Razor Sharp 🐙 🔪

A Guide to Knife Sharpening

Welcome! 🏝

George Orwell said:

“The secret of a successful restaurant is sharp knives”…

This Substack is all about making delicious food at home (better + cheaper than at restaurants) so it’s fitting we should have a Substack to keep your blades razor sharp… 

A Few of the 🐙 Knife Collection, with Whetstones

But First… 

The Founder’s “Few” knives have been sent out and lots of happy recipients on Twitter showing Proof of Blade! 

BowTiedKingfisher @BowKingfisher

Knife finally arrived @BowTiedOctopod ! And thanks for the free coffee samples and int'l delivery fee discount! More than made up for the delay which wasn't even your fault Look at this beaut WAGMI

BowTiedIbis (💎,💎) @DeFibis

@BowTiedOctopod steel is no joke.

Now seemed to be the perfect time to go further down the Knife, Blade and Sharpening rabbit hole as Octopod has been getting a lot of requests for guidance here. 

*Teaser: The Official Octopod Classic knife rollout is coming very soon. Just in time for Christmas/Holiday gifts, or if you missed the Founder’s sign up.

Stay tuned!

Feel free to go back and see this post for a full overview on Knife Anatomy:

Octopod Knife Launch

For this post, we will be discussing sharpening. 

🐙 will now distill years and years of knife sharpening practice, methods, and techniques into one approachable guide for beginner all the way to advanced techniques. 

Anyone can have a sharp knife… and everyone should!

What is Sharp?

An important question because most people end up using blades that are not sharp. 

A sharp blade edge will glide through whatever product/ingredient is being cut with ease.

A sharp knife does the work for it’s owner… allowing the user to merely guide and pivot the cuts. 

If you find yourself having to push, exert a lot of weight or effort into making cuts, then 99.999% of the time: you have a dull blade. 

Dull blades are responsible for most severe knife injuries. 

A dull blade will slide of whatever the user is trying to slide or cut… usually sliding right off into the fingers of the user and gashing skin open. Not pleasant. 

Dull knife injuries are also more painful, due to the wound size being more jagged and large. 🐙 has had knife injuries with a sharp knife that will close up very quickly because the cut was so clean and easy to fuse together. 

Dull blades also effect quality of food. Instead of slicing cleanly through all the cell walls of the product being cut, a dull blade pushes open and causes 1000’s of “mini explosions” which effect the integrity of the ingredient. 

Example- Most noticeable with alliums: cut an onion in half; cut 1/2 with a sharp knife and the other with a dull knife. The onion half cut with a dull knife will smell much stronger and more aggressive. 

So when cooking in the kitchen you always want to be using a sharp knife. So how do you know if your blade needs to be sharpened? (Hint: many times it doesn’t)

Blade geometry 

For the sake of being brief, this is just to note that when we are talking about sharpening a blade there are two bevels that could be referenced. A Primary and Secondary. 

The Secondary bevel is the edge that comes into first contact with the the time being cut. Further up the blade there is another angle known as the Primary Bevel that is only for addressing in a more advanced post [Down the Road]

This post will be all in reference to sharpening the Secondary Edge of your knife blade. 

Honing vs Sharpening

In many cases your knife will not need to be sharpened… it just needs to be honed. 

And there’s a big difference between the two.

Remember: The cutting edge of a knife is made up of billions of metallic teeth. When these teeth are all lined up and converging evenly, you have a nice sharp cutting instrument. 

With use… a lot of those teeth will become misaligned and out of place; leading to a “dulling” effect. 

This blade just needs to be honed.

To fix this: run the knife blade against a honing steel. When done properly, this quickly realigns the metallic teeth back in unison, and cutting is optimized. 

However at a certain point, the entire cutting surface will lose it’s edge, and at this point it’s necessary to remove the dull teeth with abrasion, to establish a new edge… which is what the sharpening process achieves. 

So honing just realigns the teeth of the cutting edge, while sharpening removes metal to establish a new set of teeth. 

