How long do you spend on sharpening?

[Eamon Burke]

I just sharpened some new Artifexes and, for the first time EVER, I timed myself. I've never, ever timed myself. I don't even have any clocks in my house, or watches.

For all intents and purposes, they were unsharpened. So I set a new bevel, took it up to where they should be(sensationless shaving sharp, with bite!). It sharpens up so easily for stainless and takes a piss ripper of an edge, so its basically carbon steel. I spend more time on wear resistant stainlesses like CPM 154.

Anywho, it came out to 7:50 minutes per knife! I did 16 in a little over 2 hours, and used a lap timer to check my averages.

I was surprised it was so little time. It feels like longer. It went like this:
140 - 2:10
1k - 1:20
5k - 2:00
10k - 1:30
Strop - 0:50

Times include deburring.

What about you guys?

[Cutty Sharp]

Less than 10 mins sounds about right. Me too.

[stevenStefano]

Probably about 15 mins per knife but I go pretty slow and usually spend an eternity on deburring. First time I ever sharpened a knife it was a Global and I used the mousepad/sandpaper method, must have taken me about 10 hours

[JBroida]

depends on the knife, but i timed myself also one day and averaged about 5 minutes for normal sharpening (from basically no edge)... however, i would say the majority of my sharpening now days are major repairs. Those can take between 10 minutes and a couple of hours.

[andur]

Obviously it depends on the knife. Just today I spent an hour making a new bevel on a Yanagiba and it's still not done. I guess I don't have a coarse enough stone for the job but typically setting a new bevel or getting rid of a shallow spot will take a long time. I'm not sure how long I spend sharpening when the knife just needs touching up, I'd have to time it.

[andur]

Are there coarse japanese naturals? I just got a red Binsui stone that feels somewhere around 600 grit. But are there natural stones that are good for removing a lot of metal?

[knyfeknerd]

Depends on the knife. Sometimes I start out with a "warm-up" knife, to get me in the right frame of mind-If you know what I mean. Depends on the steel as well. I've found myself omitting the higher grit stones because I lose the level of sharpness so quickly at work. Esp. on my gyuto(s).

[ajhuff]

As little as possible.

-AJ

[kalaeb]

I am probably 15 min/knife, but I know I move slow.

[echerub]

Man, I'm slow. If I'm moving through 400/500, 1k, 5k, 8k/natural for a gyuto, I think that'd take me about 20 min. Been a while since I've had to do that so I don't know the exact timing, but it's definitely not 5-10 minutes for me