How to Sharpen Your Knives: The Ultimate Guide

How to Sharpen Your Knife

Knives are an essential part of any kitchen. They are used for everything from cutting vegetables to slicing meat. But, as anyone who has spent a lot of time in the kitchen knows, knives can become dull and need to be sharpened regularly.

The good news is that knife sharpening is relatively easy. Knives can be sharpened by hand or with an electric grinder, but either way the process starts out in a similar fashion. The first step is to remove any rust spots and dirt from the blade of the knife using warm water and dish soap. Most people will use a sponge for this task, although some steel wool would work as well. Cleaning off all signs of dirt or rust makes sure that you are starting off on a clean slate so there isn’t anything interfering when you start grinding away at your blades later on down the road! Next, we need to select our stone: oilstone (also known as Arkansas), whetsone (aka India or Arkansas), ceramic, and diamond.

Knife Sharpening

There are slight differences between the stones that make them better suited for different types of knives. The oilstone is great if you have a high carbon blade as it’s rougher on the surface than other stone varieties so will take off more metal when you’re working with it. If your knife is made from softer steel like stainless steel then we recommend using a whetsone rather than an oilstone because these don’t work well at all with soft metals! You can also use waterstones to sharpen knives but they need to be soaked in water prior to each sharpening session due to their porous nature. Ceramic stones are good for straight-edge razor blades and also for knives that are made from softer steel as they have a surface texture which is optimal for those types of blades. Diamond stones work well with all metal and if you want to be able to sharpen anywhere then this is the type we recommend!