vintage knife assortment --- suggestions on stone dimensions, material and grit?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

WellMarbled

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2021
Messages
6
Reaction score
3
Location
Mid-Atlantic U.S.
I'm seeking to sharpen an assortment of long blade, Western-style chefs knives.
Appreciative of advice from bladesmiths & cutlery sharpening senior statesmen (or ladies) on stones I should purchase for the job.
Were there a formal questionnaire re: stone inquiries, I would answer as follows:

LOCATION: Mid-Atlantic U.S.
SHARPENING & STONE EXPERIENCE: None.
NUMBER STONES CURRENTLY OWNED: Zero.
OVERALL GOAL: To sharpen [mostly large and mostly vintage] kitchen knives for active use in our kitchen.
BLADES TO BE SHARPENED: Western-style Chef's knives --- many of them vintage with long blades (8"-12" cutting edge) & several of them broad as measured from heel to spine.
CHEF KNIFE MAKES & STEEL TYPES (most of them forged blades):
Vintage Henckels 10" bone knife ---- sometimes called a lobster/lamb splitter (see pictures; carbon steel of some type).
Vintage French-style chef knives --- no maker's mark ---- (see pictures; carbon steel of some type).
Vintage Dexter 8" Connoiseur (420 high carbon stain free).
Several 1960s-1980s Henckels "no stain friodur" chefs knives & slicers.
ARE YOU SEEKING FUNCTIONAL SHARPENING OR A "TOTAL EXPERIENCE" COMPLETE KNIFE REHAB?: Functional sharpening. Since I'm completely inexperienced, I prefer to navigate to grits that allow for a learning curve (without harming the blades).
JIG-MOUNTED OR FREEHAND? Freehand --- with your suggestions on angle guides for the uninitiated. Hacks, purchased guides ---- whatever you suggest.
HOW MANY STONES DO YOU WANT? 2
WHAT'S YOUR ANTICIPATED SETUP? At-home, stable surface environment. Either inside house (kitchen sink) or outside (table in the sun).
DO YOU NEED TO TAKE OFF SERIOUS METAL? No, I don't think so.....and since I have zero experience I'd rather not risk damaging the blades. At the same time, I DO want to be efficient with the time spent sharpening.
WHAT STONE CHARACTERISTICS DO YOU WANT? Durability (capable of lots sharpening cycles without the need to flatten frequently). Broad utility ---- stones that can handle vintage carbon, vintage stainless and modern stainless will no trouble. Stone dimensions are important, too -- want stones that will make an easier and more effective job of sharpening long, broad blades ---- assume this translates to long and broad stones.
WHAT SHARPENING STONE MATERIAL DO YOU WANT? Within the constraints of durability and stones that are dimensionally conducive to large blades, I am open to ideas.
SOAK vs. Splash 'n' Go vs Oil? Don't know --- first, I want durable stones.
GRIT RANGE? Defer to you ---- I see lots of suggestions for 600/1000 in posts, but you guys are the experts. Based on the pictures and my descriptions, what do you think I need?
HOW LARGE IS YOUR BUDGET?: This is a sub-$50 endeavor.....but if there's a huge step in quality at the breakpoint, might go a bit higher.
ARE YOU A HERETIC WHO WOULD DEIGN TO USE A COMBINATION STONE? If there's a practical reason to do so, then yes.
WHAT HONING STEEL and CUTTING BOARD MATERIALS DO YOU USE? 1980s-ish era Hoffritz honing steel. Plastic cutting mats and hardwood cutting board.

If additional pictures are helpful, please let me know. Thanks for your time and advice!
 

Attachments

  • Western-style vintage cutlery.jpg
    Western-style vintage cutlery.jpg
    127.3 KB · Views: 59
  • French-Style (w bolster).jpg
    French-Style (w bolster).jpg
    50.4 KB · Views: 62
  • French-style (no bolster).jpg
    French-style (no bolster).jpg
    88.3 KB · Views: 56
  • Bone aka Splitter.jpg
    Bone aka Splitter.jpg
    79.3 KB · Views: 50
^

Norton Combi oilstone, and then a King Deluxe 800 or 1200. With a bit of shopping around you may even be able to get both for under $50, maybe. And you'd have three stones :)

(Awesome looking knives btw! @Carl Kotte come check these out...)
 
