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How to sharpen knives

Be a knife sharpening pro aside from being a knife enthusiast.

Whatever lasts forever, surely they are not knives. After your knife’s hard work through time, they will eventually get dull and blunt. You can get lazy if you think knives sharpening is all tedious and cumbersome. But no, you would not really have to throw your knife away just because you don’t like to sharpen your knife. Read on and find how knife sharpening techniques can be so easy and effortless.

Proper care, firstly, is supposed to be done even before the dreadful dulling of knives catch you. Don’t use hard materials such as glass or stone as chopping or cutting boards. They usually nick a blade before the nick of time – before its supposed dulling. Use wood or polyethylene for your boards instead.

Moving on with how to sharpen knives, there are actually many ways:

The easiest and most convenient method is to use professional knife sharpeners. They are efficient tools and are easy to find. Just visit knife or cutlery stores and they will give you what you need.

You can also do knife sharpening with a fine grit slipstone. Hone the knife edges and bevels through the slipstone in circular strokes. Do the two sides of the knife evenly and alternately and repeat the whole process for a few times until you think your knife is shar again.

Another way to sharpen a knife is through a whetstone with a fine and a coarse side. There are natural and man-made whetstones. The latter are usually made of ceramic. Put the whetstone in a deep pan of oil and let it stay there overnight before you use it. After it has stayed there for a time, get your knife and get moving.

Put a small amount of oil on the stone surface. Have a firm grip on your knife and “rub” the knife bevels on the stone in a stroke away from you to prevent danger. Do this in every side of the knife evenly. After doing the right thing in how to sharpen knives, you will see that the knives will have some dirt, so clean this by washing or by a soft cloth.

Use the rough side of the whetstone to sharpen a very dull knife while use the finer side of the stone if the knife does not really need help desperately.

Speaking of almost hopeless knives, if you think you can not do it anymore, have your knives professionally sharpened in knife shops. That could be the easiest thing to do but you have to spend for it.

One thing to remember, keep testing the sharpness of your knife every now and them while knife sharpening.

Aside from how to sharpen knives, you may also straighten the blades of your knives through a honing steel. Yes, honing steel is not to sharpen the knife, instead, this is used after knife sharpening. This is to improve the cutting ability of your knife.

Knowing all these ways of sharpening your knives, you must be reminded that caring for your knife does not start only when they get dull. Though your knives naturally will blunt over time, you can speed the process if you don’t take care of them. Knife kits should be within reach.

Just a few more reminders, use your knives on appropriate things. Kitchen knives are for the kitchen, combat knives do not really belong there though they can be multipurpose. Furthermore, store your knives properly. There are a lot of storage available in the market perfect for all other kinds of knives.

With the proper care, storage, or display of your knives, maybe you would not have to learn how to sharpen knives more often.