The Sharpening Thread
Discussion
21TonyK said:
I'm interested to get comments on knife sharpening. I use a range of stones and one of those eBay jobbies that takes various stones/diamond sharpeners. All with varying degrees of success.
Latest toy is a Zwilling V-edge sharpener with various stones down to about 1500. The advantage being its set to 10 degrees which works well with most of my knives, specifically one which has been reground to this.
I give this a once over every week and maintain on a fine steel during the day. Its a bit of a workhorse knife, RWH is 56.
I've gone all out and worked one blade to a polished edge which is great for shaving etc but lasts minutes in a busy kitchen.
I'm happy with what I have got, its functional but just wonder if there is something I am missing.
interesting but I can't find an independent review of the V-edge so far but I'll keep looking. I know you know your stuff and your way around the kitchen from the foody threads Tony and enjoy reading them Latest toy is a Zwilling V-edge sharpener with various stones down to about 1500. The advantage being its set to 10 degrees which works well with most of my knives, specifically one which has been reground to this.
I give this a once over every week and maintain on a fine steel during the day. Its a bit of a workhorse knife, RWH is 56.
I've gone all out and worked one blade to a polished edge which is great for shaving etc but lasts minutes in a busy kitchen.
I'm happy with what I have got, its functional but just wonder if there is something I am missing.
so I'm pretty sure that your knives don't end up full of 'chips' and dinks and all like a lot of folk. I think most people don't actually look close enough to see them anyway and assume that any old sharpener system will just solve the problem.Here's a video that sort of blows the lid off the pull through sharpening systems can actually do to make a badly treated knife even worse..........
There are times and I think you'll agree when a badly treated knife just has to have a proper re-grind?
Edited by dickymint on Tuesday 19th December 22:51
dickymint said:
21TonyK said:
I'm interested to get comments on knife sharpening. I use a range of stones and one of those eBay jobbies that takes various stones/diamond sharpeners. All with varying degrees of success.
Latest toy is a Zwilling V-edge sharpener with various stones down to about 1500. The advantage being its set to 10 degrees which works well with most of my knives, specifically one which has been reground to this.
I give this a once over every week and maintain on a fine steel during the day. Its a bit of a workhorse knife, RWH is 56.
I've gone all out and worked one blade to a polished edge which is great for shaving etc but lasts minutes in a busy kitchen.
I'm happy with what I have got, its functional but just wonder if there is something I am missing.
interesting but I can't find an independent review of the V-edge so far but I'll keep looking. I know you know your stuff and your way around the kitchen from the foody threads Tony and enjoy reading them Latest toy is a Zwilling V-edge sharpener with various stones down to about 1500. The advantage being its set to 10 degrees which works well with most of my knives, specifically one which has been reground to this.
I give this a once over every week and maintain on a fine steel during the day. Its a bit of a workhorse knife, RWH is 56.
I've gone all out and worked one blade to a polished edge which is great for shaving etc but lasts minutes in a busy kitchen.
I'm happy with what I have got, its functional but just wonder if there is something I am missing.
so I'm pretty sure that your knives don't end up full of 'chips' and dinks and all like a lot of folk. I think most people don't actually look close enough to see them anyway and assume that any old sharpener system will just solve the problem.Here's a video that sort of blows the lid off the pull through sharpening systems can actually do to make a badly treated knife even worse..........
There are times and I think you'll agree when a badly treated knife just has to have a proper re-grind?
Edited by dickymint on Tuesday 19th December 22:51
Might as well get a stone and try and rescue them….
fasimew said:
Why spend money on tat, when you can use the underside of a mug? For special occasions, I use the underside of a ceramic baking dish.
As kids when it was normal to have sheath knives or pocket knives when out playing we knew the hacks like how to sharpen them on a kerb or jab them into the dirt. But now as grown ups we know that there's not a mug or ceramic baking dish on the planet that'll rescue a blade that resembles a saw 
'Cheap' sharpeners can work fine as long as they're used often and before it's 'too late'
We had an 'Anysharp' pull-through sharpener for our old Global knives and it did work very well in terms of sharpening the knife, but the amount of material removed was excessive and after probably five years we had to replace the knives as they were damaged past where the blade edge should be.