HumbleHomeCook & cotedupy: Thanks for the feedback. I'll take a look at the specs of the Norton JUM3 and then likely return to thread to ask some follow up questions. (Which may include, " CAN knives of this size be sharpened effectively on commonly available flat stones?").
Separate issue ---- the three knives pictured are the largest blades to be sharpened, and they also are the subject of curiosity on my part. I know very little about these knives. I've taken several pictures of each knife with notes on their characteristics. What is the most appropriate forum here (and maybe elsewhere) for a different thread that might address the topic of likely age, possible makers of the French-style knives, suggested use when manufactured, practical use now, etc. ? Thanks.
 
Your two large French-style knives are either general-purpose chef/kitchen knives or heavy-duty-general-purpose ones, depending on how heavily built they are. That style was intended from the beginning as a good knife to reach for in just about any situation, not as a single-purpose knife. (Obviously the length of these two knives makes them a bit of an acquired taste as far as being your one and only everyday knife. And hopefully you have a cutting board big enough to accommodate them comfortably.)
 
Last edited:
That's very good question actually*... old carbon Westerns I think can indeed be fairly tricky to sharpen on stones. Especially larger ones (as these definitely are), and especially if they're quite thin and have a reasonable amount of flexibility in the blade. It's very definitely doable, but you have to take a bit more time and attention - with a long blade with slight flex your angle is far more difficult to control. Coupled with the fact that the steel in not going to be as posh as expensive Japanese knives - it will be trickier. And that's before you take into the account the finger guards, which makes it trickier again 😬

About the Sabs - you can probably just post a q. in the regular forum here I think. But here's my 2c...

They're both *big* chef's knives. If you have no maker's mark then it's going to be basically impossible to tell who made them.

At a very rough guess I'd have thought the one with the bolster is a French Sab from around 1950 - 1970.

The one without the bolster I'd be less sure about. It clearly doesn't have its original handle, and some of the finger guard had been ground down. Probably to help sharpen after over-steeling; it might have been a bit longer originally, or at least a slightly different shape. It's certainly been modified / restored at some point, but I imagine also French, and probably a bit older than the first.

There are a load of far more knowledgable people here than me about this kind of stuff, but just my thoughts!



* And not one that I'd really given that much thought to before.
 
In the broader knife world, the rule of thumb is to have a stone at least equal to or longer than your blade. But the common techniques used outside of the water stone and kitchen knife world are different. For say a hunting or camping knife, you'll find a whole lot of people who sharpen in one long sweep from heel to toe and vice versa. For those folks (and this was the case for myself for a long time) that technique carries over to kitchen knives where the longest blade usually encountered is 8". It isn't a coincidence that 6" and 8" stones are so prevalent. :)

Now, even though what I recommended is an oil stone, I think the common water stone "scrubbing' technique and working in smaller spots of the blade is much better for longer knives. In short, it isn't the stone that dictates the technique, just what you learned.

So the stone size becomes less critical with this technique. The stone I recommended is 11" and size wise will be fine. The two larger ones may have some challenges. As @cotedupy said, if they flex, that is a pain and requires lighter pressure. The courser stones will help compensate if that is the case.

It also just means more opportunity to screw up because there is more edge to work on. Don't stress it, mistakes happen. Go slow and check often. These should be very soft and amicable to burr formation.

The bolsters will also be a pain in the ass but you can deal with those after you have sharp edges.

A Sharpie to mark the bevel will help guide you. Watch videos to see different approaches.

Big Brown Bear
Jef Jewell
Mr. Edgy
Peter Nowlan (don't get hung up on pressure here)

Are good places to start.
 
Thanks, DavidPF & thanks again cotedupy & HumbleHomeCook.
Appreciate your time to comment and assist re: specifics of appropriate stones & technique.
I foresee lots of shorter practice blades in my future before I attempt the three behemoths pictured.

