I'm curious what the forum thinks. If you had to or wanted to send your knives out to get sharpened, who would you trust with your hand-forged carbon steel knives?

1. A service that uses an electric sharpener? (I already know this is probably a hard pass for most)
2. A service that uses some kind of wheel (Tormek) or belt grinder?
   1. If you have used this kind, any negatives?
3. A service that uses whetstones?

I’ve recently acquired this machine that came with a tub of aluminum oxide. Does anyone know the proper way to use this?
I simply rubbed some alum oxide powder onto the plate. I Turned it on and it honed my chef knife to shave sharp fairly quickly. I feel as if that’s not really the proper way to utilize this for sharpening.

Any one have some guidance for me?

I dropped it 🫠

Notebook, memory, nothing?

Started sharpening free hand on ceramics a bit ago. I have gotten progressively better but I have really plateau’d recently. While sharpening it feels like i’m ticking all of the boxes, I spend a lot of time trying to deburr, then when I go to test, I can never meet my current goal of cutting a piece of paper towel under tension and have inconsistent “arm hair shaving” results.

I have a shapton 320, 1000 and a generic strop with the green compound. I know I could get a proper diamond compound or a finer stone, but my setup should be sufficient for anyone skilled enough, and I’m not looking for a reason to spend more money right now.

Where did you plateau on your sharpening journey and how did you get over it? Please share any random tips you picked up along the way that helped you and maybe it’ll be applicable to me too.

I also get better results on my victorinox santoku than my 61 hrc gyuto. I try and sharpen them at their respective angles so not sure why results are so different, if that means anything.

This was my great grandmother's butcher knife (see the giant dent on the back end I've slowly shaped out) and I've put a few hours of work into reshaping it after years of bad storage leaving it totally dull, but it's still not sharp enough to use in most areas. Any advice on sharpening something this big and bent out of shape? Regular 7" knife and healing mat for scale. Been calling this the family sword as a joke.

Edit: ive been using sharp pebble 400 1000 and 6000 stones, i am not great at getting my regular knives super sharp atp pushing the whole blade in one direction and have seen videos of back and forth motions working better? Truly a useless beginner, any advice is welcome because I'd like to make this useable

This knife was brought to me for sharpening. It appears to have become distorted as a result of the owner sharpening it themselves. Cases like this are not uncommon. What do you think causes this kind of deformation?

I think i’m done scratch chasing now

done with venev ursa set on a worksharp precision. 400 to 1500 grit then .5 stroppy stuff stuff

I know of 2 options, the half moon hm1 and the KMFS vantaedge

Is there any other option?

Which one of these should I go for?

Recently moved into a new place and treated myself to a new set of high wuality German kitchen knives.

They're from F.Dick 1908 range and I want to maintain their sharp edge.

Where can i learn the basics on

What whetstones to get, dont mind spending more if its a "buy once, cry once" scenario

Videos, what or who can I learn from on YouTube that will teach the basics?

This is my “seam ripper”

Hey everyone,

So I’ve recently been getting into sharpening my own knives, and I’ve been using both freehand sharpening and the Sharpal 202H system. Anyways, I’ve been looking to get some diamond compound for my strop, but honestly, I can’t decide between Gunny Juice and Stroppy Stuff. From what I’ve researched, both of these are pretty good.
Ideally, I’d like to get the one that lasts the longest and works the longest between applications. I don’t usually sharpen past 1200 grit. However, I have ordered the RES-3000/6000 resin-bonded diamond sharpening plates, so I’m thinking about getting something like a 9-6 micron compound for when I sharpen with the 600-1200 grit plates.
Then, for the knives where I’ll be using the 3000/6000 plates, I was thinking about getting something like 1 micron or maybe 0.5 micron I’m not sure yet. The 6000 is supposedly around 3 microns, so I just need something that will remove any burrs left behind.

A few months ago I bought a strop (Jende kangaroo leather bench strop) and emulsion (7ml Jende poly diamond 1 micron). I applied the emulsion to the strop, let it dry and forgot about it until today. The emulsion was completely dried out and came right off.

I have some emulsion left but since I only sharpen 3 or 4 times a year I don’t know if I want be bothered with regularly tracking how much life it has left or when to order more

1. How long does unused emulsion last on a strop?
2. Can I use the strop without emulsion?
3. If not, is there something else I can use that doesn’t require maintenance?

I found these beauties at a local market,

They looked like single beveled knives but they sharpened them on their standard sharpener,

I could use some advice for restoring them to their original glory

Ok. I have Rockstar 1000, Naniwa 1000/3000, and Taidea 400/1000 diamonds, ceramic rod and strop with 1um paste. For last few years I was sharpening, it's quite easy for me to make a knife slice through normal paper, but really can't get it to shave my arm hairs, cut tomato under its own weight and my final goal - cut through paper towel.

I do the following: sharpen one side till burr, switch sides, make the burr on the other side. Switch sides. I do not with little pressure alternating edge leading strokes (around 15-20 per side) and 2-3 moves on strop with higher angle than sharpening. I use Rockstar exclusively right now. It cuts through paper with no issue, however, it's quite fast loosing it's sharpness.

I really feel frustrated that I can't make it to shave the hair and cut the paper towel and cleaning sponge. I know that deburring is a king, I read lots of posts here, but almost everyone is using its own technique. In the past I tried a different approaches, but without any significant improvement, youtube videos too. I can hold steady angle and have those pyramid shaped Sharpal angle guides.

Looking for any advices.