Thread: What do I need for my kitchen knives

It depends if you are sharpening a european type knife or a Japanese type knife. European kitchen knives/butcher knives tend to have softer steel, a coarse stone (300-500), 1K stone and maybe a 2-3K stone work well, and maybe a strop or steel for touching up. Japanese kitchen knives can use the same coarse stone and 1K stone, and I love the edge off a Rika 5K stropped on bare leather a few times afterwards. Wickedly bitey, but still polished enough to glide thru foods. I often use a 1200 Bester or 1K Medium Ume Nubatama, the Rika 5K and a hakka stone or Yaginoshima Asagi as a finisher for the Japanese knives, depending on what they are used for. Nakiri gets the higher finish, slicing knives like a Suji or a blade that will be seeing a lot of proteins/trimming proteins, I use the lower Hakka or Rika 5K. 15 degrees is what many Japanese knives are sharpened at compared to the 20-25 of the European style. Strops work well on the Japanese knives and ceramic steels are OK, but get a very very fine one and don't use any pressure. Japanese blades are normally thinner at the edge, harder and more fragile compared to a European style knife.

The stones you have now should work fine!

Ok, the first go around was not good. Knives are in really bad shape, no bevel there at all. Next go around I used my DMT course ( 320 ) then progressed on to the 1000k and the knives are looking pretty darn good. They are sharper than I have ever been able to make them and I am sure I will learn a lot as I go. Now that I have the bevel set I feel I can keep them there with the 1000k but I am going to order a 500 or 600 anyway. I think I will use it a lot

I agree 100% with Jimmy had and Pixelfixed. when it comes to the average kitchen knife it makes no sense to use very fine grits stones. Anybody can get excellent results on a 300-400 grits stone. For kitchen knives I use either a Crystolon or an India stone, to refresh the bevel, or sometimes I like to use a Naniwa chosera 400 grit or a Sigma 400 grit and then I finish it on a hard Arkansas or any 1000 grit stone.