersect on a precise point, the more precise you get the meeting of those two planes the better a job you did

And I use a combination of wet and dry till 1200, then a 2000 to 5000 Waterstone composite, and then I strop them with some hand stropping compound
hope that helps

Yours sincerely Ruud

 

[HillBill]

If they are that hard then it may be worth getting a ceramic sharpening rod.

No sorry I cannot remember what grade of stainless. I bought them as a set 10 years ago. Victorinox brand. All the blades have different number but I think just date stamps. 5.2003.19. I suspect something hard as my stones don't touch them. Japanese water stones don't touch them, best result using Dmt course.

Thanks regards Chris

 

[calgarychef]

Victorinox are some of the best cooking knives you can get. Reasonably cheap and the steel is soft enough to sharpen quickly, a good thing in a busy kitchen. Start with a coarse stone something like 750 grit and establish the bevel you want, and make sure you bring it far enough to get a wire edge or burr as some folks call it. Flip the knife and repeat on the other side until you have a burr again. Now go to finer grit and establish the burr then flip the knife and do it again. Keep doing this until you've gone to your finest grit. I usually only go to 3000 grit. Because I'm lazy and it's just a cooking knife that will get sharpened agin in a couple weeks. In between stonings use a steel to bring about a fast edge but realise that a steeled edge won't last nicely like a honed edge does.

 

[Chrisf]

Thanks for these replies let hope practice makes perfect

Regards Chris