My buddy who is a head chef says he uses 400-4000 grit to sharpen his knives for daily use and he doesn't notice a huge difference after that. He has far nicer knives than me.
I personally use a 6000/1000 grit stone I got on Amazon for $30. Sharpening knives isn't really hard to do, it just takes a little bit of time to learn what the nuances are. I have lower grit, but I don't generally feel the need to use those. Just the 1000/6000 to bring the blade back up to super sharp.
https://whetstonecentral.com/whetsto...any-confusion/
First thing to learn is whether you want the Japanese style or Western style of sharpening. (Symmetrical vs single bevel)
https://www.sharpen-up.com/western-v...-style-knives/
After that:
- Start with a sharpening steel if you have it to straighten the blade.
- Gently use a lower grit to work off some material for chips or thin the metal and prep it to hold a slick edge. (can skip if knife is in good shape)
- Use a higher grit (ie: 2000-4000+) to sharpen. Use much more pressure here.
- Push away from yourself holding the knife at around 15-20 degrees (andlge of approximately a match book)
Biggest tips:
- For lubrication, I only ever use water. Higher grit stones I just splash some water, on my 1000 grit + stone I soak it in room temp water for a few minutes. Quickly rinse stone if too much material is on the stone.
- Pressure. You have to maintain decent pressure. For my stone it means I hear a sound that kinda sounds a little more like the grating of the whetstone instead of just the metal scraping on stone. This was my biggest error after my buddies showed me the proper way of doing things. This essentially meant I was pressing way too lightly and not creating a good burr which meant I didn't have a thin enough edge for a sharp blade as sharp as I wanted it.
- Passes. Totally up to you. Don't worry about taking off too much material if you're using 2000 grit plus. It's pretty darn hard to do by hand. The reason why an electric sharpener is not recommended is that it takes way too much off and uses a relatively low grit. It's taking several times more material per sharpening that if you do it yourself. You might remove a couple mm of material in a few years vs probably barely achieving that in a decade if doing it by hand. I personally do around 20-30 passes on each section of the knife, flip it over, do another 20-30 passes, then flip it over one last time to do 5-10 passes before using the steel. This is easily sharp enough to pass the paper cutting test, but you can still go sharper if you prefer. Some people suggest doing 2-5 times that for passes, but I don't know if they are using the same level of pressure. Sharpening should take a few minutes. Some people claim it takes like 10-20 minutes per knife. That's way too long IMO.
- Speed: It's better to be slow and consistent than fast and inconsistent. After around the 3rd or 4th time of a good sharpening, you'll naturally get faster.
Sharpening for the first time. Don't start with your nice knives. You can't really truly mess it up if you're following a guide, but you might scuff it. The scuffs will mostly go away with a super high grit (ie: a nail buffer), but most people want to avoid ugly cosmetics on a nice knife. The scuffs will not affect the performance of the knife. If your knife has a pattern (ie: Damascus) absolutely do not start learning on that knife. Get a cheap one to learn on. You only need one to learn on.
Using the correct technique (corrected by my buddy), I felt like I had the concept down pat after around the 3rd knife and I felt consistent around the 5th knife. I only started sharpening about two years ago give or take. I think I felt confident with my own technique (pressure, passes etc.) around the 10th knife. I sharpened knives with both Japanese and Western methods and I sharpened knives ranging from chef knives and cleavers to steak knives and small paring knives.
One thing I quickly realized is that many "crappy knives" were due to poor sharpening or sharpening with a grit too low. Many knives are quite decent when sharpened well. Heck, you can turn a butter knife into a steak knife just by sharpening it. I wouldn't suggest doing this though. Putting a sharp edge on something so unassuming is kinda asking for trouble.
I've sharpened my knives, my parents knives and my in-laws knives. I find it kinda relaxing and they're happy to have nice sharp knives to use. I even "revived" some of their underutilized knives which were just knives that were dull/poorly sharpened with a very low grit stone.
Sharpening Kitchen Knives
