How To Sharpen A Knife; Described in Worth Detailed

A very well sharp knife also needs to sharpen after some time. Even you cook more frequently you need to keep your best chef knife sharp and clean at regular basis for quick performance in kitchen tasks. More you use, more you need to sharpen your knife for precise cutting add dices of the raw food. No matter how sharp your knife was, after kitchen work, you need to sharp your knife. If you are a professional chef, you need to sharpen your knife at the end of every working day to keep it ready for the next session. If you selected the right type of knife, it is easier for you to use that in your cooking, chopping tasks and to sharp the knife with good techniques and practices. Even your knife could become more sharper that it was in the original condition when you buy it from a store.

1. Why so much Sharp Blade Knives?

To prepare a fine taste cuisine your knife must be in good sharp condition. The food you serve to your guests is chopped, fried, baked, cooked and finally presented in the last stage. There is something behind this food preparing procedure, that is your machine made or hand made chef knife set which helped you much to cut, chop the food. So, keeping your Knife Blade Sharp is great advise, do so daily if possible. If you are a professional cook, its your responsibility to maintain the edge of your handy knife to avoid delays in smooth & sharp cutting of the kitchen food items. A sharp knife can perform better as compared to a dull knife.

2. Your Safety in Sharp Blade Knives

Safety First ! Keeping a sharp edge of your blade is important for your own safety. No one wants to work in dangerous environment, specially the chefs who have to prepare the foods at daily basis. While chopping or dicing in kitchen sometimes your knife slips from the cutting objects and the chances it can harm your finger/s or other parts of your body. To prevent yourself from these injuries you need to use a sharp blade knife for smooth, safe and quick cutting of the food items in your kitchen and for outdoors, use a sharp custom bowie knife.

3. When/How often should I sharpen my knife?

You should sharpen your knife whenever necessary; that depends on the quality & usage of the knife. Some users believe they should sharpen the knife right after unboxing. That law does not suits for everyone. Some fixed blade hunting knives need to sharpen at the time of usage or 3 or 4 times a year. Ask this question from yourself when should I sharpen the knife blade? Best question is to examine your knife working and notice if that is working fine, no need. Japanese knives need more care and sharpening treatment as compared to folding, hunting & camping knives. Because, Japanese chef knives are more in practice than less using knives like tactical, hunting knives.

4. Find if you need to sharpen if these tests say “YES”

Perform any of the tests or combine all 4 tests to make you much confident either the blade needs the sharpening treatment or not.

4.1 Edge Test using your Eyes

The first manual check of your knife sharpness through your eye observation, bring the knife in the bright light of the sun and hold up the edge. You’ll see reflections on flat spots and nicks clearly in the brightness. Not confirmed by this? Move on to the next test.

4.2 Edge Test with Thumbnail

Carefully handle the knife and slightly touch it to your thumbnail to see if it slides around or if it catches your thumbnail. If it slides that means the blade is dull and not working well, needs to sharpen. For more accurate test, move on.

4.3 Paper Slicing Test

Grab an old newspaper or a computer printer page to perform this quick test. Majority of the hand made knife makers check the blade sharpness through this test. Bring the paper in front of your face with your left hand; use the right hand holding a paper. Now, begin to slice down the center of the page speedily. If the knife fails to cut through the paper and either slides off or damages the page, it is a clear sign to sharpen your knife using any techniques mentioned below.

4.4 Cut the Onion

Many people did not try this trick to check the blade sharpness, well; you can if you want. Everyone knows the skin on onion is very thin and slippery as compared to tomato & other vegetables. Put the knife blade on the outer surface of the onion and check your knife can easily catch and bit into the skin or not? If the blade resists a bit, it needs to treat through sharpness procedure.

4.5 Check the Blade on a Tomato

Common test to check either the blade is in good condition or not using a “Healthy Tomato”. If your knife blade will cut through a tomato’s skin in slices and without turning the tomato shape, that’s fine, blade sharpness is OK. If you break your tomato instead of slice it then sharp the blade at home or send it to any professional.

5. What are Different Methods to Sharpen a Knife

Writing down the possible ways to sharpen the Knife blades, adopt the possible and easy way for you.

