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+-- Thread: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? (/showthread.php?tid=7363528)
Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - Juss1 - 06-22-2021
Ok thanks to youtube algorithim I've been watching a several knife sharpening videos lately. Mostly kitchen knives. Alot of them in fact use the same or similar shaptons I already have. In the past I've always just used those cheap hand held sharpeners with the V openings to sharpen my knives. I thought about trying out some of the techniques shown on the videos but I'm worried using my more expensive stones is a bad idea? Might be a totally stupid question but is knife sharpening more prone to damaging the stone? Should I just get some cheaper stones to practice on? I always honing guides when sharpening the bevel sides of the irons.
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - barryvabeach - 06-23-2021
I don't use stones too often to sharpen knives, but when I do, I don't notice any harm to the stones, as long as you are careful. I guess if you pushed forward with the blade and were inattentive, you could nick a stone? Otherwise, I don't see an issue. I prefer a system like the Edge Pro Apex - though I just bought a few stones and made my own. With a digital tilt box, it is pretty easy to get a fairly consistent angle on each side of the knife.
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - AHill - 06-23-2021
Most sharpening stones were developed to sharpen knives in the first place. Since kitchen knife steel is generally softer than tool steels like O1 and A2, it shouldn't wear the stone any faster than your chisels or plane blades. Same care and maintenance required of your stones. Keep them flat, etc. I wouldn't worry about it.
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - hbmcc - 06-23-2021
It's pretty easy to gouge a softer water stone since much of the motion is nearly parallel to the blade edge. Know nothing of Shapton's.
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - OneStaple - 06-23-2021
You can absolutely sharpen a kitchen knife using your stones. Many kitchen knife enthusiasts use synthetic waterstones or natural Japanese sharpening stones. Obviously, you need to learn good technique for holding a constant angle, just like you would for freehand sharpening a chisel or plane blade. With a little practice, it's not nearly as hard a it first seems.
Many German/western style knives (Henkels, Wustof, etc.) have much softer metal than most plane blades. For those, it is usually not worth going over about a 1000 grit stone, maybe lower.
Some of the Japanese knife makers (there are many excellent ones, with Shun being the most well known in America) use much harder steels in general. Similar to how Japanese chisels usually have a harder steel at the edge (with softer steel laminated on top) than western chisels. Some Japanese knives are fairly simple carbon steels hardened much higher, and some can be very exotic steels that are hard to sharpen. In general, these can benefit from a much higher grit stone than western knives (the size of the carbides in the steel make a difference in how high is worth going). And, like plane blades, some sharpening stones are more or less up to the task of sharpening a particular steel.
Tyler
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - Pedder - 06-25-2021
I've a small artificial Arkansas to sharpen knifes.
Works a sharme and doesn't hurt the shaptons.
Cheers
Pedder
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - Gary G™ - 06-27-2021
My daughter is a chef; she sharpens her knives using water stones.
From what I remember, they’re the expensive Japanese soft stones.
A stone is a consumable. Consider it as such.
RE: Does knife sharpening wear stones faster? - Timberwolf - 06-27-2021
(06-27-2021, 12:30 PM)Gary G™ Wrote: My daughter is a chef; she sharpens her knives using water stones...........
From what I remember, they’re the expensive Japanese soft stones.
A stone is a consumable. Consider it as such.
I think most stones work by wearing away the soft matrix, exposing new, sharp grains, the exception being ceramic hones..they never seem to show any signs of wear, but OTOH, the ones I have don't cut very quickly either.