And this the difference between honing and sharpening. 

My preferred line of honing steels that do a tremendous job [LINK]

Rockwell Hardness:

Some knives are easier to sharpen than others. 

The largest factor is usually the hardness of the blade, measured on a scale known as Rockwell Hardness Scale. 

This scale covers a vast spectrum of tools, not just kitchen cutlery. For context lower-cost knives rank around a 54-57HRC, while higher grade/premium knives rate more from 58-66HRC.

The higher the rating, the harder the metal, which means a thinner and more fine cutting edge can be developed.

Before you decide that “high number = better” there are some tradeoffs. A harder steel is more delicate and can be chipped if misused and can also take longer to put an edge on.

So lets look at the different knife sharpening methods below:

***Important Note: The methods below refer to Western style (or Double Bevel) knife blades. There are certain Eastern/Japanese blade styles that have a single bevel and are sharpened differently to maintain the edge.

There are many Japanese knife makers that produce Western (Double Bevel) blades with the Eastern style Wa handles, so always check the blade profile when ordering a knife. (90% of blades produced are Double Bevel) 

Sharpeners: 

V-Sharpeners

This is the easiest, cheapest way to keep your knives relatively sharp for those wanting to put in the least amount of effort as possible. This is better than never sharpening, but should be considered entry level only, with much more desirable options listed below

You can find a good option here: [LINK]

Pros:

-Small/Compact

-Not time consuming

-Quick Sharpening

Cons:

-Electric or Manual systems tend to remove more metal than desirable with each sharpening

-Faster Blade erosion

-Hard to produce razor sharp edge. 

Fixed Blade Systems

This contraptions fix your blade and sharpening stones in place reproducing a reliable and secure angle for sharpening

Spyderco has a popular Fixed Blade Sharpening setup [LINK]

Pros:

-Accurate angles for sharpening

Cons:

-Cumbersome

-Take up space

-A definite adjusting period to learn (which you could spend on Free Hand sharpening)

Free Hand Sharpening:

Whetstone & Ceramic/Glass Stones

This is the OG method of sharpening.

Known as “free hand”, you the sharpener are in complete control over the blades contact with the surface of the stone.

Using back and forth motion, the abrasive of the stones (which come in different grits (100x being very coarse, up to 12,000x being very fine)

🐙 recommends a coarse and fine stone. 1000 & 4000, or 1000 & 6000 are common grits that work well for kitchen knife sharpening. 

BRANDS

KING is one of the top players in the whetstone space. Quality pf product is very high, excellent reputation and easy to find. [LINK]

SHAPTON Highly recommend and have been using these for a long time. The big advantage over a traditional whetstone is that you don’t need to soak them. Just a splash of water and you’re ready to go. GlassStones are thin, light and strong. Layers of tempered glass are stuck together giving strong resistance to cracking. Widely available to purchase [LINK]

Pros:

-Durable

-Compact/Portable

Cons:

-Can take some time to become fully comfortable

-More time consuming than V sharpeners  

Using the Different Systems:

V Sharpener

Always check the manufacturer notes for operating electrical units. 

Regardless, whether electrical or manual, do not push down when sharpening. Allow the weight of the knife and gravity to maintain contact with the sharpening surface. 

Excess pressure applied by you will only contribute to excess metal being removed (which we want to avoid)

Fixed Blade Systems

This will vary by manufacturer.

While the fixed blade system can produce great results, they remind me of something akin to setting up a meth lab. You need a fair amount of table or workspace to set these up. Some clamp to a counter edge, and others have tripod-like assemblies. For my taste, very cumbersome; take that opinion for what it is. Might be a great fit for you. 

Feel free to pursue this option; I have never found the juice worth the squeeze with space and learning the mechanics of each setup. 

Free Hand Sharpening

If you have reasonable control of your arms and can lock your wrists, then you can easily become a great knife sharpener using the free hand method. 

The one thing I see blown out proportion is that free-handing is so hard because it’s impossible to get an exact 15 degree (or whatever) angle. 

