One of my readers (Kirk) wrote in with the following question:

I have just purchased the whole set of Katana knives plus a few extra to fill the block. My question is, how the heck do you use that steel properly to keep them as sharp as they were out of the box? Is that even possible? I have ran several of them on the steel at the recomended 22 degrees and it seems to change the edge. Don’t get me wrong, they are still very sharp, but they don’t pop hairs off my arm as they did right out of the box.

Great question Kirk, and I’ve got a rather complex answer for you. As far as sharpening the Katana knives - or any other knife for that matter - you need to know that, just like everything else on Earth, there are varying degrees of cost associated with higher levels of performance. So, I’m going to give you a ton of information here, and you can then make a decision as to which way to go based on your budget and willingness to put in some elbow grease.
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As a professionally trained Bladesmith I’m often asked for my opinion on affordable, commercially available cutlery that can be purchased locally. Since I’ve answered this question many times for friends and family I thought it might be useful to share here on the Blog.

Before we get started let me just say that there are a lot of different factors that go into the selection of a good set of knives, and if done properly there is no reason that a high quality kitchen knife can’t be put to service for 20 years or more.

Some of the factors that influenced my recommendations include steel composition, durability, “feel” or balance, aesthetics, and sanitary considerations.
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Now days, when I think of India I think of a hot dry climate, a billion people, call centers and engineers. But this is a country with a long, rich history that predates most Western civilizations.

Here is an interesting video which demonstrates many of the inventions from ancient India including things such as the number 0, cotton, art, and more. In fact, about 37 minutes into the video, they discuss the manufacture of Wootz - or Damascus - steel, used for making the finest swords ever created.
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Daniel Gentile, a bladesmith in Switzerland, recently posted a video online demonstrating many of the steps involved in the production of Damascus - or pattern-welded steel.

Those of you who know me are aware that I am also a Bladesmith and I studied under four separate American Bladesmith Society Master Bladesmiths, Joe Flournoy, Mike Williams, James Cook and Steve Dunn.

Among my courses of study, Damascus production was the toughest. There are only a few hundred people on the planet that can make this stuff, and once you make a billet of it you still need to be able to turn it into an actual finished blade and then a completed knife.
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Over the past two days, I completed the setup of my new CNC Plasma cutting machine (also see PlasmaCAM Part 1), and man is it awesome!

After physically constructing the cutting table, I needed to do a little wiring in my Hypertherm PowerMax 1000 plasma torch so that it would interface with the control box of the PlasmaCAM in order to allow the machine to turn the torch on and off. The instruction video had me really worried because it kept talking about needing to have a professional electrician install the wiring and then perform a huge batch of tests in order to ensure everything was OK.
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Today a dream came true. For about two years now I’ve been planning, comparing, procrastinating… but today my new CNC Plasma Cutting machine arrived.

After comparing a wide variety of machines including DynaCNC, PlasmaCAM, Practical CNC, TorchMate, Dynatorch, and MultiCam, I settled on the PlasmaCAM for the following reasons:
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