Re: steel characteristics of the three "big boys" pictured:
If the French-style blades are soft amicable to burr formation does this mean I should lower my expectations the blades will hold an edge?
I ask b/c however ridiculous it might be, I wanted to use these knives in my kitchen from time to time.....for my own amusement if nothing else.
BUT, I would become frustrated by a knife requiring steeling every 5 minutes to align the cutting edge.
Since I acquired these knives the only measure I've taken is steeling (Hoffritz from the 80s). That, merely to discover the sharpness of each blade. Would the 80s Hoffritz steel likely damage these blades or is it ok to use on the knives while I build the confidence to sharpen them?
Henckels "Bone" knife or "splitter": How does this german steel compare to that of the french blades in edge formation and retention?
On posting a thread with broader exposure on historical uses, current use, possible makers, discussion of relative characteristics of these knives I will take additional photos and post in the main forum --- probably will take a couple days for me to fulfill.
 
Just a few remarks. About the French with a full bolster: from the picture I get the impression the bevel is for a large part following the fingerguard. That would mean that the blade is extremely thick behind the edge. This is no knife: it has been grossly transformed into a poor axe. Even an experienced home sharpener would hesitate to start such a project. My guess is, powered tools have been used — or more precisely abused — to obtain this result. Quite likely that the very edge has been overheated. So, not only heavy thinning — in fact: regrinding — is necessary, but also a few millimetres of the edge are to be considered as lost as the steel just won't take any edge. The overheating has made it very soft.
No job for a novice.
If you want to learn sharpening, start with a decent thin carbon knife to get the basics. Raising a burr, chasing it, getting rid of it.
Certainly no fingerguard correction, heavy thinning, profile change.
As for the stainless ones: soft stainless is very abrasion resistant. If knives have been neglected they have become far to thick behind the edge. Nothing you can reasonably do with a sharpening stone.
Best you can do is sending them out.
 
Last edited:
I hope, it is an optical illusion.

So I have a knife that's very similar to this, but marginally shorter: mine's about 9 inches. And yes on mine it's the bolster/finger guard becoming the edge. It takes about 1.5 - 2 inches before it gets to a proper edge. I've just looked at mine and it's also about that point where a noticeable and quite strong distal taper starts kicking in on the spine. I presume that bit of the knife is just kinda not really meant to be used (?)

It's obviously pretty annoying when sharpening. And the solution (as you said) would involve quite a fair bit of grinding, possibly to just take off the entire finger guard and thin that early section. I've done a bit of grinding, and work with a belt sander quite a lot, but I'm not about to try it on mine. Definitely agree that that'd be one for the experts!

The other thing you said above that should really be pointed out far more often is: Good Japanese knives are far easier to sharpen than this kind of thing. You quite often see people say they're going to start out on nice, easy, soft steels / cheaper knives, and then move onto doing their posher knives from harder steels... Please, if you can, do it the other way round! At the very least it will make you feel good about your sharpening quite quickly, and not result in may hours of frustration and thinking you'll just never get there :)

(I'm not saying OP said this btw, it's just something I occasionally notice. And I speak from personal experience - I learned sharpening on Globals and old Sabs 😬. Globals are particularly awful.)
 
whether or not major work is required to rehab the two pictured french-style knives, should I expect the steel type to hold a good cutting edge?
 
whether or not major work is required to rehab the two pictured french-style knives, should I expect the steel type to hold a good cutting edge?
Yes. Not like harder carbon steels in fancier knives most of have, but yes. Many professional Chef's have used knives like those. Or worse! 😱
 
whether or not major work is required to rehab the two pictured french-style knives, should I expect the steel type to hold a good cutting edge?

