# Progression of Knives for Beginner Sharpener



## dmourati (Apr 27, 2021)

I've gotten myself setup with some good sharpening gear and would like to know how to progress through the knives in my collection. My goal is to build up skill before I get to my "good knives."

*Gear*
Atoma 140
Gesshin 1000/6000 stone

*Knives Sharpened*
Global 5" Santoku
Wustoff Classic 3 1/2" paring knife

*Knives not yet Sharpened*
Wustoff Classic 8" Chefs
Shun Premier Santoku
Bloodroot Petty
Masamoto KS 240 Gyuto
Nguyen Sujihiki

I think I did an okay job at edge consistency on the Global and Wustoff for starters. They came away sharper than before but not quite as sharp as I thought I would get them. Maybe I needed a coarser stone. One idea I had was to keep using/sharpening the Global until I got pretty good as getting it sharp and then move on. Spouse uses it and the Shun. The other approach is to move on to the Bloodroot/Masamoto as those are the ones I use.

Any other feedback or tips welcome.


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## AT5760 (Apr 27, 2021)

Wow! That’s a heck of a jump from Global/Wusthof to BB/Don!

I don’t bother to try and get my Zwilling knives anywhere near as sharp as my carbon steel ones. 400 then 800/1000 and call it a day. Make sure to fully debur.
You may want to think about a 400/500 grit stone for the Wusthofs.


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## Deadboxhero (Apr 27, 2021)

dmourati said:


> I've gotten myself setup with some good sharpening gear and would like to know how to progress through the knives in my collection. My goal is to build up skill before I get to my "good knives."
> 
> *Gear*
> Atoma 140
> ...


Just do it, the masomoto will sharpen significantly better and easier.


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## Bigbbaillie (Apr 27, 2021)

I agree with @Deadboxhero 
You bought the knives to use them, that includes sharpening. Anyway with a 1000 grit as your lowest stone it would be hard to really mess up a knife besides maybe some stray scatches. 
My best advice is just try your best to not "oversharpen" your carbons, try touching up with stropping strokes first and see where that get gets you. If you are home cook and sharpen relatively regularly that's all you should really ever need to do.


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## Bart.s (Apr 28, 2021)

+1 You could first try to 'touch-up' your carbons on the 6k side, to get a feel for the angle, which will be lower than your other knives. If you do this regularly, your knives won't have to see a 1k for some time. When you have build some confidence and the touch-ups don't really work anymore, go to the 1k. And I would also add something like a ~400 stone. Gesshin (edit: JKI) has some 400 stones, but I have no experience with them. Good luck!


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## tostadas (Apr 28, 2021)

If you're worried about inadvertently scratching up the nicer knives, you can focus on keeping a consistent angle first with your cheaper knives on a 1k or 6k. Use the "sharpie trick" by coloring in the edge with a permanent marker. You will then be able to see exactly where you are removing steel with your stones. If there is a lot of wobble when you hold your knife to sharpen, you will see that the spots where sharpie is removed is also wobbly.


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## dmourati (Apr 28, 2021)

Thanks for the feedback. I'll give it a whirl on the KS tonight then. The knife is in an indeterminate state of sharpness. Before getting my Gesshin stone, I tried sharpening the KS with a Spyderco Sharpmaker but didn't do a great job. I'll test with some paper/food. I'll do the sharpie thing. I'll go through the 1000/6000 progression with it. Then I'll test again with paper/food. I've got some ripe tomatoes that can be my test subjects.


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## HumbleHomeCook (Apr 28, 2021)

dmourati said:


> Thanks for the feedback. I'll give it a whirl on the KS tonight then. The knife is in an indeterminate state of sharpness. Before getting my Gesshin stone, I tried sharpening the KS with a Spyderco Sharpmaker but didn't do a great job. I'll test with some paper/food. I'll do the sharpie thing. I'll go through the 1000/6000 progression with it. Then I'll test again with paper/food. I've got some ripe tomatoes that can be my test subjects.



You might want to consider getting a 400-500 grit stone, resetting the bevel and then go from there. The time on the Sharpmaker may (or may not) have resulted in work better suited for a coarser stone.


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## Kawa (Apr 28, 2021)

AT5760 said:


> Wow! That’s a heck of a jump from Global/Wusthof to BB/Don!
> 
> I don’t bother to try and get my Zwilling knives anywhere near as sharp as my carbon steel ones. 400 then 800/1000 and call it a day. *Make sure to fully debur.*
> You may want to think about a 400/500 grit stone for the Wusthofs.



No offense. Even though the advice is right. Isnt this the hardest part for a beginner? Or even for a advanced sharpener?
yes, you can watch 1000 movies on how to do this. That doesn't make it easy and certainly not repeatable.
The guy only sharpened 2 knives so far!