5.1: Get it Sharp by Professionals.

Owning an Expensive Knife and have no idea how to sharpen the blade? Better to hire/send to professional sharpening service providers. They treat the knife more professionally. No worries about the damages, just pay their fees and get your knife back with more sharpness. Good option for busy persons who have to use their knife rarely but not fit for regular chef knife users. Regular Knife Users have more ways to sharpen their blades.

5.2: Sharp with Electric Sharpener.

Market is full with different quality knife sharpeners. Get one by visiting the retail store of your area or buy one from Amazon or eBay Stores. You need extra care when using electric sharpeners as they have a set speed to treat the knife blades which can harm your knife if you are new to use the electric sharpeners. Buy your favorite Electric Sharpener from Amazon.

5.3: Using a Sharpening Stone.

This examined method is considered best knife sharpening trick by far. Sharpening your dull blade creates a special connect between you and your knife just because you care the most you love the most. Whetstone method will not only sharp edge your blades but it will loose the least amount of dull material from you knife blade. Buy a whetstone or oil-stone to treat your dull blades.

5.4: Using a Honing Rod.

Very low number of knife owners use this technique to restore the sharpness of their knives. If you ask some professional that you want to use honing Rod to sharpen your dull blade knives. Straight Answer is BIG No. Honing rod is just used to STRAIGHT YOUR KNIFE BLADE.

More explanation to use these methods is given below step by step.

5.2 (Details) Sharpening a Knife with an Electric Knife Sharpener

An electric knife sharpener is a machine just same like a pencil sharpener that simply grinds the old edge and creates a new one on the blade. It’s the fastest & simplest way to restore your best outdoor camping knife health in easy way. In short, the quick fix solution for your knife’s dull blade restoration. Putting your knife into machine for few times can sharp the blade in no time but on the other hand, its the most brutal knife sharpening method. It is advised to try this method on your less pricey knives as it can harm your precious Japanese chef knives.
Knife Sharpening with Electric Sharpeners may vary for different kind of machines but follow these simple steps to operate the machine.

• Choose a calm place where there an electric switch board is in your range.
• Place the machine on a flat surface like marble shelf, with no chances of sliding or shifting during the sharpening process.
• Find that the machine trap for shavings is empty or not.
• Please make it sure that this machine is suitable for your specific knife type because many machines could not sharpen your hunting knives blade perfectly.
• Insert the heel of the blade and with using soft force and gently pull the knife back towards you.
• Repeat the process a few times to get restored you knife blade in a sharpen position.

5.3 (Details) Sharpening a Knife with a Whetstone

Knife Sharpening with whetstone is the oldest and proven way to maintain the edge of your handy knives. Either you have any kitchen knife or very expensive knife, sharpen it with a whetstone because it gives the best possible treatment. Whetstones/oil-stones are inexpensive for a kitchen tool and you’ll get years of use out of it with ease of mind and money.
Most whetstones will have different colors & two sides; a coarse grit side for removing dents and sharpening very dull blades and a fine grit side for polishing and edge refinement. Kitchen Knives need more often sharpening as compared to your irregular usage knives like camping, hunting, fishing etc…Use the whetstone with care and follow the procedure described below.

• Some stones need to be oiled or soaked in water first, check the stone which treatment it needs before serving for the knife sharpening process.
• Always start sharpening your knife on the coarse side and then moving to the refined side to achieve the better results.
• Make sure you place a towel or piece of mat underneath your whetstone so it can’t slip while you working.
• Once you’re ready to start sharpening, flip over to the coarser side of the stone and hold your knife with the edge of the blade facing toward your body at a 15 to 20 degree angle against the surface.
• Rest the fingers on the other hand on the flat side of the knife and push it away from you in one stroke. Flip the knife over and do 10 strokes on the other side.
• Using slight pressure drag the heel of the knife towards yourself and continue this momentum all the way until the tip of the blade runs off the stone.
• Flip over your whetstone to the fine grit side and repeat the same process three to four times for both sides of the blade.

Your knife should now be ready to face any cutting, dicing, chopping related tasks. Check it with a tomato or paper and,if it’s still not sharp enough, repeat until your knife is back to its original or enhanced sharpness.