Beginner Question: What exactly is “touching up”?

[DowntonDC]

Hi everyone. Apologies in advance if this is an obvious question. I’ve been watching several sharpening tutorials and reading Chad Ward’s “An Edge in the Kitchen” to start getting a feel for sharpening. I’ve got a good handle on the steps from beginning to end, but have been confused when people say they are “touching up” their knives. (Typically when the knives is already sharp, maybe not wicked sharp.)

Is this the same a stropping? If you use the normal sharpening motions on a polishing stone, do you still try to raise a burr? If it is different than stropping, how so?

If it is helpful, I currently only have two stones: a Naniwa Pro 1000 and 3000. Is it possible to touch up with this step up — or is something like a leather strop with 1 micron diamond spray or a higher grit stone a better option?

Any help you all could offer on my I formation overload would be super helpful!

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

"Touching up" is just routine maintenance to prolong the edge's crispness. What exactly that means in practice can vary quite a bit. A run on a ceramic rod can be touching up. A few trailing strokes on a loaded leather strop can be touching up. A few leading strokes on a stone can also be touching up. A light "sharpening" on a finish stone can be touching up.

It's just whatever one does to freshen an edge without a full progression of dedicated sharpening.

Don't stress the specifics of it. Experiment. Not just with techniques and approaches but applying varying techniques and approaches to different knives and use cases.

 

[Benuser]

My preferred one is with a few short light edge leading strokes on Belgian Blue, as it hardly raises a burr. If necessary followed by a few even lighter longitudinal strokes, i.e. trailing nor leading, along the edge. Basically how I would deburr. The advantage of BB is in abrading a burr without raising much of a new one, as more aggressive synthetics tend to do. You may do the same with soft Arkansas. It delivers a very different edge, though.

The idea is to avoid an unnecessary full sharpening, but still restoring the fresh from the stone feeling, the edge's crispness, as @HumbleHomeCook rightly put it.
If the BB doesn't respond immediately by delivering a smooth feeling, I don't insist, but apply a few strokes on a Naniwa Pro 2k, if needed dry or damped.
That will only happen rarely in a home setting, with little use, and decent boards. Full sharpening can be postponed up to a few times in a year, or even less, if you have more knives in a rotation. In a different setting, though, when using crappy poly boards, it allowed me to avoid full sharpenings of soft carbon Sabs up to twice a week, instead of every day.
With some steel types you may consider a very fine steel rod as the Dickoron Micro or Dickoron Polish to obtain a similar result. Other than ceramic rods, it doesn't abrade as far as I can see, doesn’t create a new edge, and, used carefully, won't raise a burr. I know about people, careful home-users, using it with a 60Rc Herder 1922 and avoid a full sharpening up to once a year. Expect a bit more of steel to get abraded with the yearly full sharpening, though, as its frequent use will slightly fatigue the steel. Don't use it with much harder steel than said 60Rc, or you might encounter afterwards unexplained microchipping.
I have used the Belgian Blue trick with all kind of steels, from 59Rc 440C, SG2/R2 @ 62Rc up to Aogami Super @65Rc. The only one it doesn't work with is the common soft German Krupp's 4116. The steel will certainly take the 4k polish the BB provides, but doesn't hold it. Has nothing to do with the steel's softness, as much softer carbon Sabs hold it very well, but is due to the edge instability proper to 4116, which doesn't allow a polished edge.

 

[Jovidah]

I can imagine that if someone doesn't know sharpening terms, all this discussion of 'touching up' in the kitchen sounds rather dubious...

As others said it's used as a bit of a catch-all term for basically sharpening on a high grit stone or simply stropping to slightly improve an edge that has fallen off a little bit, but not enough to drop all the way down to something like a 1k stone to do a 'proper' sharpening.
But since it's a generic term it can mean all sorts of different things.

So in your case, a 'proper' sharpening would usually start at your 1k stone. But if the edge only dropped off a little bit you could go to just the 3k and many would refer to that as 'touching up'.

