Best sharpening video ever?

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Michi

Michi

I dislike attempts to rewrite history
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I just stumbled across this, after watching one of her videos about seasoning a cast iron pan.

I have watched well over a hundred knife sharpening videos. What blows me away about this one:
  • Totally non-threatening. She makes it clear that anyone can sharpen a knife on stones, and that it isn't rocket science.
  • Accurate. Pretty much everything she says in that video sounds right to me. Sure, as a knife geek, I can argue that she left out this or that. But I can't find anything I would disagree with.
  • Didactics. The teaching technique in that video is outstanding. This is someone who doesn't just know the subject, it is someone who knows how to pass that knowledge on to someone who doesn't know. She shows people how to do things without being over-bearing, casting herself as an expert, without ego, and tells them to have a go without being afraid.
In my opinion, this is an outstanding example of teaching, and teaching well. Brilliant!

 
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Nice! She has got Ashkenazi blood, I'd venture to say, looks very similar to Ginnifer Goodwin. Which means that I could look at her all day and my eyes wouldn't get tired :)
 
Yes, she's pretty. But that's not what I'm interested in. Pretty women are a dime a dozen.

What impressed me is how well she gets the point across. Confident, competent, no-nonsense down-to-earth teaching skills, and effective. I'm seriously pressed to think of a better sharpening video for beginners than this one.
 
Yeah, it's really hard to get past the Burrfection spam in youtube - tons of videos clogging the search results. How did you manage to find this one?
 
podzap said:
How did you manage to find this one?
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Sheer accident. I looked up something like "seasoning cast iron skillet", and this one popped up. Not sure whether that was as a direct search hit, or as one of the YouTube suggestions.

I've watched two more of her videos, and I'm seriously impressed so far. Final verdict is still outstanding. But this looks promising. I really like her non-pretentious down-to-earth approach.
 
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Its always good to find a teacher that appeals to motivation...
 
That was really well done. She made it very approachable and gave good advice. Very good for a beginner. Only thing I would add is to start on a coarser stone. 1k is really too fine to be sharpening a dull knife
 
If she had done the video in a bikini I would have agreed with you.
 
Decent video for sure. I think the Stone she calls a nagura is actually a stone conditioner and basically used to keep the stone flat and should be washed off before sharpening. Jon what do you think?
 
It is interesting to see how much she has refined her presentation skills over time. This video is one of the earliest, nearly ten years ago:

What I find interesting is that the teaching skills are present even back then. This is a very clear and useful teaching video, just without the experience she obviously has by now, and without the higher production values. But the teaching seems to be in her blood. I'm impressed.
 
I don't want to take away from this post but another set of videos which I think are awesome are from Peter Nowlan. I think he teaches it very well and these really helped me make everything click.
@Jon. Your videos are very good too but he's got an edge on you. It's not your fault he just has the inherent advantage of being canadian;)

 
Mucho Bocho said:
Decent video for sure. I think the Stone she calls a nagura is actually a stone conditioner and basically used to keep the stone flat and should be washed off before sharpening. Jon what do you think?
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I watched this video a couple of weeks ago, and I'm not going to do so again, but -- I believe she's using the King nagura which often comes paired with the KW-65; and as far as I know this is the only King rubbing stone on the market and it's a proper #8000 grit slurry stone.
 
Yes, I agree, Peter's videos are excellent. And they are also aimed at a more geeky audience. We are approaching expert level there, or at least getting towards expert level.

The Hellen Rennie video is aimed at people who, pretty much, have never heard of knife sharpening before.

Hellen's video won't turn me into an expert sharpener. (Heck, no video will.) But, as a first step, I think that video is outstanding. If I get the bug (as I did), I then can go and watch Peter's videos, and Jon's, and the ones on the Korin website and go deeper.
 
True no hers was good and definitely appeals to an audience who has never tried before or anything besides a pull through sharpener. She's funny too. I watched another of her videos and after she mentioned the pull through v sharpener she told all the sharpening nuts to stop giving her a hard time about them as for some it's good enough
 
Awesome starter video. I really learned the big picture here, which I was missing a bit after watching all the other how-to-videos.

Not to derail the thread, but is the Burrfection videos mentioned not good?
 
Dhoff said:
[...]

Not to derail the thread, but is the Burrfection videos mentioned not good?
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I find that the amount of real, useful information contained in those videos is inversely proportional to how highly the Youtube algorithm recommends them.

There are many better videos about technique available; namely those by Jon Broida, which are among the very best. And as for the whetstone reviews -- how often can one qualify a stone as "snappy", and "crisp", before it becomes apparent that those descriptors are better suited to choosing a breakfast cereal than a sharpening stone.
 
Knife2meatu said:
I find that the amount of real, useful information contained in those videos is inversely proportional to how highly the Youtube algorithm recommends them.
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I watched one where he dipped his hand into the container to put water on his splash-and-go stone THIRTY TIMES before he ever touched it with a knife. Mouth was rambling and hand was splashing, but no knife to stone contact was being made.
 
Good video for beginners with zero experience besides bur removal.

I’ve never liked that method of removing bur. I’ve seen more people mess up their knives grinding their edge into the stone. As well as better ways of removing bur.
 
I like think Peters videos are decent but agree he talks way too much, rambling at times. Video could have been half as long. Jon video series is about as close to perfect as anything currently available. Personally I do exactly what he says and it keeps thing simple for me to follow and remember. Their like a complete end to end course on sharpening. And you can go back to a very specific topic if that steps needs improvement. The gold standard in knife sharpening for sure.
 
I agree he does talk a little too much but maybe it's the camera angles or something but just seems to work better for me
 
I like Murray Carter’s Basic Sharpening video. You have to pay for it though.
 
Uncle Mike said:
I like Murray Carter’s Basic Sharpening video. You have to pay for it though.
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I haven't seen that one. I did watch some of his YouTube videos, which I thought were really good. The question is whether his pay-for videos contain enough magic sauce to make the investment worth it.

The "everything is free" mentality of YouTube, and the net in general, is doing a lot of harm. Twenty years ago, I probably would have paid for Murray's video sight unseen, no hesitation. Today, not so much. There is a decent chance that I can learn what is in Murray's video with some research without paying anything (other than my time and judgement).

As a software engineer, I'm acutely aware of how many jobs the open source movement and the internet sharing culture have destroyed. It wasn't all that long ago that compilers and operating systems cost an arm and a leg. Today, you have to just about beg people to use them, even if they cost nothing.
 
Cheers for posting! I might send the link to my cousin who's interested in learning how to hand sharpen—she currently uses the bottom of a ceramic rice bowl, like her aunt used to do.

She's get more out if the video you posted than from this Carter video:
 
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