What do you do when all the knives in your kitchen are sharp?

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RubbishCook

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I have been practicing sharpening the last couple weeks and I want to continue practicing but all of my knives are sharp. I cannot cook enough to keep up with the amount of sharpening I would like to be doing.

Should I dull my old knives? I want to keep getting better such that I can attempt to sharpen my Wilburn without sending it out.
 
You have friends and family right? Be the sharpening evangelist. Go forth and spread of gospel of keen edges. Trade sharpening services for food with your local friendly restaurants.
 
Friends and family - you'll build up a lot of good karma and they will have sharp knives (most of them for the first time).
 
I even do my coworkers and neighbors knives, especially if they accidentally have something worthwhile (i.e. no freaking full height bolsters.)
 
I guess that's the point when you dive into straight razors, just so you always have something to sharpen. ;)
 
Agree with ideas above, like friends knives and straight razors, and I will add pocket knives, and woodworking hand tools like planes and chisels. Lots of things that need to be sharpened.:pirate1:
 
Opposite end of straight razors - hatchet, Axe, wood chisel, Machete, Garden Tools.
 
flatten the backs of your chisels and planes..
 
You can also hook up with a local favorite restaurant or butcher. Pick one or 2 and do it as a freebie. I also do all my kid's teacher's kitchen knives, some parents of my kids friends.
 
gic said:
I buy oldcarbons on the bay and fix them
Click to expand...

Haha. This sounds a little like a confessional!

One word of warning: sharpening knives made of rubbish stainless doesn't quite give you the same enjoyment as sharpening decent steel. I've sharpened poor quality knives of friends/family and always slightly resent using my nice stones on them.
 
Like the old carbons. Search eBay for vintage knives and Forgecraft and you should be able to pick up a decent carbon in the $20 range. The chef knives are sometimes pricey but the bullnose and the boning knife are cheap and are actually usefully in your kitchen.
 
All of the above advice is good...if you don't feel you need more knives though and your friends all have crappy stainless then I would suggest "cutting across glass" it won't cut but it should immediately dull the edge. If your knives are carbon, just cut some fresh citrus and they will need instant re-sharpening.
 
What your doing with practice of your sharping, is learning how to control holding the proper angle at the contact point of stone, so i recommend getting a 8000K grit finishing stone and keep on with practicing.
 
gic said:
I buy oldcarbons on the bay and fix them
Click to expand...

At some point, I thought that I’d be able to break even doing this as I kept selling them. However, to sell for a higher price consistently (high enough to cover all the shipping costs) I feel like you have to make visually dramatic improvements to the knife on the order of rehandling or something. Sharpening and polishing don’t really cut it.
 
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Go to knife stores around you and offer to fix knives that have been returned either chipped or that client didn’t like. Tell them they can use as demos or loaners or for classes they might offer.
 
Buy a cheap sanmai single bevel and a naural or to and go down the rabbit hole of polishing and kasumi finish it's very rewarding and eats up a lot of time
 
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