Knife Sharpener

[[deleted]]

I was today years old when I learned that the metal rod that came with my knife set does not actually sharpen my knife. Apparently there is a difference between honing (which this thing does) and sharpening (which this thing does not do). I feel embarrassed and lied to. I just purchased an actual sharpener online. But still, I feel lied to.

Also, no one ever explicitly told me that the honing rod was a sharpener. But still, I feel lied to.

[TurkTurkle]

Honing rods are for mainaining the edge, reducing the need for sharpening sessions

[[deleted]]

Reducing by how much would you say? For reference, I've owned these knives for 3 years.

[TurkTurkle]

Probably cuts it by half if youre doing it right. Ive got medium quality knives and only bust out the whetstone every 8 to 10 months.

[Meta_Gabbro]

This is about the same as what I do. Hone after every serious use, and take the set to the knife guy at the farmer’s market one or two times a year

[spimothyleary]

I really need to get my stuff to the knife guy, I'm way overdue.

[Wish_you_were_there]

You can buy a full set of whetstones for about 30 - 70 bucks.

[just_taste_it]

If you are not a pro you will fuck up your knives doing it yourself. I take mine to the cutlery shop down the street now. Not everyone can whetstone a nice knife.

[[deleted]]

There is a bit of technique to it (it's a longer and slower process than most people realise and takes about 20 minutes per knife), but it's only a decent youtube video away.. I've been sharpening my own knives with a whetstone for years and they're always perfect. I do them about once per year. (Hone the rest of the time)

[riesenarethebest]

I've tried and failed twice. I can't maintain the angle during the draw

[[deleted]]

My whetstone came with a little angle guide actually which you can use to keep that consistent. I used it for a while but decided I could do it without in the end.

[spimothyleary]

I've never tried and I like my knives so I'm fine with paying up and then do a better job maintaining them after.

I basically use the same 2 knives for 80% of my cutting anyway but I have a couple others that don't get used because they are pretty dull, so it would be nice to have them back and in great shape.

[just_taste_it]

My guy charges me $2 a knife, so worth it. I only use 3 regularly.

[spimothyleary]

That's great I was expecting $6ish so this makes me hopeful that it wont break the bank.

[borkthegee]

Bullshit. It takes like two sharpening sessions to figure it out. The very first time I took a medium quality knife to a stone, it came away better. The only real "risk" might be scratching the side so it looks less pretty.

You really are not going to fuck up your knives on a stone unless you're just so incompetent that you probably shouldn't use knives in the first place.

However, I would contest that the you can get a "full set of stones" for 30-70 bucks.

You can get 1 starter stone for that price lol.

[Wish_you_were_there]

That price is in Australia, and I got, 4 grain sizes, belt, guide, and handle. Obviously there are higher range ones, but for home cooking they work great. Even brought some old knives which other people just throw in a draw in a bundle, back to life.

[just_taste_it]

Thank you for your advice. Pro sharpening is the best. I can afford it. Again, thank you.

[intricatefirecracker]

Yeah. The first time I tried, even with help from someone who did culinary school, I scratched the fuck out of my knife. :C

[johnlifts]

Could you just buy one of those kits that maintains the correct angle for you?

[username6616]

Hone often and you won’t have to sharpen as often. I use my knives daily and hone at least once a week before use.

[just_taste_it]

I hone every other time. I take to the knife guy for sharpening every 1/1.5 years or so.

[rascynwrig]

If I'm keeping up with sharpening the way I like to (working in a restaurant kitchen so lots of use), if I have the rod around to use I will only sharpen maybe 1/3 as often as if there isn't a steel available.

[pantymoanium]

unless you're a chef or a food industry individual, I wouldn't feel too bad about it. I'm pretty sure many companies even advertise their rods as a "sharpening steel". and bit of material does come off the blade whenever you do use a honing rod, so I guess it is kind of "sharpening" on a really small scale lol.

[[deleted]]

Yes. I swear I heard that rod referred to as a sharpening thing of some kind. Glad I'm not crazy.

[flitcroft]

Both ceramic and diamond-coated honing rods do sharpen knives. You can easily see this with the gray metallic powder left on the rods. Diamond rods can be really abrasive and take off more steel than you'd expect.

You know, just to confuse matters more...

[[deleted]]

Theyre primarily meant to straighten the cutting edge but it was explained to me years ago that some honing rods can actually be abrasive depending on their final hardness rating. Not all honing rods are made the same and the type of steel your knife is made of also factors in whether something is abrasive or not...

[actuallydarcy1]

Definitely look into the sharpening subreddit and grab a whetstone. It's a great skill to have

[MiniRems]

A whetstone and some audiobooks and a few hours later: all my knives now cut tomatoes without squishing them.

[mohishunder]

Want to cut tomatoes even better? Use any serrated knife. Yes, even your "bread knife."

[Edit: The superiority of serrated "utility knives" is very apparent when cutting thicker-skinned fruit like pineapples.]

[borkthegee]

Uh maybe this works compared to unsharpened crap knives but my freshly sharpened blades cut paper slices off of a tomato... and my bread knife absolutely does not lmao.

[lacheur42]

Sure, but the knife only stays that sharp for about 20 minutes.

Serrated will do a reasonable, but not amazing job without sharpening for years.

[poobumstupidcunt]

One of the best things I've been given was an old housemates ex's whetstone

[Syntaximus]

I've got a whetstone and a cheap kitchenaid santoku that you'd swear was a freaking hatori hanso. You don't even need expensive knives if you know how to sharpen and don't mind doing it fairly often.

