Knife Confessions: Sharpening Edition

Gang,

Confession time. I was not as good a sharpener as I could have been. I was a solid Edge Pro sharpener and I slowly weaned myself off the the EP tit with freehand whetstone sharpening.

Also, during this time, I've been blessed and have owned, and mostly sold, over 175 handmade kitchen knives in the last 2 years. Always with a focus on performance. I didn't care about rarity or zeitgeist when I was using a knife. I tried to compartmentalize how I *felt* about the knife and mainly focus on performance. During this time I was timidly exploring sharpening. I had really inconsistent results or results that were alright but nothing like one from a professional. Sometimes I would touch up a blade and the performance would be somewhat better, but it was lacking, when compared to my better cutters.

I didn't realize what I didn't know either. I also realized that I sold many a knife that only suffered from a poor edge. Now, there are absolutely knives with bad grinds that affect cutting, but, the edge is such the primary contributor to performance, it can't be overstated, *in my opinion*. When the edge isn't optimally performing, grind weaknesses become more apparent.

Over the past few months, sharpening has finally started to click for me. Understanding burr removal and getting a steady hand came with practice. I watched endless videos and kept at it, finally it started paying off. I kept my motions slow, concentrating on form and making sure I was matching the apices. This is when it kicked off. The learning curve was still evolving and I couldn't believe how much I didn't understand or know. It was also raising the overall performance of all my knives. I also got critical of every mm of blade performance and started digging in a diagnosing, and improving, less than stellar edges. Turns out, a lot have considerable room for improvement.

Now, I have a lot of knives with some respected craftsmen's names attached to them. Some were alright and some were fantastic, but there wasn't much that separated them on paper, or on the board, why wasn't their performance more comparable? THE Edge (not U2's). Don't overlook the basics when troubleshooting and improving performance. That's been my experience with every skillset I've acquired over the years. If you don't like how something is performing, examine the basics.

It's turned almost every knife I have into a cutting machine. Tips I thought weren't too good, bad edge. That's a common one, the edge quality decreasing towards the tip and is quite common from new knives too.

I've also never experienced results from a knife store that does sharpening like I've achieved at home. I've sent knives to buddies who sharpen, and they come back well, but I haven't had the same experience with knife shops. With the exception of JCK, their honba duke sharpening is awesome and something I aspire towards.

Some process related notes:

I didn't want to put new edges on every blade, so I had to get flexible on my angles and also really practice on matching the pre-existing apices. That was a big piece of the puzzle with getting existing edges up to speed without using too much steel or time.

I really tried to develop my *feel*, so I didn't depend on optics too much beyond the organic option. I'd pay attention to where the burrs were on my blades and examine how that manifest when on the stones. Once I wrapped my head around that, I was able to identify small burrs quicker without too much inspection. That also let me know when to be confident about when I was completed. Sometimes a lighter touch is more effective at burr removal that more pressure.

I can't do this with rote precision, as noted below, but I've gotten competent at assessing and meeting the apex with attention, and I'm consistent, and more efficient.

I didn't have anyone else to really tell, so I'm telling you guys. My wife rolled her eyes but I got her to cut with one. She said 'cool' and handed the knife back.

Keep at learning sharpening. It is 100% worth it and rewarding. I have a whole new lens to view my collection through now and a harder time deciding of what to sell. I also now can assess and troubleshoot performance better as well.