How to Sharpen a Knife

If a knife is properly taken care of,  it should never have to be “sharpened” it should only have to be honed or touched up. So to start honing your knife you can use many different things, but for this I will  just use the tools that are made for the job. I’ll start with an Arkansan sharpening stone.

    You want to make the grind of the knife lay flat on the stone than push the knife forward in an arching motion making sure that the full blade makes contact with the stone.       I do 100 strokes on one side. Then I check for what is called a bur. This is where the metal curls over to one side from stroking it on the stone. A bur can just barely be felt with the tip of your finger.  Once I have a bur, I then do 100 stokes on  the other side of the knife.

At this point my knife is very sharp, but I want to continue to hone the knife. I then get a ceramic pipe, and this time I hold the knife steady and run the ceramic pipe along the grind of the knife. I do this 100 times on each side.

My  knife is now razor-sharp. You may think that this will take forever, but it only takes about five minutes. If you do this once a week, your knife will never be dull again.

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