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Knife Sharpening


Curmudgeon

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Even if you could use "the whistle man"...don't.  They are  OK for a hoe or shovel but I wouldn't let them sharpen a machete much less a good knife.  The all do it the same way but with a few variations in equipment.  But they all do a bad job.  I sharpen our own knives, garden shears, loppers,  and machete but won't tackle scissors.  That is even harder to do correctly.  Hope somebody has a good idea for you.  Alan

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Last time I took my knives to the Ojeda family at the Ferias, they did them overnight. I discovered that, while they are great at designing and making knives, only their most expensive knives are good at holding an edge. And, they use basically the same sharpening tools as everyone else. That is, a variation on the handheld  and angle/centric, with tungsten carbide, ceramic, and perhaps diamond edges. A $4 mini hand-sharpener from Amazon will do a better job than they did that night. The secret is to use a sharpening steel before every use, to keep that edge.

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41 minutes ago, ComputerGuy said:

Last time I took my knives to the Ojeda family at the Ferias.....I discovered that, while they are great at designing and making knives, only their most expensive knives are good at holding an edge.

I agree with this assessment of their knives. I bought a couple of their 'not as expensive but nice looking' knives and, after time, they do not really hold a good edge. Must be sharpened often and by hand.

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Sharpening knives is one of my hobbies. I have been doing for over 50 yrs.
There are many ways of sharpening. I believe hand sharpening with sharpening stones would be the best.

If you do not cook often you may use sharpening bars (sharpening steels) to get your knives sharpened. 
However, it will hold the sharpened edge for a very  short period of time as you can see the butchers do
many times a day. 
If you can find the utensils like shown below which does much better jobs than whistle men. It does not require any special technique.

I brought sharpening stones from Japan since I could not find any sharpening stones such as Arkansas
oil stones or Japanese wet stones in GDL. 

Next time(Jan or Feb '19)  I come to GDL I may show you how to sharpen the knives if you take interests.

 

 

knife sharpener.jpg

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Me, too, Ukiyo, a long-time hobby. Before I moved here, I got my knives sharpened by a Solingen expert. I once brought him a five-dollar Chinese cleaver from an Asian store in town, and he remarked that the quality of the steel and the craftsmanship was among the finest he'd seen. He had a whole cadre to tools to sharpen.

I eventually bought this kit...

70m4502s01.jpg

... and spent years painstakingly determining angles and hours sharpening using the system. These days, I find that may be aesthetically pleasing to some part of my brain, but wholly unnecessary, and I use little hand-held kits like this. The only time I had the patience to use a stone was when I was a kid and thought it was cool.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRsTrQzu1zx5JX8UXgvDmc

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I use this.  My mother gave me one 100 years ago--she had tried it and swore by it.  I still use the same one she gave me, puts an excellent edge on my 60-year-old carbon steel Sabatiers.  I've owned these knives since they were brand new and have had them professionally sharpened twice.  The first time was in the USA; the second time I asked my butcher to tell me who sharpened his.  He took them all to his guy and brought them back to me a few days later.  They were like razors.

https://www.amazon.com/Accusharp-066C-Knife-Sharpener-Piece/dp/B072HVMYZC/ref=sr_1_21?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1540302656&sr=1-21&keywords=knife+sharpener

Like barrbower and Computer Guy, I would never, ever let the "whistle guys" sharpen my knives.  The men I've seen actually sharpening knives on the street have no idea what they're doing.

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I have a suspicion that the street sharpeners started when axes, adzes, ploughs, and other rough and heavy blades were important to life. They do a fine job on those items (not that I've had a plough sharpened lately, but the concept is the same). They can sometimes do push-mowers, but they don't really have the tool for that. I'd use them for machetes, too.

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CG, I agree. I would ask a whistle man to sharpen axes, butcher knives and machetes to get shrpened, because they do not
require fine sharp edges. When we cut the hard objects with force it is even better to have rather rounded
bevel to maintain cutting quality for a longer time.

But when it comes to sharpening cooking knives I prefer hand sharpening with stones The most difficult part is
sharpening curved part(belly) right before the point, you need to lift up the edge angle slightly in order to
trace the curve. It depends on the coditions of knives but it only takes 10-20 mins to get razaor edge.
If you use wooden chopping board instead of the plastic ones, sharpness lasts longer.

FYI, a Solingen knife maker, Zwilling J.A. Henckels has been manufacturing in Japan, so many products are
not made in Germany anymore. 

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9 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

Zwilling is in Japan now? Wow. They used to be my favourite knives. I still have a few of the heavy-plastic handled ones.

Yes, it has been  9 years since they bought a company and started productions in Japan. They also get synthetic sharpening stones locally and distribute to the world market

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I have several good Japanese knives with double bevels at about 12 degrees. I have been thinking about asking one of the sushi chefs here if he would occasionally sharpen my blades with his waterstone. I actually have my own waterstones, but never mastered the technique. Would rather pay someone else to do it, LOL. 

Has anyone done this? Would not let any of those whistle guys anywhere near my knives!

 

 

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Honorandfaith, if you can wait 3 mos or so, I can do it for you for free.  FYI, most of all Japanese knife smith does not finish the edges, they make and deliver the knives to sharpen nurses to get the knives sharpened. It is old fashions and practice for protecting their techniques from each other. All the knives sold here are not well sharpened; you have to sharpen the utensils by yourself or ask storemaster to sharpen according to your taste and skills. 

Japanese sushi chef does good job of preparing sushi but about 40% of them do not sharpen the knives well.

As you may know, you need to maintain the sharpening stones properly, ie making the surface horizontally flat to give exact edge angles. (pls refer the 1st and 2nd pics) The last pic shows some of my knives (single edged) to prepare sushi.

 

 

 

DSCN0233.JPG

maxresdefault.jpg

凹面.jpeg

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