Keeping a new knife sharp

[welshstar]

Hi

Qucik question

When you ge a new knife that is only used for home use what is the best way to maintain the factory edge.

Im thinking just a strop with a spary of some sort.

Please advise where to get a nice strop without to much cost, the maagnetic ones seen eay to expensive.

Thanks

Alan

 

[jm2hill]

Dave's strop kit is great and not that expensive. Otherwise you could look at getting a HandAmerican strop kit and just get some leather and spray

Why do you want to keep the factory edge? I usually enjoy my own edge much more.

 

[El Pescador]

+1 strop and 1 Micron

 

[Marko Tsourkan]

The best way to maintain a factory edge is to cut little (or nothing) with it.

Jokes aside, strops, sprays, etc are short-gap measures, sooner or later, you will have to put your knives on the stones, so I would start with those first. For maintaining the edge, you don't need to go below 1K for a long time, so good 1K (Bester 1200 has been my favorite for a long time), and a polishing stone like Rika 5K or Sigma II 6K (I liked it quite a bit, works well on 52100 or other steels with higher wear resistance). Of course you will need DMT XXC or equivalent for flattening. For strops, I would start with felt strop and felt block for deburring. You can add leather and diamond sprays later.

M

 

[Eamon Burke]

My advice for those who only want the minimum of maintenance for factory knives:
Send them to a sharpener one time, get them to put a good, non-compounded edge on it. This is not expensive.
Get the Rika 5k, King 6, Shapton 2k, or something similar, and just match the angle on the edge bevel when it gets dullish--don't wait till it's dead and gone, just touch up!

 

[stevenStefano]

In my experience 99% of factory edges suck so I don't bother trying to maintain them. Usually I'll use them a little before I sharpen them but they are never at their true potential. The factory bevels are either convex, are at something silly like 20 degrees, or are at less than 10 so chip as soon as you use them. My Watanabe is the only factory edge I consider anything close to what I can do myself. That's what they've been like for me anyway. Saying that, stropping should be fine to keep it close to what it is like when you get it

 

[ThEoRy]

Factory edge sucks. First thing I do is sharpen a knife putting my edge on it and strop.

 

[tk59]

In my experience 99% of factory edges suck...

+1 Get it really sharp and then maintain that.