Waterstone Knife Sharpening

This will never stop making me happy

This is Gordon Ramsay, showing us how to sharpen a knife. Pretty sexy, right? Please don't try this at home. Not only because you might hurt yourself, but because this doesn't actually sharpen your knife. That round thing that came with the knife set you got for your wedding is called a "steel". It's meant to tune up an edge by realigning the parts of it that have folded over. When used incorrectly (sorry Gordon), it's more like a file that shreds steel off your blade. If y...ou were to look at this under a microscope, it would look like a bread knife. Gordon here is a professional chef, and professional chefs don't care because this kind of ragged edge works great for most things. Unfortunately, those little "teeth" wear out very quickly, meaning they have to repeat the process every hour or so. If that sounds fun, by all means go to town with that steel. But spoiler alert: professional chefs need to have their knives professionally sharpened every few months, and often replaced entirely every few years.

Let me guess - you have a coupon from House of Knives? Don't use it. I know it seems like a good deal, and maybe you were going to be at the mall tomorrow anyway....... Here's the thing - you're getting what you pay for. House of Knives brings in hundreds of knives every week, coming from all 8 of their lower mainland stores. To manage that volume they have to be efficient, which means they run your knife through the same machine, the same way, as everyone else's. Whatever ...edge was on there is ground away and replaced with the edge their machine produces. Your knife is sharper than it was before, but take it there two or three times and you'll start to notice that it's disappearing. Despite their claim that they remove a "minimal amount of steel", every time they sharpen a knife they grind a noticeable amount away. Eventually, this will change the curve of the edge and leave you with a "dead spot" where the edge doesn't hit the board anymore (see the picture below) There are better options out there! (hint hint)