knife sharpening

well, im at about the end of my ropes with my kitchen knives lately. they have become just too dull to safely use for normal kitchen duties. im unhappy by this as i bought a fairly decent set of steak knives (6 for 40$) henckles and figured they would last a bit longer then this. but alas, they are dull.

oh well, its now time to do something about it. i figure if i can hone a razor to pass the HHT i sure as heck should be able to hone up my knifes so they can cut chicken without 20lbs of pressure! so..... what hone should i use to do this? ofcourse im not going to use my razor hones as those are for my razors, but what should i use? will i be able to put a nice edge on my kitchen knives using some kind of medium grit hone that i can get cheap like say a Carborundum or something like that?

id much appreciate some suggestions on the best way to sharpen these up.

thanks,
~J

Have you been steeling then regularly? If not, then that should be your first task.

I sharpen mine on a coarse norton (not sure of the grit size), followed by hard arkansas - I've got a big bench stone so it goes pretty quickly. For ones that need it, I follow this by the flexcut gold on a hanging strop, and for that really fine filleting knife I follow it up with boron carbide on a hanging strop.

and what is "steeling them regularly"..... steeling??

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Originally Posted by jscott

and what is "steeling them regularly"..... steeling??

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Using a sharpening steel in order to keep the edge of your knife straight. It's something like stropping a razor in purpose, though completely different in execution.

Take a look here: http://www.gunterwilhelm.com/Steeling.asp for a basic guide.

I can recommend the Sharpmaker by Spyderco. Easy to use and brings all my knives up a treat.

The trick, of course, is to not let them get too dull in the first place:)

But if you go through the four stages with Sharpmaker, it should do the trick.

Good luck!