Thread: Kitchen Knife Honing

DMT and Smith are just two vendors that sell sharpening rods that will work on serrated knives.

Slurry on a Coticule.
You 'll be surprised.

Fold a sheet of paper to a 90° angle, fold again for 45° and once more for 22,5°. Thats represents your honing angle on the stone.

Lock the angle in your wrist (very important, because your ability to maintain a constant angle defines your success) and hone on one side of the knife with circling or back-and-forth motions till you can feel a bur folding over at the other side. (Coticules give only very small burs, but it can be felt if your run your fingernail off the edge with a plucking motion.) It's OK to use some pressure while honing. Once the bur is present along the entire edge, turn over the blade and start honing on the other side (I find it easiest to turn over the handle, so I can keep honing in the same direction, instead of turning over the spine). Hone till the bur is present on the other side. Flip one last time and remove the bur with a few very light strokes.
Finalize with one very precise stroke at a slightly raised (obtuser) angle on each side of the knife.
No need to steel the knife (not off a Coticule)

Best regards,
Bart.

Originally Posted by loueedacat

really helpful guys! Particularly since I already have a DMT 325 and Shapton 1k!

By the way, is it possible to sharpen serrated steak and bread knives? I figure if I tried to hone them I'd dull the serration.

Most of the time you can remove material from the back side of the knife (oposite side of where the serations are ground in) and just thin the edge from there. Or the ceramic crocks can help as well. I only have one serrated knife and I just remove material from the back of the blade, laying it flat one a stone and grind away.

9 times out of 10 the serrated knife is made from less that ideal steel, making it easier to buy a new one when the old one wears out. I don't like disposable knives so I just don't buy them, a good slicer beats a serrated knife hands down

Wow. Lot's of responses, I didn't read all of them. I have Henckels pro series knives, I use the BBW 4k grit. it works great.
Rob at Ardennes Coticule makes something called a Cotcarb specifically for knife sharpening. If your interested and want to see it, PM me and I'll upload a pic....
P.S. 20 degree angle for knives....

Originally Posted by zib

Wow. Lot's of responses, I didn't read all of them. I have Henckels pro series knives, I use the BBW 4k grit. it works great.
Rob at Ardennes Coticule makes something called a Cotcarb specifically for knife sharpening. If your interested and want to see it, PM me and I'll upload a pic....
P.S. 20 degree angle for knives....

20deg is fine for western steel knives, by comparison you can go WAY down with harder japanese steel. But you have a trade off, softer steel tends to be high toughness with ease of sharpening... but can't get REAL sharp for long. Harder steel can be sharpened to a much thinner edge and stay sharp a long time, at the cost of being more brittle.

Both are good and have HUGE followings, I used to love Wusthuf knives till I was introduced to Japanese knives. Now I'm hooked, I don't mind the work involved to maintain carbon steel japanese knives. The learning curve was brutal though... that poor knife was beat to hell as I used the same skill set as I would a German knife. I learned a ton of info about how to fix kitchen knives with that poor knife, as I just about killed it daily . Super thin edge smacking into all kinds of food at unthinkable angles... Chips ahoy. By fixing the chips in the blade I learned about angles of sharpening, dropping them to get super sharpness that you could shave with, to an edge that stood up to alot more punishment at the cost of some sharpness. I couldn't do that with a western knife at all, they are way to thick behind the bevel to suport the thicker edge, that can take a huge amout of abuse. At the cost of yet more sharpness.

It all boils down to what you want from your knife... Wow that was a lot of typing to say that a 20 degree angle is about avg for one style of knife, but not another. I only bring this up as I'm sure others out there have picked up some of the knives that are working into the mainstream USA shopping malls, based on Japanese knives. Shun for example. I just fix'd 4 of them that have been treated as if they where western knives and nearly destroyed.

This articule is now returned to the original intention of sharpening western knives
This has been a presention of "The Twilight Zone"....

Originally Posted by Bart

Slurry on a Coticule.
You 'll be surprised.

Fold a sheet of paper to a 90° angle, fold again for 45° and once more for 22,5°. Thats represents your honing angle on the stone.

Lock the angle in your wrist (very important, because your ability to maintain a constant angle defines your success) and hone on one side of the knife with circling or back-and-forth motions till you can feel a bur folding over at the other side. (Coticules give only very small burs, but it can be felt if your run your fingernail off the edge with a plucking motion.) It's OK to use some pressure while honing. Once the bur is present along the entire edge, turn over the blade and start honing on the other side (I find it easiest to turn over the handle, so I can keep honing in the same direction, instead of turning over the spine). Hone till the bur is present on the other side. Flip one last time and remove the bur with a few very light strokes.
Finalize with one very precise stroke at a slightly raised (obtuser) angle on each side of the knife.
No need to steel the knife (not off a Coticule)

Best regards,
Bart.

My apologies for rezzing a thread here, but I recently bought a coti with the intent to use on kitchen knives (and razors, if I ever need to). I'm yet to have a need to rehone/touchup myself (my first few were done by honemeisters ofc) but I plan to use a barber hone/thuri for touch-ups, so the Coti is likely for maybe some experimentation and if I ever need to go back a step.

Anyways a few questions, if you guys don't mind:

1. Do I need to worry about ruining the Coti with my kitchen knife? I currently have a VERY soft steel Chinese Chefs knife (4Cr13). The one I bought has a blue and yellow side so my idea was to reserve the blue for knives and yellow for razors.
2. How would a yellow Coti fit in, in terms of progression with barber hone and a Thuri ("the genuine water hone"), not that I'd necessarily use all 3 in progression, but just curious.
3. DMT325 is good to flatten these right?
4. Is it just the same slurry stone for both sides? Don't need to worry about mismatching something for slurry stone?

My goal used to be a very refined knife edge in the kitchen. But a toothier low grit edge works better imo. Unless your slicing sushi or chopping veggies.

Originally Posted by Bill31521

My goal used to be a very refined knife edge in the kitchen. But a toothier low grit edge works better imo. Unless your slicing sushi or chopping veggies.

hmm, maybe I need to get TWO knives? Soft steel for refined edge and hard steel for crazy chopping? (did i get that right, or is it the other way around?)

For slicing a toothy edge cuts better and lasts longer. For push cutting (shaving and chopping veggies) a more refined edge. This is what the guys at the knife forums said. And what I also found to be true first hand. A knife finished on a 140 grit atoma diamond plate stropped lightly can cut arm hair at the skin. For knives the first step is knowing that you've apexed the edge and then removed any bur. Not rocket science. I have a load of naturals that I don't use since my pocket knives are too hard for them to be useful so I use the dmts.

Originally Posted by Bill31521

For slicing a toothy edge cuts better and lasts longer. For push cutting (shaving and chopping veggies) a more refined edge. This is what the guys at the knife forums said. And what I also found to be true first hand. A knife finished on a 140 grit atoma diamond plate stropped lightly can cut arm hair at the skin. For knives the first step is knowing that you've apexed the edge and then removed any bur. Not rocket science. I have a load of naturals that I don't use since my pocket knives are too hard for them to be useful so I use the dmts.

I usually just use Chinese chefs knife for everything, I seldom find a need for serrated or anything else. So, can I just get away with 325DMT plate and some stropping? (stropping on leather ?)