[HN Gopher] Forming an Edge
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Forming an Edge
Author : visviva
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-09-05 19:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
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| dekhn wrote:
| When I worked in food service the knives were rotated weekly and
| came back super sharp. It was really nice- a really sharp knife,
| properly handled, is a real pleasure to use.
|
| At home, I'm lazy and never have my knives sharpened- yet my one
| high quality knife is still pretty good after 5+ years of not
| being sharpened (it no longer cuts skin when drawn across it
| lightly). I did learn a trick- for most situations, a scalloped
| knife with with light serrations slices through tomatoes and
| never needs sharpening.
| wormhauskrar wrote:
| forbidden
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| What do you mean?
| [deleted]
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| To anyone considering getting into knife sharpening:
|
| Usability matters more than perfection. If you're the type of
| person that would only sharpen knives once a year because it
| takes half hour to set up your sharpening rig and sharpen your
| knife, get an electric sharpener instead - takes about 15
| seconds. Yes, it's not glorious or Instagram-pretty, but it gets
| the job done well.
|
| For hand sharpening - look up micro-bevels. They speed up
| sharpening time considerably (still not as fast as electric
| sharpeners though).
| daveguy wrote:
| Sticking with the usability theme -- get a leather strop and
| some stropping compound! It's so much easier to pass all the
| sharpness tests and keep an edge on a knife if you use a strop.
| It doesn't require as much precision due to the way the leather
| molds to the surface of the edge. Quick, easy, and effective
| assuming you already have a decently formed edge.
| hammock wrote:
| PSA don't sharpen or strop in your kitchen- it's a dirty
| business. You will have invisible metal shavings (chromium,
| nickel) that make it into your food and strop compound is
| made of aluminum oxide and chromium oxide.
| roflyear wrote:
| Maintenance is more important than sharpening - and maintenance
| should be done almost every time you use the knife and should
| just take a minute.
| amluto wrote:
| > If you're the type of person that would only sharpen knives
| once a year because it takes half hour to set up your
| sharpening rig and sharpen your knife, get an electric
| sharpener instead
|
| This is an obsolete dichotomy. There are excellent modern low-
| porosity stones that you can get wet and use immediately. For
| example, resin bonded diamond (e.g. CGS, Venev, Naniwa
| Diamond), Shapton Glass (unspecified "ceramic"), or diamond-in-
| nickel (DMT).
|
| The idea of a long progression of expensive stones seems to be
| almost entirely a myth -- there seems to be no actual benefit,
| and possibly quite a bit of wasted time and increased chance of
| entirely failing to get a good edge, if you use a zillion
| different grits. A cheap coarse stone or two and one
| (expensive) medium-fine stone is plenty, and you won't touch
| that coarse stone if your knife is already in decent shape.
| Throw in a strop loaded with a decent abrasive and you can
| maintain your knife in a minute or two.
|
| (I use a cheap balsa wood strop loaded with 1 micron CBN
| suspended in water. Total setup time to strop a knife is
| however long it takes to get it out of a drawer. WEAR A REAL
| MASK and work outside while applying the CBN -- I seriously
| doubt that inhaling a fine mist of tiny minerals is a good
| idea.)
| p1necone wrote:
| > only sharpen knives once a year
|
| If you have a decent quality knife you do only need to sharpen
| it once a year + give it a few swipes on a honing steel every
| time you use it.
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| Hell no. It depend a lot of the angle of the edge, the steel
| hardness and how and where you use it. I hone mine every 3 to
| 4 weeks, and I'm gentle with my Global chef's knives
| p1necone wrote:
| I hone mine every time I use it with a steel. Honing is not
| the same thing as sharpening - op was talking about
| sharpening.
|
| (For those curious - the sharp edge on the knife tends to
| bend over time, which makes it worse at cutting. Running it
| over a honing steel helps to straighten that bend out but
| doesn't actually remove metal from the blade. The actual
| edge will stay sharp for much longer and so you only need
| to _properly_ sharpen (with a whetstone or if you hate your
| knives one of those awful swipy wedge things) a decent
| knife once every 6 months - a year.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Another side of this... if you're on a budget, you can turn a
| crap knife into a pretty serviceable knife with a very basic
| setup. I've got a pair of santokus that were about $20 each
| (one bigger one for meat and large veggies, smaller one for
| small veggies) and a set of 3 progressively finer sharpening
| stones from Princess Auto (the Canadian equivalent to Harbour
| Freight). About once a month I take the two knives and give
| them about 5 passes on each side, with the bevel set basically
| at the angle I get if I have a finger in between the spine and
| the stone. Takes about 45 seconds and they get sharp enough to
| pass the tomato test.
|
| They don't maintain their edge, but I've had fantastic slicing
| for a decade now for $50.
| p1necone wrote:
| Yep, the distinction between crappy knives and good knives is
| generally more about how long they hold an edge for rather
| than how sharp that edge is.
|
| Victorinox make knives that are good _and_ cheap though. They
| 're the only brand I know of at that price point that I
| really wouldn't mind using instead of something quite a bit
| more expensive like Global.
|
| Assuming a certain baseline quality of steel, the most
| important thing in a knife is how comfortable the handle is
| and whether the balance/weight is right for your particular
| taste and grip.
| Nzen wrote:
| tl;dr A meditation on how people achieve knife sharpness by
| (former? chef) TW Lim. This touches on steel heat treatment and
| grinding angles. Poetic language. Hosted on ghost (mentioning
| this in case you are allergic to subscription websites).
| [deleted]
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