Hi All

At the risk of being accused of insurrection against the knife wielding fraternity in this forum, I am going to suggest that the solution lies not in the quality of the knife but the methodology of knife management.

I always admire the highly finished knives I see from time to time in shop windows, the brilliantly ground and honed blades and the black as ebony handles with shiny inlet rivets. In fact I own one, but prefer not to use it.

Instead around our house we use the cheap, many would say nasty stainless steel kitchen knives you pick up at the supermarket, they have a nicely formed molded on handle with no rivets and normally cost a few dollars. Ideally get Japanese made, the steel is harder and you get a keener edge.

By now you must be thinking I must have finished off that bottle of red a little too quicklyJ; not so.

All carving knives in the drawer in our house are very sharp and will shave hair. They are kept that way with two tools. Firstly a small (fine grain) silicon carbide sharpening stone it’s about an inch wide, 4 inches long and about 3/8 thick sometimes called a pocket stone. However it is mounted on a short handle with a raised stop to protect the user in case the knife slips into the user’s hand while sharpening. It is held the same way as a steel. I actually bought it that way in Bali a couple of decades ago; the locals use them for their woodcarving tools. However it would be quite easy to glue a locally made stone on a timber handle. My stone is now quite concave and the edges are rounded through 20 years use. The rounding makes it even better than new.

The other tool being a butcher’s knife sharpening steel.
They both live in the drawer with the knives.

Every time I use a knife I give it a few strokes each side, held almost flat, on the stone dry, yes you will put a few scratches on the mirror polish back, next follow up with the steel. Thirty seconds work. If you are lucky enough to have a reall butcher, notice how the butcher always gives the knife a few strokes before he cuts off your portion.

These knives are only about 1.6mm thick. You can get them in half a dozen blade depths and lengths. They actually get better after you have stoned and steeled them as the edge normally hollow ground when new is relatively blunt at the cutting tip, after a while that works down to a very thin wedge. Well under 10 degrees included. Being thin itself it will cut very thinly if required, even fresh bread does not break up. I do have a slightly heaver one for chopping.  

I have never ever used a powered grindstone to sharpen a knife, a sure way to destroy the temper. And they get thrown in the dishwasher every day. The only other caveat is to warn you partner how sharp they are.

Cheers
John

Edited By John McNamara on 25/07/2011 15:13:55

I use the same DMT diamond plates that I sharpen chisels on, to sharpen the kitchen knives, it produces such a keen edge I have to issue a beware sharp knives warning.

Edited By KWIL on 27/07/2011 14:44:56