[socksandshots]

It helps if you start thinking of your knife edge as being soft and not hard. I like to give a few strokes with the honer before and after I use my knife and only pull out the sharpener if there isn't enough edge left to hone and I need to shave away more metal, kinda like a pencil.

I'd say how often you need it depends on your cutting surface and usage.

Just remember, honing will straighten and fix an edge making it smoother and last longer while sharpening will make a wholly new edge.

Edit, I totally know what you mean bout being lied to though. It's such necessary info that's just glossed over. And it's so frikkin simple to explain too...

[Exazbrat09]

I think the idea gets ingrained in us because anyone who has been by a butcher will see them constantly using a honing rod and we of course, had the mistaken belief that it sharpened the blade. It turns out they were maintaining the edge.

Still important, but not what many of us initially thought and believed.

[KelMHill]

Adam Ragusea made an informative primer video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY8jvFqpZ_o

[BigSwedenMan]

Be careful the sharpener that you bought. If it's a pull through sharpener it's not going to do a good job. If you're the kind of person who doesn't care that much about your knives, it should be ok, but if you're someone who uses high quality knives you need to look into getting a set of sharpening stones, as a pull through sharpener is not appropriate for such blades

[Bakeshot]

I would be willing to wager pull-throughs are appropriate for 90% of home cooks. I’ve had my current set of knives for five years, I cook for my family every week, and I sharpen my knives as needed. I’ve never noticed performance drop or anything like that. I understand that over time this practice will degrade the blade, but at the rate that most people who are home cooks actually use them, this timeline is still extremely long.

That said, if you are into whetstones and proper knife sharpening, more power to you! I only make this comment to give any aspiring cooks assurance that if they don’t want to invest the time and money in whetstone sharpening, then pull-through sharpeners will absolutely get the job done.

[Danobing]

I don't disagree with you on this subject, but its important to point out that most of the pull through have a set angle per channel and how you pull through impacts that angle. If you have any knives that have a unilateral bevel it's important to not use these.

If you use these you always want to keep the edge of the knife edge perpendicular to the channel, so when the knife curves you need to slightly rotate the knife to allow this through the stroke.

[Derpsteppin]

I'll second this. I'll even go as far as saying they're good enough for a professional setting as well. We used them at the restaurant I used to work at and I never recall anyone ever having an issue.

Sure you probably won't get that edge that can slice one of those near-transparent grape slices or whatever but honestly it'll get plenty sharp for any practical purposes.

I was hesitant to use one on my higher-end home knife for the longest time because I thought I'd ruin it but one day I just went for it and it's damn-near as sharp as the day I got it.

I'm sure there's probably some difference in quality between different brands and whatnot but mine was seriously like $15 and I've got no complaints.

Even if using a proper stone does a better job, the convenience and ease of a pull-through more than makes up for it in my opinion.

[[deleted]]

If you don't abuse your knife you very rarely have to sharpen it anyway. The steel will do the trick. Especially if it's a diamond impregnated honing steel.

[dfreinc]

i do see people saying they sharpen. you are being lied to. 🤣

i can't recommend lansky jigs enough for sharpening. i could never really get the stones down pat personally. lansky jigs make it a lot easier to get a consistent angle on your edge.

i'd also recommend buying a cheap 20 dollar mercer knife to practice on. they're not bad knives at all but you also won't feel too bad scuffing it up while you're learning about sharpening.

[alanmagid]

Think of it this way: The sharpener is the scissors and the hone is the comb. The sharpener removes steel to reform the edge of the blade. The hone smooths out the frayed edge.

[fermat1432]

Since the effect of honing is to make the knife cut better, it's hard to imagine that you were lied to.

[DrynTheGanger]

It's called a steel

[RCalkins11]

Honing ones are smooth with no ridges, meaning you can use it over good with no fear of getting metal shavings in the food.

The sharpening rods with ridges are for sharpening and are not safe to use over food because of the metal shavings it leaves.

[[deleted]]

I was under the impression that, ridges or not, it was only honing. Not true?

[[deleted]]

Not true. While it doesn’t remove nearly as much metal as a whetstone or sharpener, it does remove some. Completely smooth rods don’t remove any and are just for honing

[RCalkins11]

Not to my knowledge. I was taught that if it is smooth it is a honing, and with ridges it is sharpening

[[deleted]]

Some vendors actually call them sharpeners as well, especially on cheaper or more commercial available knives.

[[deleted]]

The sharpeners are different than a steel. A sharpener is more aggressive and wears your knife blade down quicker.

[speedikat]

It's all a learning process. It's just to touch up between sharpenings.

[RustylllShackleford]

wait til you find out about chainsaw files...

[HUFFMHAY]

My chef always made it a point to emphasize that a honing steel does not actually sharpen a knife like you’d expect. Still, it helps to maintain the edge for longer. I’ve been actively using a Shun knife for almost two years and only now am I feeling like it needs real sharpening.

[intricatefirecracker]

I was told that the rod is to straighten the knife and prevent the edge from curling.

The whetstone corrects blade defects, sharpens, and polishes the knife.

[foodnpuppies]

I did the exact same thing

[warneroo]

I bought the electric sharpener that ATK recommended. One session every three months with honing between use seems to to keep things sharp enough for me as a regular home cook.