Sharpening Knives

For my birthday/Fathers Day, one of my sons bought me this Ruixin Pro Knife Sharpener. All I can says is "Wow! This is going to require a learning curve". There are 4 different stones with it and an adjustable base to set it from 10 to 25 degrees. There are a few YouTube videos about how to use it. I'm practicing on a stainless chef's knife that came with an inexpensive set I've had for years. When I think I have it figured out, I'll work on my Japanese chef knife that I've had for 2 years (also a gift from the same son), which has not only lost it's edge but has become jagged. Until now I had been using ceramic sharpeners that one simply draws the knife through and I always wondered why having having knives sharpened was so expensive. Hmm.... Maybe if I get this down pat, I could start a new career.

[Robin Garr]

I hope you enjoy it, Howie! Keep us posted as you climb up the learning curve.

One thought: Conventional wisdom is that there's not much to be gained from sharpening stainless steel, as the metal is too hard to yield well to anything short of possibly a diamond stone. It'll be interesting to see whether you're more impressed with the results on carbon steel than stainless.

I hope you enjoy it, Howie! Keep us posted as you climb up the learning curve.

One thought: Conventional wisdom is that there's not much to be gained from sharpening stainless steel, as the metal is too hard to yield well to anything short of possibly a diamond stone. It'll be interesting to see whether you're more impressed with the results on carbon steel than stainless.

Thanks for that tip.

I'll be curious to hear how this goes as well. I have a three-way stone set, and I've never been able to get the kind of edge that the guy who charges for it does.

Can't count how many friends are under the impression that using a steel on a knife sharpens it (it doesn't, it just resets the curled edge so it bites better for awhile), so even your motor driven grinder is a step ahead of that, though I hate what they do to good knives.

I have to agree with Robin that while stainless knives will keep an edge a long time, getting them sharp again is a pain and possibly a job better left to a knife shop. Just about every knife I use regularly is high carbon steel which takes a sharper edge to begin with and is much quicker to touch up or sharpen in any case.

I use a two sided Japanese stone for my knives and if you watch a decent video of the technique, you actually won't need the angled rests etc. - those are helpers for beginners. Try that system and see if you like it, but also try just a stone and see if that suits you. And buy at least one decent high carbon steel blade so you can assess the difference.