I agree 100% with @M1k3 and will add that in my opinion, edge retention for the home cook is over emphasized. Use a good cutting board and routinely maintain the edge (I prefer a strop but others like yourself may prefer rods).
 
whether or not major work is required to rehab the two pictured french-style knives, should I expect the steel type to hold a good cutting edge?
There’s a caveat I must add.
With a vintage you knever know what has happened to it. It's perfectly common to have a millimetre or so of steel to be abraded before you reach fresh steel that hasn't been fatigued by very common oversteeling.
When powered instruments were used, or very poor grinders, overheating is likely to have occurred. I've seen knives where it took more than 5 millimetres before arriving at steel that took and holded an edge.
For home use, you may sharpen as you do with harder steel types. French carbons benefit from high polish. If better edge retention is required, round the very edge on purpose when polishing, e.g. with Cr2O3 charged leather. If the area behind the edge is thin, performance won't noticeably suffer, but retention will increase dramatically. Avoid steeling rods. Those are emergency tools in a hectic professional kitchen. Use cardboard followed by charged and finally bare leather for maintenance.
 
If you have no special relationship to vintages and are for the time being unable to make them work properly, it might be an option to sell them and buy a new, carbon chef's knife you can easily learn to maintain.
A decent, simple Japanese carbon chef's will cost you less than US$100. Fujiwara Kanefusa FKH Series Gyuto (180mm to 300mm, 5 sizes)
For maintenance, you will need a medium and a fine stone, say a 1000 and a 3000 grit. Together again $100.
Selling the knives may provide the necessary funds.
 
The vintage knives I pictured have an over-the-top blade length, but a rustic countryside aesthetic I really like. I plan to keep them and attempt sharpening them. I have a number of other kitchen knives (6,8,10" blade lengths) to be sharpened as well. 3 follow-up questions:
1) On the King Deluxe (800/1200) stone recommendations --- is there a resource for identifying the manufacturer's size options for these and other brands of stones? (Perhaps I've overlooked it --- I'd like to consider stones closer to 11"-12" in length. Presumably there is a manufacturer size chart available somewhere.....)
2) On sharpening technique - any thoughts on a simple wood-frame jig I might construct and use with long stones. Something with a simple clamp or slot for holding blade spine and a built-in angle guide for sweeping the cutting edge over the stone at the correct angle and consistent pressure?
3) Simple DIY jig idea that might use rods instead of stones ---- anyone construct and use one of these (simple --- not complex) that works well for sharpening long kitchen blades?
 
I may be wrong about this but I think the Kings just come in one size - mine is a smidge over 8 inches.

I was about to say that you're unlikely to find a stone that's 11 or 12 inches, but then saw HumbleHomeCook's response above... so what do I know eh! ;)

And obviously go for a jig and angle guide by all means, but I think maybe we've worried you too much about the difficulty in sharpening these knives... They're not going to be that tricky to sharpen, and I think you'll probably get better results by hand, especially on the ones with finger guards. Bear in mind also that because of the blade's shapes you might not want to just run them in a straight line up and down the stone - I would tend to raise the sharpening angle very slightly getting toward the tip of a knife. But maybe that's just me.
 
Last edited:
The use of a jig system won't help with the necessary thinning behind the edge.
As for the fingerguard, have seen a lot of overgrinding near to it. Far from simple.
 
Don't concern yourself with anything right now other than straight forward sharpening. Just observe the current sharpened edge, mark it with a Sharpie to give you a visual reference and drag it across the stone.

Don't worry about pressure right now. Just enough to be solid. Angle is what matters. The marker will tell you how you are holding it. Start with a one of your smaller knives, say something in the 6-8" range. People say pairing knives are great learners but I've not found that to be true as they are so small many people struggle with keeping them steady.

Don't over think this right now. Find your angle, get a burr on one side, flip it over and do the same on the other. Then strop it on some denim or cardboard.

Yes, you will make mistakes but as long as you go slow they won't be catastrophic. Folks are always here to help.
 
Sorry @Benuser... I've just properly looked at and zoomed in on the pics, and compared it to mine. And you're right - it's definitely a grinding thing here, not just the slight taper to the edge which mine has.

But anyway... what @HumbleHomeCook said above! Don't overthink stuff. Sharpening's not tricky :)
 
Back
Top