Stay Sharp! - Part 1

I think it was teaching the 11 year old scouts that got me started but, like a lot of men, I've learned to appreciate a well sharpened knife.  I say "like a lot of men" because of all the videos on youtube featuring slightly scary looking guys talking about their preferred method of keeping their blades sharp.

Having to teach the scouts how to sharpen a knife required me to learn something about it. Not only did I learn some basics but I found out what a useful and practical skill it was.  The rack of fairly expensive knives in the kitchen went from a disappointment to a joy to use once I got a decent sharpener and started using it.


 I'll cut to the quick:  If you want a sharp knife, get yourself a simple pull sharpener like the one pictured on the left and use it. You can buy it for $2.95 at the Knife Center.  You hold it with your left hand and pull the knife through the ceramic rods at the bottom of the "V" to sharpen.  One pair of rods is coarse, the other fine.  There are a lot of variations on this particular design but the pull sharpener has a significant advantage over the whetstone:  the angle between the knife and the sharpening material is fixed.  Also consider its lower cost and smaller size and weight and you've got a real winner. It also works with just about every size of knife, even machetes.  If you have no other sharpener, let this be the one.

One other thing:  you should hone your blades before every use.  Honing is different than sharpening but related.  Think of the long line that the knife blade makes.  Then think of that line wandering back and forth a little bit.  More of a wobbly footpath than a precisely engineered road.  That's what happens to most blades through use, the tip bends to the side, reducing its cutting effectiveness.  That's where a butcher steel comes in and why one is usually included in every knife block.

So what's the relationship between sharpening and honing?  In practical terms: you hone before every use, you sharpen once or twice a year.  A sharp blade makes the edge of the blade very thin and more likely to "wobble" and needs frequent honing.  But they address two very different problems:  Sharpening addresses the shape of the edge along its cross section, honing the straightness along its length.  It should be noted that the pull sharpener above is really more of a honing tool.  It's ability to reshape an edge (using the "coarse" setting") is fairly limited.  For that you need something stronger.  In the next part, I'll cover it.  If you want to skip ahead, there are a lot of excellent sources on the internet already.  I recommend http://blog.metrokitchen.com/knife-sharpening-honing/.