Thread: Honing a Kitchen Knife- Not "Sharpening" but honing

So as some of you know and many might not know is that until last night I have never actually "Honed" a knife, let alone a Kitchen knife..
I have always used a set of Crock Stix that are at least 30 years old that might actually be an original set from SpyderCo..
They have always kept all my Hunting and Kitchen knives sharp enough...

Yesterday since it was a slow day at work I sat around and watched near every Vid on Youtube about actually honing a knife on waterstones...
I mean come on, I have about every hone and stone in the known world, I should be able to use them for the knives too

So after dinner I sat down in front of the TV with my normal honing set up, only no razors, just one very very dull Chef's knife...
One of the better Vid's I saw was from a guy using the Henckels set of hones (Naniwa) so I tried that first..

Using the 250/1000 I went step by step and tried to forget everything I know about honing razors except the TPT

One of the tricks I learned in the Vids was about finding the correct angle for each knife by laying it flat first, then raising the spine until the edge was in full contact with the stone.. Now that clicked with by brain, and I started honing...
I did 10 laps per side then 8 then 5 then 3 then 1-1, Wow, was that a Pyramid??? that also clicked with my brain...
It amazed me that this even worked, but there was an edge forming now, I refined it staying on the 250 but decreasing pressure (that sounds familiar)
After the bevel was set and I could honestly say sharp, I flipped the stone and moved to the 1k
Same routine 10-8-5-3 and finally 1-1 holy moly Batman a sharp edge...

Now I could have gone to the 3/8 but figured I would leave well enough alone for now, and went and did the tomato test yep it sliced nice. So I did like they showed on some of the Vids and used the Fine Crock Stix to tweak it in, and that really worked the edge was one of the nicest I have ever used in the kitchen
Didn't I see stropping in one of those

Now I have to say that the two styles have some commonalities but the same rule applies when going the other direction.. When people come to SRP saying "I have sharpened knives all my life" we always say the same thing, "Forget everything you know about sharpening knives" well that works both ways I had to put aside everything I have learned about keeping razors sharp, and start from square 1 with knives, and it worked...

And that is my Finer Thing of Today

I see some professional grade homefried potato chips in the works here!

Alot of the understanding of how steel gets sharp remains, just the finer points change. So I found it very easy to learn to hone a razor because of my experience with high end cutlery And yes the stones are the same but that big blade does wear the stone faster and must be flattened after a knife session As all my knives are much harder steel that your AVG kitchen knife I flatten ALL THE TIME lol.

Nice job there!

If you haven't ever honed a kitchen knife before then it was good time to start. Honing a kitchen knife (or any other knife) is bit different than honing a razor. Learning a right angle for your knife is most important and takes some time and practice until it comes naturally. Sort of a muscle memory? Now there must be zillions of different jigs available in a big world. Ads tell that they make sharpening and honing easier for you, but i think they just prevent you from learning it naturally. I've never used any kind of jigs with knives. Doing it with your hands is a skill that must be thousands of years old.

From totally dull knive i start from say 400/600 and proceed to 1k and finally 3k. Frm that grit it has always been sharp enough for our kitchen although some go into much finer grits. Then again, i do not have special Japanese kitchen kitchen tools, just traditional old everyday knives. When properly honed, they will make the job they were made to.

Every time my wife is about to use a kitchen knife, she makes one (one for each side) honing stroke at the bottom of some porcelain mug (coffee/tea cup etc). When i was kid i remember many ladies doing this also. The bottom of an old used mug is like very fine grit stone. True or not but i believe there's a true point in it. Of course you could use maybe 3k stone as well.
From less than dull knives i just hone them with 3k every now and then. It's like using a barber hone when needed.
I use the same stones with my tools, knives and razors. Of course only razors need grits finer than say 3k or 4k.

yep that is how it is done
equal number of passes on each side, and when you get to the finer stone only the weight of the blade pretty much.
So many similarities but also differences.