Labor of love...

[TheCaptain]

So DH (da hubby) and I have been together 25 years. Married for close to 23. Since the man wakes up every morning, there has to be zero doubt that I love him.

Now like everyone here, I have a thing for knives. Increasingly very good to awesome knives. I have some pretty stellar knives in my collection which are an absolute pleasure to use.

So what is DH's go to knife for cutting hard and semi-hard cheeses?

A stupid effing 5 inch Calphalon santoku. You know, the kind with the little divets ground on the side to aid in "food release". :eyebrow:

Now this thing keeps an (acceptable to me) edge for maybe, oh, a month in our house. For whatever reason DH lent this knife to a relative and it came back duller than heck. I have butter knives that are sharper.

So it needed to be fixed. Like NOW. I.am.NOT putting a dull knife back in my drawer.

So a little session on the JNS 300 and Watanabe 1000 and that's all this knife really needs. It can shave arm hair and easily push cut paper. I can't seem to get to the point where I can fold a piece of paper in half and easily cut through, but it is far better than it was.

Any suggestions on how I can get this thing sharper? Or maybe given the main use I don't really need to. An yes, that is a plastic board. We use those for our German knives.

 

[daveb]

I volunteer every year at a local knife sharpening for charity event. And most of the knives that come in are either Calphalon or Kitchenaid. (Makes a Shun look good ya know.) They're soft, they're gummy and they don't take to sharpening. I know that knife and if you're cutting anything you're doing well.

Most of these go right to the grinder set at 20ish degrees. I've done a few hand sharpening jobs and just put a stupid obtuse angle on them - it'll last till next year.

 

[TheCaptain]

Thanks Dave. Your feedback and advice means a lot. At the very least it tells me the fact that I can't seem to get an edge that lasts a decent amount of time tells me it's the knife and not me leaving a burr on or something.

And kudos to you for the volunteer work!

 

[panda]

i thought this was going to be a shout out to our resident knife slut with the alias 'labor of love'

don't even bother to sharpen on the 1000, just use that to strop after 300.

 

[tommybig]

In my experience the worst part is deburring. So my advice would be to spent a lot of time on that.

 

[kurwamac]

Having sharpened up a few of these, my advice would be to go to 2k or so and leave a nice polish and microbevel, as the latter seems to help when the user is holding and utilising it as one would a hammer. I have a theory that a flat polished face contributes to edge stability somehow...

 

[Mucho Bocho]

Panda, me to. Thought DH was getting dumped for Labor, they went stealing away on a passionate rendezvous to Japan

 

[galvaude]

This is one situation where I'm glad I have kept my Norton India coarse/fine, this stone shines with such knives. I sharpen at something like 15 deg each side and put a microbevel while deburring at leat at 25 degrees.

With your stone I would do everything on the 300 and deburr as much as I can and I would finish with a few deburring strokes on the 1000 at a higher angle. Edge leading strokes are more suited for PITA cheap stainless, don't know how soft this stone is.

 

[daveb]

Last I heard LoL had packef his stuff and was rolling north.

 

[TheCaptain]

In my experience the worst part is deburring. So my advice would be to spent a lot of time on that.

+1 What he said. Most of the time is spent on the JNS 300.

 

[TheCaptain]

This is one situation where I'm glad I have kept my Norton India coarse/fine, this stone shines with such knives. I sharpen at something like 15 deg each side and put a microbevel while deburring at leat at 25 degrees.

With your stone I would do everything on the 300 and deburr as much as I can and I would finish with a few deburring strokes on the 1000 at a higher angle. Edge leading strokes are more suited for PITA cheap stainless, don't know how soft this stone is.

It's kind of interesting. I have a Gesshin 220 which I would call a soft stone and a JNS 300 and the two stones feel miles apart to me. Normally I wouldn't think you need something that close in grit in a stone setup but I am glad I have those two different stones. I'm appreciating the JNS lower grit stones more and more as I work on more stainless.

The Gesshin 220 is a beast, so far I've only really needed it for a chip repair and to flatten some shoulders on a stupid dull stainless to get it going. The JNS 300 is my go to bottom range stone for all other stainless needs.

 

[panda]

suehiro cerax 320 da best low grit

 

[K813zra]

suehiro cerax 320 da best low grit

I love mine too.