 

[wcothran]

I go 2-3 leading strokes on a high grit stone. Usually sends the edge back to perfect

 

[Delat]

Agree with the above responses. For me it’s basically following a “least metal removed” sequence. First a diamond-loaded strop, and when that doesn’t get me satisfactory results then just a few light strokes on an SG4000. Not enough to raise a burr, but I go through the deburring motions anyway with a few edge-leading strokes afterwards.

Anytime I set out to raise a burr, I call that sharpening vs just a touchup.

 

[stringer]

For me, a touch up is something I can do in 30-60 seconds with one mid to fine natural stone in-hand. But I usually do all of the steps. Raise a burr, chase it, and deburr. Just a super truncated version. I might have to touch up 10 or 15 knives in a row. I don't want to spend too much time on it. But l am doing quite a bit more than a few strokes or a few strops or whatever. That isn't even a touch up to me. That is something I do before a particular task where I need a real crispy edge. Or in the middle of a task to get me to the end of the task. That will get you a real nice apex for a few minutes but won't meaningfully increase how long your knife stays sharp or do anything to make it sharp if it is dull.

A touch up, for me is something more. A touch up is needed maybe every 10-12 hours of cutting time for a standard gyuto in my kit of mostly simple carbons and semi-stainless monosteel. 10-12 hours of cutting time represents a great deal of veggies being cut up. Hundreds of pounds. A knife needs a "full sharpening" if a touch up doesn't get rid of enough of the visible damage, or if I think the knife needs more work than just a bevel reset. Like it needs thinning or rust removed or the tip reworked or whatever. Then I might spend 2 or 3 minutes going through my "full progression". Which means I use a coarse synthetic stone to thin and fix damage before I rebuild a microbevel with the mid to fine natural stone.

 

[DowntonDC]

I can imagine that if someone doesn't know sharpening terms, all this discussion of 'touching up' in the kitchen sounds rather dubious...

As others said it's used as a bit of a catch-all term for basically sharpening on a high grit stone or simply stropping to slightly improve an edge that has fallen off a little bit, but not enough to drop all the way down to something like a 1k stone to do a 'proper' sharpening.
But since it's a generic term it can mean all sorts of different things.

So in your case, a 'proper' sharpening would usually start at your 1k stone. But if the edge only dropped off a little bit you could go to just the 3k and many would refer to that as 'touching up'.

Super helpful! Thanks so much.

 

[DowntonDC]

Agree with the above responses. For me it’s basically following a “least metal removed” sequence. First a diamond-loaded strop, and when that doesn’t get me satisfactory results then just a few light strokes on an SG4000. Not enough to raise a burr, but I go through the deburring motions anyway with a few edge-leading strokes afterwards.

Anytime I set out to raise a burr, I call that sharpening vs just a touchup.

Super helpful!

 

[DowntonDC]

Great advice everyone! It was definitely helpful. My main takeaway is to not stress too much and practice, practice, practice.

 

[TB_London]

First base - stropping
Second base - a few strokes on a rod or light strokes on a fine stone
Third base - a bit of stone work but not a full session
Home run- busting out the stones and doing a progression for a new edge

Touching up the edge is second or third base

 

[Benuser]

Agree with the above responses. For me it’s basically following a “least metal removed” sequence. First a diamond-loaded strop, and when that doesn’t get me satisfactory results then just a few light strokes on an SG4000. Not enough to raise a burr, but I go through the deburring motions anyway with a few edge-leading strokes afterwards.

Anytime I set out to raise a burr, I call that sharpening vs just a touchup.

On a well maintained blade, the burr appears almost instantly — within three strokes on one side with the finest stone.

 

[Justinv]

As an addition to above comments, a touchup is needed when you have difficulty biting into tomatoes, peppers, need something sharp to slice meat, etc. i think most people here will do a touchup when its still sharp enough to cut paper (but probably not sharp enough to cleanly slice paper towel). If it can’t cut paper its more in need of a regular full sharpening.