I now have a whetstone...
I now have a whetstone...
These are all you need for keeping a keen edge on kitchen knives. Everyone I've given these too absolutely loves them.
No skill or knowledge required. No carbide sharpener option, which will take chunks out of a thin blade, small so you can leave one in a kitchen draw and cheap.
I do like using water stones and sharpening the old school way, but for most people, most of the time the above is the answer.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285324438338?hash=item4...
No skill or knowledge required. No carbide sharpener option, which will take chunks out of a thin blade, small so you can leave one in a kitchen draw and cheap.
I do like using water stones and sharpening the old school way, but for most people, most of the time the above is the answer.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285324438338?hash=item4...
dickymint said:
There are many grades of stainless steel but most are either austenitic or martensitic - the vast majority of kitchen knives are martensitic which is magnetic and contain a certain amount of iron that also gives steel other benefits for knives. It's a complex topic (Google is your friend here) I think you'd be hard pushed to find a steel knife that's not magnetic........waits for someone to say "my set is austenitic"
Thanks for the response I knew there would be an answer and now I think about it I have seen the magnetic knife holders for knife storage.
Square Leg said:
dickymint said:
21TonyK said:
I'm interested to get comments on knife sharpening. I use a range of stones and one of those eBay jobbies that takes various stones/diamond sharpeners. All with varying degrees of success.
Latest toy is a Zwilling V-edge sharpener with various stones down to about 1500. The advantage being its set to 10 degrees which works well with most of my knives, specifically one which has been reground to this.
I give this a once over every week and maintain on a fine steel during the day. Its a bit of a workhorse knife, RWH is 56.
I've gone all out and worked one blade to a polished edge which is great for shaving etc but lasts minutes in a busy kitchen.
I'm happy with what I have got, its functional but just wonder if there is something I am missing.
interesting but I can't find an independent review of the V-edge so far but I'll keep looking. I know you know your stuff and your way around the kitchen from the foody threads Tony and enjoy reading them Latest toy is a Zwilling V-edge sharpener with various stones down to about 1500. The advantage being its set to 10 degrees which works well with most of my knives, specifically one which has been reground to this.
I give this a once over every week and maintain on a fine steel during the day. Its a bit of a workhorse knife, RWH is 56.
I've gone all out and worked one blade to a polished edge which is great for shaving etc but lasts minutes in a busy kitchen.
I'm happy with what I have got, its functional but just wonder if there is something I am missing.
so I'm pretty sure that your knives don't end up full of 'chips' and dinks and all like a lot of folk. I think most people don't actually look close enough to see them anyway and assume that any old sharpener system will just solve the problem.Here's a video that sort of blows the lid off the pull through sharpening systems can actually do to make a badly treated knife even worse..........
There are times and I think you'll agree when a badly treated knife just has to have a proper re-grind?
Edited by dickymint on Tuesday 19th December 22:51
We have the Robert Welch knifes, and associated sharpener, which has a ceramic wheel rather than two rods. Global and Procook appear to have the same system. Clearly noy going to be perfect either, but the surface in use at any time is slightly wider because its around 15mm dia not 3-4mm dia, and because it rotates there is a lot more ceramic surface to wear too.
You can fill the litte bowl below the stone to sharpen wett, which I do if having a good spruce up of all the knifes, but if I al just doing a couple of passes mid cook to tickle it back quickly I usually just wet the knife under the tap and get on with cooking.
https://www.robertwelch.com/pages/signature-hand-h...
dickymint said:
interesting but I can't find an independent review of the V-edge so far but I'll keep looking.
I bought it on a whim, it was a half price return on Amazon and for £50 I thought I'd just add it to the collection.Turns out the reason it was returned was one of the rods was snapped so after spending another £50 to get a set of what they describe at 150, 360 & 1000 I had something useable.
The thing that made me look in the first place was the fact that the sharpener has preset angles of 15 or 10 degrees which you change with the supplied rod holders. This means you hold the knife vertical when sharpening which makes it almost fool proof.