My advice, as still being quite new myself, start by making your friends and families knives sharp (your need practise hours).
When they are sharper then before, you did a good job. You are not at the endlevel of sharp crap knives at this point.

When you get knives 'sharp', start focussing on deburring. I bet you ruin a lot of 'good' edges while learning this part of the journey. But its worth it.


easy to learn, hard to master


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## dmourati (Apr 28, 2021)

*Update*

I went for it on the Masamoto KS. @Deadboxhero was right, the KS definitely sharpened up better than my original two knives.

I put a couple of scratches in the patina behind the edge, near the tip. That tip adjustment I learned from Jon's videos is still unintuitive to me.

What I found was I could identify the right angle by feel and by sound. 

I liked the sensation of sharpening the white #2 on the 6000 stone, especially at light pressure. Very satisfying.


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## Deadboxhero (Apr 28, 2021)

Don't be afraid to mark with sharpie.

Instant feedback of what your movement is doing and can be cleaned off.



dmourati said:


> *Update*
> 
> I went for it on the Masamoto KS. @Deadboxhero was right, the KS definitely sharpened up better than my original two knives.
> 
> ...


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## cotedupy (Apr 29, 2021)

I'd echo what @HumbleHomeCook said in response to your q. - a 400 grit for the Global and Wusthoffs will all allow you to reset an edge easier, which I find particularly useful for Globals which have weird fat convex grinds that makes sharpening tricky (for me at least).

You've seen already that sharpening very good knives is easier than these, but that's not to say your original plan was a bad idea. I learnt to sharpen on other people's Globals; and it'll give you a very good understanding of edges and geometry, and make sharpening posher knives very quick and easy in comparison. Though if you're already happy enough to find the edge by feel/sound then it sounds like you're there already . The only thing that can be tricky from there is mastering de-burring. It's certainly something I could be better at, and I sharpen things basically every day, but I still have to remember to pay particular attention, unless it's a knife I know very well.


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## wombat (Apr 29, 2021)

+1 for moving on, once you can at least get results on the cheaper stuff. 

With the knives I had when I started to learn sharpening, I might never have moved on if I had to stick with them until I felt like I had it mastered. Sharpening good knives is much more rewarding too.


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## dmourati (Apr 29, 2021)

For deburring I used two tips from Jon using just the 6000 grit stone:

J stroke stropping motion tip to heel on the right side of the blade
Tip to heel sweeping and stropping motion on left side of the blade

Alternating 1/1 for a total of 20 strokes.

Very light heel pass perpendicular to the stone, one each on each side.

2-3 more passes of stopping motion above at very light pressure.

I inspected with a 10x loupe I had and convinced myself the burr was gone. Paper test confirmed. Tomato test was good but not as good as others I've seen.


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## JBroida (Apr 29, 2021)

i think i can do a better job of explaining the tip sharpening thing and help improve on the burr removal too... give me a call at the store when you have some time one of these days


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## cotedupy (Apr 29, 2021)

dmourati said:


> For deburring I used two tips from Jon using just the 6000 grit stone:
> 
> J stroke stropping motion tip to heel on the right side of the blade
> Tip to heel sweeping and stropping motion on left side of the blade
> ...



Every single thing I've picked up from his videos has been spot on. And sounds like they've helped you go from 'beginner' to 'really quite good' already!


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## cotedupy (Apr 29, 2021)

JBroida said:


> i think i can do a better job of explaining the tip sharpening thing and help improve on the burr removal too... give me a call at the store when you have some time one of these days



Have you done any videos specifically focusing on burr removal Jon? I know it isn't necessarily rocket science, but it's still something that trips me up from time to time.


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## KingShapton (Apr 29, 2021)




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## Kawa (Apr 29, 2021)

dmourati said:


> For deburring I used two tips from Jon using just the 6000 grit stone:
> 
> J stroke stropping motion tip to heel on the right side of the blade
> Tip to heel sweeping and stropping motion on left side of the blade
> ...




I'd be surprised if you really hit the same angle while deburring doing alternating strokes 1/1 20 times versus when you were sharpening.
Its a completely different feeling when you sharpen or when you do a single tip-to-heel swipe (rubbing parts/segments versus hole knife in one sweep).

tbh, id even be jealous if you are able to do that after 2 knives  a natural talent


Tip: sharpy your edge again when you start deburring. If your angle is to high while deburring, the burr will be gone (ofcoarse), but you kinda create a microbevel


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## JBroida (Apr 29, 2021)

cotedupy said:


> Have you done any videos specifically focusing on burr removal Jon? I know it isn't necessarily rocket science, but it's still something that trips me up from time to time.


a long time ago... I've improved in my ability to explain clearly over the last many years


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## Benuser (May 3, 2021)

tostadas said:


> If you're worried about inadvertently scratching up the nicer knives, you can focus on keeping a consistent angle first with your cheaper knives on a 1k or 6k. Use the "sharpie trick" by coloring in the edge with a permanent marker. You will then be able to see exactly where you are removing steel with your stones. If there is a lot of wobble when you hold your knife to sharpen, you will see that the spots where sharpie is removed is also wobbly.