This misses the point entirely… by maintaining a steady hand and angle, it doesn’t matter if your angle is 12 degrees or 18 degrees… or 17.25 degrees.

*There are some specific professional applications that are so unique it’s not worth discussing.

So the most important part of free hand sharpening, is to try and maintain a consistent angle to sharpen.

STARTING THE PROCESS

Setup:

-If you are using a traditional whetstone you will need to presoak your stone. Usually 10-20 mins. Just submerge in water (do not store in water), and you will see bubbles slowly float to the surface as the stone soaks. 

When the bubbles stop, you know the stone is saturated and ready for use. 

-Place the stone on a flat and sturdy surface. Some stones come with holders which helps. Otherwise a folded damp cloth will provide a good base. 

Sharpening:

-There are two schools of thought: 

A) Slide the entire blade across the stone in one stroke

B) Sharpen by section, using the width of the stone, in an up-and-down motion 

🐙 preferred method for consistency and accuracy is option (B). Sharpening the blade by sections and once a new edge is formed, moving up the length of the blade from heel to tip. 

**Note: Option A introduces too many variables with the sweeping motion, but can be done with success and is very common.

Our sharpening Process Will go in this Order:

-Coarse Grit sharpening:

Establishing a new edge, with metal teeth firmly tactile across the blade 

1. a) Starting at the heel of the blade: place the knife blade at desired angle on the stone (15 degrees is a good approximate starting point)

   b) Lock your wrists, and push the blade surface away from you using your elbows. (Let the stone grit do the work for you. No need to bear down with weight)

2. Repeat the push strokes in a up-and-down pattern, and count the number of passes you make (so you can repeat the same number on the reverse side).

3. Using the tips of your index, middle and ring finger; lightly feel the blade for “teeth” being established.

4. When achieved, flip the knife over and do the opposite side of the blade. Then move up the blade

-Fine Grit refining:

Taking the coarse edge and abrading it to a more smooth, fine and razor like feel

*You will repeat the same steps as above: the noticeable difference will be that the coarse teeth on the blade will know become much finer and razor like.

-Strop to fully align blade

Swiping the blade on a smooth surface to fully align the teeth. There are stropping surfaces for purchase but you don’t need them.

1. Take your fine grit stone; dry it, and wrap it in newspaper or butcher paper. (This emulates a very fine abrasive)

2. Reset and stablize the wrapped stone

3. Now we will use an opposite range of motion. With the blade facing out, pull the blade toward your body, in one motion, maintaining the same sharpening angle.

4. Do one pass, then flip to the other side of the blade, and do another pass; alternating between every pass. *We are aligning all the microfilaments to the very tip of the blade edge.

-Burr removal for a screaming edge 

This is essential to finishing the sharpening process.

Running the blade lightly through a cork or porous wood to remove any metal filings still attached to blade through static electricity or magnetism. 

What is a burr?

You’ve sharpened your knife to a razor edge, but after 2 cuts the blade feels “dull” again. How can that happen?

Most likely you have a burr on your blade .As you sharpen your blade, you are filing away metal. Some of that metal will flip-flop from one side of the blade to other creating a very dulling effect and giving the impression of a dull knife. 

Simply get a cork, or wooden cutting board and lightly run the blade along the surface. Do not press or apply extra pressure. None is needed to remove these tiny metallic microfilaments. 

This will be a game changer for experiencing next-level sharpness. 

You will now have a razor sharp edge that can easily shave through paper 🙌

While constructing this post, trying to take still-shot pictures became problematic since so much of the technique is in motion.

For this reason, 🐙 will be dropping a Start-to-Finish video for all the Paid Subscribers to have as a reference.

There’s many knife sharpening tutorials etc out there ranging up to the $100’s per course. I’m distilling all of that to a video for your reference… upgrade to the Paid Sub and get instant access when it drops on Friday

Crush the week, and Look for the Friday Sub Drop with a delicious Recipe and the Knife Sharpening Video! 🚀

Until next time 🥂