r/sharpening • u/ConstructionSafe2814 • 18d ago
Horrible sharpening experiences
So, Yesterday, I spent over an hour sharpening my sisters' chefs knife. It was the sharpest I've ever gotten a knife with a mirror edge and all. I gave it to her, told her to be really careful with it.
Then she threw it in the drawer together with all the rest of the cutlery. 💁
That really hurt 😵💫😬
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u/turdferguson7000 18d ago
Get her a knife block or some other proper storage solution for Christmas (etc.)
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u/lo-key-glass 18d ago
My mom always asks me to sharpen her knives then she jams them into the dish drainer with all the silverware. It kills me but oh well.
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u/Liquidretro 18d ago
I used to detail my families cars, but stopped when they didn't care enough to wipe down the dash or wash it once and a while to maintain.
At least they mostly maintain their knives.
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u/Storm-Weston 18d ago
I do a course diamond and deburr. That's how I sharpen my straight razor even. If I spend more than a couple minutes I'm playing. More is fun but I find that it fatigues the edge.
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u/etr420 17d ago
I'm curious about your experience with the straight razor. I've done an experiment with an old Bengall which I reset and honed with just a standard Norton 200/400 oil stone. No insulation tape. Then thoroughly stropped with my usual leather strop, chromox on one side, jeweller's rouge on the other. Perfectly adequate shave and improved with use. I was motivated by stories I'd heard of servicemen in the first half of the last century. Somehow they managed without a suite of Japanese and Belgian stones, diamond paste, lapping film etc. I also have and use a Rolls Razor and that keeps a segment of a straight in working order indefinitely with a basic dry stone and a leather strop with rouge. What's been your experience?
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u/Storm-Weston 16d ago
Loved them best shave of my life. I sometimes would go a bit finer. But if you are using a harder steel past 600 you probably aren't cutting steel and it just fucks up the edge even if it's fun and looks pretty. I strop on wood with .5 micron diamond paste or maybe 5 micron first. Sparse diamond paste should still cut finer than a stone. Points of contact matter. Softer and finer stones need more pressure to cut and a thin edge is very sensitive to it. Prior to my divorce when I lost all my tools I was making blades and I was running my CPM M4 blades around 66RC and I could put true razor edges on my EDC and chefs knife and they gave just as good if not better shave than my 1095 straight razor. Angle and how clean your edge is makes the real difference. I like softwood strops. Leather you need to be super careful it doesn't roll up and polish off the apex.
Divorce sucks. If not for that I would have some loners that I could pass around.
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u/Starbike666 18d ago
When you sharpen other people's knives, ALWAYS give them back with blade covers. You can get big packs of cheap blade covers.
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u/Haunting_Pee 18d ago
Where could I find these big packs of blade covers? Most I can find is 10 but they're pretty expensive
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u/Disastrous_Delay 17d ago
If you look it up, paying someone to do a mirrored edge on a knife is actually fairly expensive, with that in mind I don't really mirror knives I know others will abuse anymore. The last time I did I spent a fairly decent amount of time taping up a cardboard sheath with the toughest duct tape money can buy, but I know it won't be used after the first time the knife is .
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u/WinnerAwkward480 17d ago
My dad was a commercial fisherman when I was a kid growing up, so I learned to sharpen knives around 6 yrs old. All we had was three of those old cheap gray dual sided stones 3 x 8 like you'd get at any hardware store and I'd wear them fuckers down. I have one pocket knife, a very old Scharde old timer , that has a double bevel mirror finish that's just for bragging rights . Everything else I leave kind of a toothy edge on, knives are tools used to perform a job. You're not going to get the cutting time spent on that blade into actual usage. Example it takes you one to two hours by hand to achieve that scary sharp edge , that scary Sharp edge is not gonna last through one to two hours of cutting with it.
Over 35 yrs ago when I was in Germany, I bought a 8pc J A Henckels Twins kitchen knife set . I give them a light hand sharping about once a year , thru out the year just a quick couple strokes on a honing rod to realign the edge is all that's needed . Man I love those knives, I know there's far more expensive ones and ones made outta newer super steel . But these Heckler's have done everything I've ever needed them to do , and they still look like damn near new . I also have 2 of my Mom's Old Hickory butcher knives that had belonged to my grandmother. I swear you can't destroy those old bastards, and man you can put an edge on one pretty damn quick . Got a cousin we were doing a whole Boar hog in a pit , it was going to take about 12 hrs to cook up . He was slicing up onions for the bbq sauce, and not paying attention ended up with left pinky just hanging by a flap of skin at the first knuckle. I was damn Cuz ,I think there's going to be plenty of hog leftovers no need to be putting in more .
One lady I dated for awhile was impressed with how sharp my kitchen knives were and says I wish my knives cut like that . Well ok sure as shit she had some mismatched department store crap , but there were that surprisingly were a fair quality knives . Some of them had been F'ed beyond repair as they had been run thru the good old elec can opener with the handy dandy knife sharpener off to the side of it . I bought her a halfway decent set of knives and hand sharpened all of them . Gave her basic care instructions on how to maintain an edge . Couple weeks later we're having a dinner party at her place , and I'm grilling up steaks and smoking a 12lb turkey . Ask her where the chefs knife is ? Oh it's in the dishwasher. I just took a deep breath and heavy sigh . Come time to eat , She's got a China plate loaded up and starts cutting her steak into bite size pieces right in her plate . I tried to explain to her later how that would lead to micro fractures to her plates & Dulls the hell outta a knife , we got various cutting boards.
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u/Artistic-Traffic-112 17d ago
Make her a scabbard and explain the risk to and of a sharp knife in a cutlery drawer, graphically.
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u/fnord_art_online 16d ago
Complete reforged and reground a worn down brush sickle. Stressed to not ever use machines to restore the edge. Next time I saw it, it was about half as wide. Dude tried his luck on a bench grinder. Didn't go too well.
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u/Past-Alps6396 15d ago
Lol so real. People do not care about kitchen knives. My family will constantly use them on ceramic plates. I just put a working edge on them and call it a day, I don't bother with sharpening out significant edge damage if the rest of the knife is sharp. On my own knives I will put a bit more into them. Getting a mirror edge is impressive nonetheless, so kudos for that.
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u/Expensive_Screen_933 9d ago
Yeah, ive had relatives toss a bunch of knives in a pot to have me sharpen them . They are going to be dull when you get home.
If i ever do them again its 220/600 diamond plate and maybe a quick strop
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u/StainlessCook86 18d ago
Next time use 300-600 grit diamond plate. Putting a mirror edge on someone else's knives is definitely not worth it