My parents are hassling us for a Christmas present idea.
One thing we need is a kitchen knife sharpener.
I would be predisposed to suggest an old fashioned "steel" but brief research reveals several different technologies are out there....and there is no obvious technical advantage to any one:
Since there is no shortage of opinions in uk.d-i-y , I'd be interested in opinions on the relative merits of:
"Whetstones" "Steels" Electric rotary sharpeners Manual sharpeners that you draw the knife through.
Steels are desiged to straighten the bent edge of old soft steel knives , and are used between sharpenings. Theyr entirely untuited to use as a sole sharpening device on modern blades.
Whether your chosen abrasive is hand or motor powered is a matter of preference. I'd go for a bench grinder rather than that overpriced consumer stuff.
I use an India oil stone, the large rectangular block type with a course and a fine side, and have no problem sharpening up blades near razor sharp with it. A good quality India oil stone in a wooden box would be my recommendation. I've never got on with steels, and they just don't work for me.
My grandfather used to be superb at sharpening knives -- he owned a dress making factory and one of the skilled jobs is that of the cutter, which he would sometimes do. This involves laying up to 50? sheets of fabric on each other, pinning the pattern to the top one, and then cutting around it, though all the layers of fabric, with an extremely sharp knife (or the stack of fabric moves, and the dresses made from lower down the stack end up rather strange shapes). The knife is retoned a number of times during the process on a giant strop. The cutting knives were eventually replaced with an electric knife (with which he managed to cut the tops of two fingers off, although they were stitched back on). I'm sure it would all be computer driven nowadays.
Whenever we went round there for Sunday lunch or similar, he was quite a showman when it came to sharpening up the carving knives. He would often sharpen up two carving knives against each other. It looked like he was using a steel until he stopped, and you realised he was using two knives. They finished up like razors -- I remember my dad commenting that it was pretty impossible to carve with them as you couldn't feel when you were carving through the bone. Wish I'd been a bit older at the time and taken more notice or even got a lesson in doing it - not the sort of thing you teach an 8 year old.
Traditional Steels do not sharpen knives but simply tidy the edge formed when sharpening. (Diamond "steels" are somewhat different and do have a sharpening action).
The best knife sharpener by far that I've found is the Edgecraft 420
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is a larger picture of it at
from a seller in the USA but there is a UK supplier somewhere. I've bought mine at the London Model Engineering Exhibition where they usually have a stand.
The handle and size makes it very easy to hold and allows for the required "limp wrist" hold to get a good sharp edge. They also seem to last for ages. I've got one which is 10 years old and as good as new. Every so often you clean grot from the abrasive surface by rubbing a bit of Pledge or washing up liquid over it and rinsing it..
As well as being an excellent knife sharpener you have the added advantage of a medium and coarse diamond file as well as the fine for sharpening chisels and other applications.
description makes it sound like a bit of a gimmicky gadget but it really does work, we've been using ours for well over 25 years and it does exactly what it says on the tin. It works by rolling the cutting edge into shape rather than by grinding metal off so it won't be able to put a cutting edge onto a really blunt knife that never had a sharp edge to begin with but it will keep good kitchen knives sharp without wearing them away. A Google search shows you should be able to get them for about 6 quid less elsewhere.
We use a little cheap gadget bought about 20 years ago and I still see them for sale. 'Kitchen Devil' rings a bell?
It takes the form of two round steels which form a cross, one end of each steel is molded into a black plastic handle. You just stroke the blade gently through where the sharpener steels cross. Knives finish up with a razor edge after just a couple of strokes.
It works superbly well, except for the fact that one of the steels is loose and sometimes comes out of the plastic moulding, plus the fact that you hold the sharpener between thumb and finger - If you draw the knife too far back, it can come out of the sharpener and give you quite a nick. I therefore tend to place the sharpener in a vice to hold it, rather than hold it in my hand.
You're using it wrong! Put the blade INSIDE the area formed by the cross and the handle. Then the blade goes away from your other hand if it comes out.
ISTR that one way was recommended for straight edged knives and another for wavy edged knives, plus yet another for scissors etc - but as we've lost the instructions I may well be wrong. Anyone still got them pl?
can't beat a good sharpening stone .... I use 2 grades of oil stones on kitchen knives .. once a year task ready for Xmas dinner ... and a butchers steel during the year to keep the edge.
On work tools I use a diamond stone with a light oil (or paraffin etc.)
Rat tail file and fine wheel. It's sharper now than its ever been. Just sharpened our old bread knife after daughter cut down her leather boots with it. I had a read through these pages
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But didn't have the right tools to hand, so did it my way instead. :-)
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