Knifemen, knifewomen, downvoters, upvoters, it’s time to update you on the salvation of this kitchen knife. Mr. McKay, based knife sharpener, did the best he could do to restore the edge to something like symmetry. I expected a salty comment or two on the topic when I picked it up, however, he did not offer any, only a pitying silence as he gave me a meticulously handwritten receipt. Yet, his silence was full of kindness. Cost: $4.00 USD Many have asked, how did I achieve the ragged edge seen in my previous post? I wish I had a better answer for you, except that I used a shitty Coghlan’s sharpener that was probably full of metal filings and dirt. That one is going in the trash. Any suggestions for buying a beginner’s sharpener for $30.00 or $40.00 ? I don’t know how to use a file or a stone.
ouch! I’m here for the same suggestion on sharpener, mine doesn’t look like this but the sharpener I have doesn’t do the greatest job, also ditto on the stone for me.
::::knuckle bump::::
Welllll, a beginner friendly sharpener option at that price range, I gotta echo dualsportdork.
The only way to get something in that price range that isn’t crap is to go with an established knockoff brand, and ruixin is more or less the default in that category. Since Captain Dork the multisporter already gave the lowdown on caveats, I won’t belabor that point.
What I will add is that for a beginner, you gotta learn how to “develop a burr”. You’ll be better off on YouTube for figuring out what that means and how to do it, but it’s not only the easiest method to reach a given level of sharp, it holds up even for professional level work. Hell, now that arthritis has hampered my hobbyist joy in sharpening, that’s almost the only methodology I use.
That concept is simple though. When you push and pull a thing over a harder and grittier thing, the edge is going to deform. It does so on a stone by slightly rolling, and ends up with what amounts to a wire that’s attached along the length of the blade.
Making that happen, then removing it properly, is how you know you’ve reached a point sure the very tippy tip of the cutting edge is as microscopically thin as possible. It won’t form a burr until you’ve run the knife across the stone enough. One it forms, there’s no point in further grinding on a given side, as you’re just removing good metal with no benefit.
Throw a sharpie beside you as you work, marking the edge bevel, and you’ll have a visual cue that you’re at the right angle, and have gotten things roughly consistent across the length of the knife. Flip the fucker over, repeat. Do that back and forth with several “grits” of stone, and Bob’s your uncle. And you can shave Bob handily with your santoku.
No judgement from me. Nothing wrong with using a tool as a tool.
This knife does need more repair if it’s going to be effectively and consistently sharpened. The blade profile needs to be flattened, which can be done on a brick or cinderblock. Is that something you’d be interested in doing yourself? It’s simple but somewhat laborious. Then the cutting bevel needs to be reestablished.
As is the smaller pocket knife guided solutions (Lansky, Sharpmaker, the like) will really struggle. A cheap pull through from an outdoor goods store would actually follow that bevel better, though it would further exacerbate the profile issues. After the edge is flat those guided solutions are okay, but they would take a long time to set a bevel.
The easiest and sadly cheapest option is to buy a new knife. On the affordable end, the Kiwi knives out of Thailand are cheap and fun. Then probably some of the budget Henckels knives, I don’t keep track of those, or maybe a Dexter Russell. Then a Victorinox santoku. IKEA has some knives I like, too, very affordable, including a small wood handled chef knife (Vardagen apparently) that is similar to a cheap Sabatier I own. I like the Sabatier so much I rehandled it and it’s my primary home knife, over knives that cost twenty times as much, because it’s a great size. Maybe even a small slicer, utility, or boning knife if you usually just slice things.
If you just want to be able to slice, and rocking and push cuts aren’t a concern, you could also maintain this on a ceramic honing rod. That isn’t full sharpening but would work for a while. The unglazed bottom of a ceramic cup is similarly effective but finicky.
I will say I’ve seen worse. My grandmother sharpened her knives on a can opener. I could fix your knife, and do fix similar issues for pretty much anyone because I like making cooking easier for people. There isn’t enough left of hers to fix.
How do I learn to reprofile it with a cinder block or brick? Would watching videos be enough? I have little to lose at this point.
Yes, it’s very simple. After that you would need to fully sharpen the knife. That could be with a stone or maybe the Scary Sharp Method if you’re okay with scratching up the face.
I’ll try to find one today. Failing that I’ll record one.
Edit: Here’s a good sandpaper sharpening tutorial. You would not want to form a full burr on both sides of the knife after fully grinding in a new edge profile, you’d want to alternate sides to avoid sharpening one side too deeply given that you’d be forming the cutting bevel. https://youtu.be/GqYfDnEHpTQ
I do think you should seriously consider letting u/dual_sport_dork do it. I would also do it, but I recognize it’s weird to send things you need to random strangers on the internet.
weird to send things you need to random strangers on the internet.
And let Captain Anonymous over here (to the extent that I wear gloves in all of my photos/videos with my hands in view, you will notice) tell you all about how it feels having my return address on every parcel I send from my store…
Thanks for the offer, it’s not so much sending a knife that is really not worth anything, that’s not much trouble, it’s the cost of your time to fix it.
District Cutlery did a shockingly good demo of what needs to be done here:
Very similar to my own process. Don’t worry about the thinning yet.
Your knife has a frown, rather than a smile, but the solution is the same. The edge needs to be ground straight into an abrasive until the profile is flat at the heel and sweeps up evenly to the tip. Without a power tool that means sawing the knife into the abrasive, back and forth. Laborious but simple. Then the knife needs to be sharpened.