Combined with the very low resistance and pressure used when sharpening it seems to do a reasonable job for something so simple. Certainly gets knives sharper than the mino sharp or anything like that. For a final finish I add a microbevel on a stone. This lasts about 40 hours heavy use with the occasional wipe on a steel.
All in, quite happy with it. Just need to keep the sharpening rods safe!
Joe M said:
Anyone tried the tormek t1?
Not yet (Wifey would go nuts if I bought another system at the moment) but it's Tormek so is super good without any doubt. My only gripe after seeing the spec is the grit size is only 600 which is not super sharp - maybe they do a finer one as an extra? I go down to 1000 and 3000 grit for a true shaving sharp knife.I use a Dick double sided stone and a steel.
I only use cheap Victorinox kitchen knives which are In fact better knives than their price should dictate.
They are very sharp when new and keep an edge very well,they also sharpen very easily and quickly.
In the past we have had Sebatier,Wusthoff and the like but non are better than my cheap plastic handled Victorinox.
I only use cheap Victorinox kitchen knives which are In fact better knives than their price should dictate.
They are very sharp when new and keep an edge very well,they also sharpen very easily and quickly.
In the past we have had Sebatier,Wusthoff and the like but non are better than my cheap plastic handled Victorinox.
What happened to saying very good? Why is everything juxtaposed with 'super' these days? If everything is super, nothing is super.
How do you even 'super' something? Surely you need a baseline to work with? You can't just jump straight into super without identifying what normal is. And how many orders of magnitude is super above normal? Super would imply the pinnacle. What if there's something greater than your idea of super? What happens to your idea of super then? It wasn't really super at all was it. Therefore anything you say is b
ks.
Anyway... I digress. I've bought one of those £2 items. Let's see if it does a better job than the underside of a mug.
How do you even 'super' something? Surely you need a baseline to work with? You can't just jump straight into super without identifying what normal is. And how many orders of magnitude is super above normal? Super would imply the pinnacle. What if there's something greater than your idea of super? What happens to your idea of super then? It wasn't really super at all was it. Therefore anything you say is b
ks.Anyway... I digress. I've bought one of those £2 items. Let's see if it does a better job than the underside of a mug.
fasimew said:
What happened to saying very good? Why is everything juxtaposed with 'super' these days? If everything is super, nothing is super.
How do you even 'super' something? Surely you need a baseline to work with? You can't just jump straight into super without identifying what normal is. And how many orders of magnitude is super above normal? Super would imply the pinnacle. What if there's something greater than your idea of super? What happens to your idea of super then? It wasn't really super at all was it. Therefore anything you say is bks.
Anyway... I digress. I've bought one of those £2 items. Let's see if it does a better job than the underside of a mug.
I've read your other thread about sick pay and redundancy and a few others and now know to totally ignore anything you say so....................How do you even 'super' something? Surely you need a baseline to work with? You can't just jump straight into super without identifying what normal is. And how many orders of magnitude is super above normal? Super would imply the pinnacle. What if there's something greater than your idea of super? What happens to your idea of super then? It wasn't really super at all was it. Therefore anything you say is b
ks.Anyway... I digress. I've bought one of those £2 items. Let's see if it does a better job than the underside of a mug.
fasimew said:
What happened to saying very good? Why is everything juxtaposed with 'super' these days? If everything is super, nothing is super.
How do you even 'super' something? Surely you need a baseline to work with? You can't just jump straight into super without identifying what normal is. And how many orders of magnitude is super above normal? Super would imply the pinnacle. What if there's something greater than your idea of super? What happens to your idea of super then? It wasn't really super at all was it. Therefore anything you say is bks.
I feel the same about "whelmed" everyone is "overwhelmed" what's wrong with just being whelmed - constantly using "overwhelmed" diminishes the impact when it is usedHow do you even 'super' something? Surely you need a baseline to work with? You can't just jump straight into super without identifying what normal is. And how many orders of magnitude is super above normal? Super would imply the pinnacle. What if there's something greater than your idea of super? What happens to your idea of super then? It wasn't really super at all was it. Therefore anything you say is b
ks.I'll get off me soap box now
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