Knife Sharpening: Common Mistakes

Video Transcript

Common mistakes some people make are not starting off with a coarse enough stone, especially if your knife is dull you really need to start, for time's sake, you really need to start off with the coarse side of the stone. That way you don't have to, once you get the, you do most of your work on the coarse stone and it doesn't take you very long on the rest. If you start off with something really fine it's going to take you a long time to get that edge up. Another common mistake people make is getting the edge either too blunt or too flat. If you're sharpening a knife and you're scratching up the side of it, that's too flat. You don't need that flat of an angle. If you're getting it too blunt, really what you're doing is wearing out your knife quicker than you need to. So you want to try to match the angle, especially if it's like a factory angle. A lot of these new factory made knives are putting the correct angle on their knives. Another common mistake is, people have, is thinking that their steel that comes with their kitchen block will actually sharpen their knife. What the steel is good for is if you're in the middle of a job and the knife goes dull, the edge rolls over, the steel will straighten out the edge, but once you've gotten done doing what you need to do you need to take your knife back and sharpen it correctly. Sharpen it with a stone because like I said, that steel all it's for is to straighten out the edge and if you have a sharp knife and you hit it on the steel, one wrong time will take that sharp edge off because this is hardened steel up against hardened steel and steel on steel is going to dull it. Another common mistake is people do not finish off their knives. You can get a knife to where it'll shave the hair off your arm with just a stone, but it will not hold that edge because it still has teeth and once those teeth roll over your knife is dull. That's where the strop comes in. The strop buffs off those teeth so your knife stays sharp. You can actually, once you've got your knife up to a good shaving edge, you can actually keep it with this, with the strop. If you strop your knife fifteen to twenty times before or after every time you use it your knife will stay sharp a really long time and you won't have to sharpen it, maybe depending on your use, if it's just a regular pocket knife, you know once or twice a year.

Watch these related videos

• 
  Knife Sharpening: Common Mistakes

  playlist Views: 1,354

• 
  Knife Sharpening: Edges & Goals

  playlist Views: 988

• 
  Knife Sharpening Techniques for Steel

  playlist Views: 1,138

• 
  Types of Knife Sharpening Steels

  playlist Views: 775

• 
  How to Use a Knife Sharpener for Your Leather Work

  playlist Views: 1,042

• 
  Knife Sharpening: Ceramic Sharpening Rods

  playlist Views: 896

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags