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.
First we’re going to start out with a quick video from Alton Brown. He kicks ass. This video is going to go over some of the basics, but then I’m going to point out a few things I’d disagree with slightly.
- Alton doesn’t recommend sharpening a knife at home, but I’d say that you can do that if you’re willing to pay the piper. Read on to get the details.
- Did you see Alton run his finger over the edge of the blade? DON’T EVER, EVER DO THAT! If you did that with one of my blades you might need stitches.
- “Price is not important.” Um, I highly disagree. A cheap knife simply won’t hold an edge. You need a decent piece of steel to make it even worth sharpening.
Now, we also saw the use of a belt grinder and a buffing machine in the video – but they are not at all necessary to achieve a razor sharp edge. In fact, those tools remove a lot of metal very quickly, so it’s better (especially for amateurs) to use a slower more precise process.
The cheapest process (generally speaking) involves the use of a sharpening stone. Here, Seth from Cosmo Knives demonstrates the technique. In order to do this at home you’ll need a bench stone and a strop.
This is something that everyone can easily learn to do at home and see fairly good results quite quickly. It’ll make cutting meats and veggies with that old knife a joy again.
Now, if you’d like to avoid all of that manual labor altogether, I highly recommend the Warthog V-Sharp sharpener for under $100. I have one of these in my kitchen and I use it constantly on my high end Calphalon Katana knives. Here is how it works, and boy does it work… (Here is a complete review on BladeForums.com.)
Finally, when absolutely only the finest piece of equipment will do, the best sharpening system in the world is the Edge Pro. You can pick up the Apex model for under $200, and it is a great kit (I started out with one of these), but for the finest sharpening system money can buy you’re gonna want the Professional model (my personal tool of choice). It’ll run you about $500 complete with all the options.
Now, when I sit down to really sharpen a blade with my Edge Pro it will take me about half an hour. I take my time and do it right, but by the time I’m done I can slice through leather like it was butter. The Edge Pro is manufactured by Ben Dale, one of the nicest guys you’ll ever care to know, and a man you can trust to deliver an unmatched quality instrument. He makes every Pro model by hand, and even personalized mine especially for me.
Here is the training video that demonstrates how to use this unique tool. It takes a little practice, but after about 30 minutes I was an old pro. I’ve used it a hundred times and my friends and family, for whom I’ve sharpened blades, brag about the results to everyone they know.
One last little detail. People in these various videos keep mentioning different angles to sharpen at. First of all, the only systems here that have precision with these settings are the Warthog and EdgePro; however, for the sake of getting the correct info out there, here is what Ben recommends – and I completely concur.
- 13 ° – Very thin flexible knives. Roast slicers, fish fillet blades, etc.
- 15 ° – Thin kitchen knives. Lowest you can use with a cutting board – extremely sharp.
- 17 ° – Most medium duty kitchen knives.
- 19 ° – Thin pocket knives and heavy duty kitchen knives.
- 21 ° – Pocket and thin hunting knives.
- 23 ° – Hunting, chopping and thick pocket knives.
- 25 ° – Very thick blades such as cleavers.
If all of that information still leaves you wanting more, hop on over and read this Sharpening FAQ and it will leave no stone unturned for you.
As always, if you have questions just let me know and I’ll handle them in the comments.
THis is one of the reasons why I love Benchmade knives. You can send them back to the factory to be resharpened anytime you want for $5.
What’s your take on the new Shun Electric Whetstone Knife Sharpener?
That was a very helpful article. Thanks for posting. I have heard of the edge pro and some of my colleagues rave about it. I guess I’m gonna have to get one.
What you said is very useful to me, thank you. At work i use an axe the odd time, i believe there are two ways of sharpening an axe, one for spliting logs and the other for choping trees down. Can you enlighten me on the process.
A thinner angle is sharper but it will become dull very fast. I would go with the recommended 22 degrees, a sharp durable edge.
Great article. Thanks. That Edge Pro looks awesome.
for under 100$, I could see myself buying one of those..
I’ll try and check one out next time we’re at the mall.
Having worked with high end wood chisels, cabinet scrapers, and European hand planes for 25 years, the two most dependent factors in sharpening, (really grinding then honing), are steel quality and its thickness, And after that its intended use will dictate the angle in combination with the thickness.
High carbon steel is best and most easily sharpened using Japanese water stones. 800- 1200 coarseness.Tools or knives with nicks or which are very dull will need dressing on a course stone or grinding wheel. When I finished sharpening chisels you could literally see your reflection inthe polished face.
Water stones are cheap, technique is time invested. You don’t need 200 dollar “machines”, unless you like machines, or just don’t want to take the time to mess with water stones. Not everyones cup of tea I realize.
Good article
but thats a lot of trouble. But maybe that’s because I’ve never used an amazing knife.
Hmm, good luck sharpening such high quality blades. Seems like more trouble than it’s worth, unless you are have some sort of professional need for them? Just take them to a professional to sharpen them. There’s quite a few shops here in australia that will sharpen up most fairly high end blades (not sure about the more exotic ones.. lol take a pilgrimage back to japan or something).
I’m a collector of fixed blade combat knives, which luckily don’t take as much effort to sharpen, but I’d buy more exotic knives and swords if I had your kind of money. hehe.
When you sharpen and shape a TRUE Japanese Katana, you are “polishing” it. Not polish, as in chrome polish. Rather, you are going through a multi-stage manual grinding process using wet stones of varying grain at varying angles.
After getting the metal to the shape you want, you need to use small pieces of fine grained stones and rub them along the blade to bring out the folded steel grain. This also add’s the final razor sharp sheen.
Polishing a Katana is a major effort and masters spend many years practicing that art.
Now, if you have a crappy Katana simulation…then ram that sucker into a regular knife sharpening machine.
very interesting post. I had a few weeks ago a great disussion with a austrian chef. While he would never work with other than his own very heavy knifes (and he is sharpening them himself with a stone) his partner in the kitchen has a set of japanese knifes. They are very light with a very thin but hard blade. According to him he is using them as a Pro longer then a year now and never sharpened them so far… but we also talk about 4.000 US$ for 7 knifes in that case… I stick to the system of Nicole…
Rhoody
That’s funny, I just watched that very same Alton Brown video a couple days ago and thought the same thing when he said price isn’t important. I usually find him highly informative, but sometimes he really misses the mark (as any homebrewer will tell you about his episode on homebrewing beer).
I really didn’t know hardly any of this information. I, perhaps similar to other people, actually thought that the sharpening steel would sharpen. Silly me. In any case, thanks for the videos!
Honestly I will probably not be getting my knives professionally sharpened anytime soon, although that might be a good idea considering how long it’s been since they’ve been sharpened. Someday, maybe, I’ll try to learn to do it on my own. To me, though, it seems like quite a bit of time to invest without a whole lot of reward. But maybe that’s because I’ve never used an amazing knife.
Good article.. I love knives. Just yesterday I was elated to use a new knife I bought for slicing potatoes.. the little things in life :)
John,
Thanks for this blog it was very helpful. Two last questions. I have been using the diamond steel that came with my Katana set. It seems to leave more of a toothy edge on the blade instead of the polished edge that came with the knife and I am not sure it is as sharp as it was out of the box. I am strying to keep it at the recomended 22 degrees that the manufacturer states when drawing the blade across the steel but since I am doing it by eye I am not sure how close to 22 degrees I am. Is it good or OK to use this steel to maintain the knife edge?
Second question, I would probably bring these knives in to a professional here in Chicago to have them sharpened. Same people that sharpen knives at high level restaraunts in our area. Should I tell them to sharpen them at the 22 degrees or would it be best, and recomended, if I want an absolutely razor sharp edge on these knives to have them sharpened at 15 degrees? Thanks
Kirk