Got Sharpening Questions?

[Dave Martell]

Been sharpening on stones for a while and have been learning from various youtube clips and forums.
Found a chip one one of the knives and decided it was time to get a coarse stone to repair the edge.
Now, sharpening with the same technique i always use, controlling the angle with my left thumb, on the coarse stone i notice i am bleeding badly from the thumb.

How do you more experienced sharpeners protect your fingers from the abbrasive course mud, or have you developed HRC 70 skin on your hands?

With regards,
/J

The answer is to not touch the stone with your fingers.

FWIW, many of us have bled on our stones the same way, you'll learn to avoid this soon enough.

[Yamabushi]

The answer is to not touch the stone with your fingers.

FWIW, many of us have bled on our stones the same way, you'll learn to avoid this soon enough.

Indeed! Who amongst us has not tried to sharpen their fingers in their early learning stages?

[Farrant]

Does anybody have any ideas on why I can sharpen my global chefs knife ok, but can't sharpen a friends mac chefs knife?

The mac has had a couple years of steel only maintenance so is probably pretty fatigued but I can barely get an edge on it but can on my global.

[Yamabushi]

Does anybody have any ideas on why I can sharpen my global chefs knife ok, but can't sharpen a friends mac chefs knife?

The mac has had a couple years of steel only maintenance so is probably pretty fatigued but I can barely get an edge on it but can on my global.

Are you sure you are hitting the edge and razing a burr on the MAC? How thick is it behind the edge compared to your Global?

[Farrant]

Are you sure you are hitting the edge and razing a burr on the MAC? How thick is it behind the edge compared to your Global?

It's pretty thin compared to the global, and it does seem to be raising a burr well enough. I did improve the edge compared to what it was, it just is still relatively blunt compared to what I can do with my knives, although that's nothing compared to what some of you guys can do.

[Benuser]

The Global will take almost any edge. That doesn't mean it can hold it.

[Geo87]

Does anybody have any ideas on why I can sharpen my global chefs knife ok, but can't sharpen a friends mac chefs knife?

The mac has had a couple years of steel only maintenance so is probably pretty fatigued but I can barely get an edge on it but can on my global.

Through my own personal experience of sharpening a few knives with years of steel abuse the edge basically felt... Buttery( for lack of a better word. slippery and rounded from Never having enough metal removed from the edge or behind it. It took me a lot of work on a very course stone to remove the old dead steel. it then felt right and would take a nice edge.

[gavination]

Through my own personal experience of sharpening a few knives with years of steel abuse the edge basically felt... Buttery( for lack of a better word. slippery and rounded from Never having enough metal removed from the edge or behind it. It took me a lot of work on a very course stone to remove the old dead steel. it then felt right and would take a nice edge.

I'm by no means close to a fantastic sharpener, so take it with a grain of salt, but I had a similar experience with my mom's no name knives (getting in any sharpening practice I can get). Even if it was a crappy knife, it should take a reasonable edge still. I couldn't get it to do anything on my 1k even though I could get my personal knives rather sharp with just 1k touch-ups. So at someone's suggestion, I ended up buying a coarser stone which made the difference. What stones are you using Farrant?

[Farrant]

I'm by no means close to a fantastic sharpener, so take it with a grain of salt, but I had a similar experience with my mom's no name knives (getting in any sharpening practice I can get). Even if it was a crappy knife, it should take a reasonable edge still. I couldn't get it to do anything on my 1k even though I could get my personal knives rather sharp with just 1k touch-ups. So at someone's suggestion, I ended up buying a coarser stone which made the difference. What stones are you using Farrant?

I'm using a combi 1k/4k stone from JCK. My global was similar; having years of steel maintenance and it took about 2 passes on the stones to get as sharp as it was new.

[Geo87]

I'm using a combi 1k/4k stone from JCK. My global was similar; having years of steel maintenance and it took about 2 passes on the stones to get as sharp as it was new.

Sounds like you need a coarse stone. 400 works for me. If the 1k isn't working it's probably not removing enough steel to expose a fresh edge. 1K as a starting point is only good if your knife has some edge already.