With this sort of repair work it helps to mark the desired profile with a sharpie before starting, to avoid overshooting.
This is a task where a good sharpening stone won’t do, it gouges the stone. Bricks are cheap and surprisingly abrasive. It’ll gouge the brick, too, but that’s fine.
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I would consider my time very well spent doing this.
I sharpen around thirty knives a year that aren’t mine and I refuse to commoditize my every breathing moment. I have never asked for a penny for sharpening, it’s pure love of the game.
How I sharpen is also tbh not a great business model, which makes having a moral stance a lot easier.
Just learn to use a stone. It’s a rock and some oil. It’s not hard to use at all.
For kitchen knives and a great many other knives I currently use a Ruixin “Pro” RX-009. I have oodles of other knife sharpening thingamabobs including the motor driven Ken Onion edition Work Sharp belt sharpener thingy, their field sharpener, one of their tilting bench stone sets, a Spyderco Sharpmaker, and any amount of random strops, stones, and blocks. I’ve been swearing up and down that one of these days I’ll write more about some of them, and I probably will… Just as soon as I run out of knives to talk about.
The Ruixin is one of the current crop of clamp based guided angle jig setups that are all the rage these days. Myriad other similar options are available, but all of these things trace their lineage back to the original Edge Pro Apex as far as I can tell, the latter of which many of their stones are still interchangeable with. The original Ruixin (which I used to have one of back in the day) was actually a direct Chinese knockoff of the Apex which probably did not make Mr. Ben Dale very happy. But they have since gone their own way and the Apex has not. The Apex (or a knockof thereof) is technically more versatile to a small extent but I also find it significantly more irritating to use.
My Ruixin, meanwhile, is more or less idiot proof provided you bring your own angle finding gizmo — up to or including your phone — and is capable of making anything stupidly sharp with a minimal amount of effort. I imagine I could have done a much better job straightening out the edge of your knife with mine than Mr. McKay did, there. And you probably could, too.
(Seriously, what he did to your knife is no less awful than what you did to it. I could have done a better job with some sandpaper on a block and my eyes shut. Are you sure you don’t want to just send the thing to me?)
You didn’t notice what was happening before it got to the grooves?
I picked up this one recently for my Kershaw Scallion (much smaller than your kitchen knife, but I imagine it would still work fine), and it has put a better edge on it than the last three sharpeners I tried. Also, the included fire starter is a nice bonus.
Breaks your price point but the Spyderco triangle sharpmaker was my gateway into less horrible treatment of my knives. Stupid simple to use and can kinda switch to being a flat sharpening stone for when you are ready to try some more fancy things.
The lanksy kit is what I currently use. More involved but more flexible. Also extremely beginner friendly.
Thanks!
My advice on the Sharpmaker is that you absolutely must also purchase the diamond stones for it. The included stones come in two grits: Extremely fine, and unrealistically fine. It’s capable of sharpening only 30° combined and 40° combined angles and nothing else whatsoever. If your knife is already one of its built in edge angles it is capable of making it worryingly, dangerously sharp in extremely short order. But if you need to use it to bully a knife into either of those two angles to begin with that’s not a task that can realistically be accomplished on its included stones. I’ve done that exactly twice in my life, and the process was rather more akin to some manner of obscure monastic penance ritual than a sharpening job.
“Disciple! Two thousand lashes on the stones!”
It takes hours. Forget it. You need the diamond stones, which are still pretty fine but are at least theoretically capable of removing material on a non-geological time scale.
The Work Sharp Benchstone Sharpener. You do not need oil or water, as it uses diamond plates, and will be good for a huge variety of knives. Work Sharp has a lot of tutorial videos on YouTube.
This kitchen knife is toast. It’s not coming back to anything resembling a working knife. Mr. McKay should have tried re-profiling the knife instead of sharpening that wavy edge.
It would be better to practice hand sharpening with it before sending it to the recycling bin.
This kitchen knife is toast. It’s not coming back to anything resembling a working knife.
Replacing it would be cheapest, but the visible damage is not deep. It doesn’t have any severe chips and doesn’t appear badly bent. The frown at the heel is typical, usually seen on full bolstered knives. That needs to come down and then it needs to be reprofiled to establish a fresh, straight edge. After that, sharpened as usual.
I could have it back to working knife inside maybe fifteen minutes with a brick, a good slow belt sander, and paper wheels. With a brick alone, a good coarse stone, and some elbow grease, maybe an hour.
If this knife is toast, it’s because of a lack of knowledge, experience, equipment, or willingness to put in the work.
I didn’t ask him to re-profile it, so that’s not on him.
Right, I get that. I guess what I’m saying here is that he should have talked to you about how sharpening isn’t the correct choice here and instead offered to re-profile it.
Regardless, after you use it for practice, put it in a shadowbox and stick it on a wall as a reminder of how to not treat knives! 🤪
I have an excellent sharpener I bought for $37, admittedly long ago. It’s unfortunately much more expensive now but it might still be worth it. Or find a similar one that works similar to it.
Thanks!
Np. This thing has served me well. It’s allowed me to keep using cheap knives for a long time now because it’s able to sharpen them to levels that make them feel premium.
People talk trash about those new rolling guys, but I got an Ali Express one for like $5 and it’s phenomenal! It may not get it paper test sharp, but I run both sides 3-4 times on each side of the blade and I’m effortlessly cutting through veggie skin.