Use a loupe (8-12x) with the sharpie trick. Too often the very edge isn't reached at all, or a microbevel is being overlooked. The result is an accumulation of debris on top of the old edge, without the bevels having really met to create a new one. It will seem a bit sharper than before thanks to the little thinning behind the edge, but remains far from its potential.


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## Kawa (May 3, 2021)

tostadas said:


> If you're worried about inadvertently scratching up the nicer knives, you can focus on keeping a consistent angle first with your cheaper knives on a 1k or 6k. Use the "sharpie trick" by coloring in the edge with a permanent marker. You will then be able to see exactly where you are removing steel with your stones. If there is a lot of wobble when you hold your knife to sharpen, you will see that the spots where sharpie is removed is also wobbly.




If you wobble, you will remove all the sharpie in a few strokes anyway. Think about it.

Sharpie only helps to find the initial right angle, but the moment you remove the knife from the stone to check, how are you (as a beginner) going to ensure yourself you put it back at that exact angle? imo you can't.

Not saying sharpie isnt a meaningfull tool, but using sharpie as a beginner has nothing to do with the skill of keeping your hand steady. 
That has to come with time and a lot of practise hours.


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## Benuser (May 3, 2021)

When I started sharpening I made a few corks with an inclination corresponding to sharpening angles. Say: a few degrees for a relief bevel, 10,12, 15 and 17 for primary bevels. First, to verify whether I got the angle I was looking for. A bit later, to make sure the angle hadn't changed. After some time, I only used them for reference.


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## Kawa (May 3, 2021)

I've made my own thingy for this.

I use drinking straws. The moment I have decided what the angle is, I put a drinking straw vertically on the stone and against the back of the knife (Ofcourse I make a small mark on the knife where i measure this).
Then i make a little fold in the straw. Once you've folded the straw, you can easily find it with your nail, time after time.

So put your nail in the little fold, then raise the knife untill your nail hits the back. Thats your angle.
After some practise, this is very consistent.

Ive done this for all the knives I regulairly sharpen and keep the straws with my sharpening stuff...


hard to describe in my not native language.
I can make picures if there is some interest.


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## HumbleHomeCook (May 3, 2021)

You can apply the Sharpie as often as you want to. I've many times reapplied after a few strokes just to be sure I am where I want to be. Surely not excusing practice.


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## Kawa (May 3, 2021)

And still, every time you put the knife back on the stone after checking/ applying sharpie, you dont know if you hit the same angle again.

This is just a paradox.

You want to check after every stroke, but this enlarges the chance you put it back at a wrong angle.

Not checking enough (and continue to hit the same (possible wrong) angle), and you might ruin your edge/geometry and have to step backwards...


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## HumbleHomeCook (May 3, 2021)

I understand what you're saying but you do get a feel for it each time you set it down and make a pass right? You can feel it is the same or maybe the marker indicates you moved so you pay closer attention.


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## Kawa (May 3, 2021)

Yes thats true.

But it isnt that simple as is sounds. It's not like you do this for 4 knives and BANG, you have the feeling and steady hand we all want.
Wouldnt we all be at @stringer or @M1k3 (or whoever in here who comes to mind) level in a week or so? We would all have that super clean edge right?
In practise we havent... you tell me the reason then 

'Yeah, but kawa whats your point of all this'

well, without wanting to sound harsch,
I get the feeling that OP masters angle control and deburring (see post 10 and 14) after trying two budget knives and watching 5 movies of John.

Either he is the most talentfull sharpener walking around, or there is some overestimation.
If its the first, im goddamn jealous


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## dmourati (May 3, 2021)

"Either he is the most talentfull sharpener walking around, or there is some overestimation."

Por que no los dos?


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## HumbleHomeCook (May 3, 2021)

Kawa said:


> Yes thats true.
> 
> But it isnt that simple as is sounds. It's not like you do this for 4 knives and BANG, you have the feeling and steady hand we all want.
> Wouldnt we all be at @stringer or @M1k3 (or whoever in here who comes to mind) level in a week or so? We would all have that super clean edge right?
> ...



I guess I have a different take. In both the posts you reference, the OP is humble and saying he needs improvement.

Is your point just that good, consistent sharpening takes practice? If so, then we're in agreement. But I didn't get that the OP was trying to say he all of a sudden had it all down.


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## Kawa (May 3, 2021)

Might be my bad interpretation. If so, my apologies.


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