# TLF Knife Sharpening Thread



## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

Knife sharpening has been discussed a little in both the Blades of TLF and Kitchen Knives of TLF threads, but I thought it might be a good idea to just dedicate a whole thread to knife sharpening - because threads are cheap! :thumbup:

I have a Wicked Edge Sharpener. They are not cheap, but I love the way it takes the guess work out of getting the correct angle on my blades.

I touched up my Southern Grind Spider Monkey (S35VN) after work this afternoon. I stepped up through 1000 grit, 1500 grit, 2200 grit and 3000 grit diamond stones, then switched to 3 micron diamond lapping film on glass platens and finished off with 1.0 and 0.5 micron diamond emulsion on leather strops to get a nice mirror finish. Sharpening angle was 25° on each side.

https://youtu.be/KtyLn8mwhys​
How do you sharpen your knives?


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## Kicker (Apr 5, 2018)

i recently bought a 1000/6000 grit japanese whetstone off amazon based of a recommendation, of i think G-Man, in the kitchen knives thread.

I have a Wusthof Nakiri knife that i use almost daily and i was really having trouble with cutting all the way through vegetables and herbs. The produce would have cuts where the knife slid through it fine but it wouldn't cut all the way through so i would have long pieces of vegetables or fruits that were diced but being held together by the skin.

I used the whetstone to sharpen the blade a couple of weeks ago and it was cutting significantly better. Just this week i was cutting some cilantro when suddenly i felt the all too familiar yet forgotten sharp sting of cutting my self. I had completely sliced off the distal half of my fingernail down to the nail bed. I was both impressed at the clean cut and pissed that i cut myself.

It has been a while since i cut myself in the kitchen, i don't know if that's due to my knives becoming more dull or i had just had a moment of distraction when i did cut myself but, i will say that i've been impressed with the sharpness on the blade since using the japanese style whetstone.


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## Dkrem (Mar 16, 2019)

I have the usual pile of sharpening gadgets, from a very old Lansky system, to a couple crock stick setups (the spyderco sharpmaker stays in my sharpening bag), to a chefs's choice 120 electric I rarely use anymore. Nowadays I'm about speed and bang for the buck in my time spent. So 95% of time on edges I use either the paper wheels, mostly the polishing compound wheel, or my Worksharp Ken Onion with its blade grinder attachment.


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

I started getting into sharpening my knives seriously about 10 years or more ago and started with the Spyderco SharpMaker which is a fantastic system just requires a lot of time and patience, I have since upgraded to the Worksharp Ken Onion edition knife sharpener that uses belts. It does do a great job of putting a nice sharp edge on my knives and does it pretty quickly too but I just feel like I'm missing something sharpening with it. Thinking about taking a stab  with using some whetstones and see what I can accomplish with them.


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## Gilley11 (Nov 3, 2019)

Cool video on comparing a few knife sharpeners:

https://youtu.be/uEDyYJJ6f9M


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## daniel3507 (Jul 31, 2018)

The Wicked Edge does look pretty easy to use. What a price tag though.


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## uts (Jul 8, 2019)

Gilley11 said:


> Cool video on comparing a few knife sharpeners:


This channel is legend!


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## Jwsjr (May 16, 2018)

I've got a nice collection of kershaw shun kitchen knives. One advantage of spending the cheese on shun is they offer free sharpening for lifetime ..... but you have to be without your blade for 10-14 days which is hard for me as I love to cook every day. I believe my chef knife is originally at a 17 degree angle. What angles does everyone use for chef knives as wall as utility and paring blades? I have a 10" single edge sushi knife that I'm scared to touch as allthough it's gets used frequently it never cuts anything but fish and vegetables. Sharpness is more important to me on most knives than durability. Great thread for us foodies.

I currently am using the Lansky system for general
touch ups.


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## Philly_Gunner (Apr 23, 2019)

I've never seen another system that compares to the Wicked Edge for speed, efficiency and scary sharpness. You can literally go from butter knife dull to hair whittling in under 20 minutes once you get the hang of it.


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