Knife Sharpening: How To Create A Cutting Edge From Scratch

Knife Sharpening

 

Hi everyone! I'm back this week and we are going to look at doing some knife sharpening. I have been on vacation visiting my brother in Los Angeles and it was good to go seem him and unwind.

This week I'm back and instead of cooking I thought I would do some knife sharpening for you. I have this friend name Chef Giovanni and he works at a place here in Vegas called Yellow tail. It's a sushi joint as the name entails and Chef Gio is one of my best friends here in town.

Ever since Gio got into the culinary industry he has been obsessed with knife sharpening and if you ask him today he will still tell everyone that everything he ever learned about knife sharpening he learned from me, yours truly! He and I have been friends a long time and it's a great compliment he pays me. He has learn his knife sharpening skills well and does some of the best work I have seen a professional chef do with their knives.

Knife sharpening is an art just as cooking is and therefore when the two are done to a high level of skill people know it. Recently Chef Gio went on a food trip to Korea. He spent a lot of time at the fish market watching how the Koreans prepare their seafood dishes and one thing Gio paid close attention to was knife skills and knife sharpening techniques.

Needless to say Chef Gio learned alot on his food trip. When he got back he brought me a knife much like the one's used at the local fish market. They come in various sizes and he brought me a rather large one for all around kitchen use. When it comes today's knife sharpening video this is the knife that I will be sharpening.

You see the knife he brought back from Korea has no cutting edge on it and I don't know if that is a matter of knives leaving the country or if the maker does it that way for the person doing the knife sharpening to put his or her own type of edge on the knife.

As far as the knife sharpening goes Gio told me that most of the people he saw using this knife had a 50/50 grind on the blade much like a European knife would have and I can see that the blade type is closer to a "V" or saber type grind.

This weeks knife sharpening video will show you how I will put a single edge bevel on this Korean knife. The knife is hand made and somewhat rudimentary but from the videos I saw they will just cut and cut and cut! The knife is made from hand hammered carbon steel so as far as the knife sharpening is concerned should not prove to be very difficult.

I will be using the standard gear that I always use for knife sharpening which is DMT diamond plates that I use in 220/325/600/1200 grits respectively. I will also be using Spyderco ceramic stones Models 204F and 204UF respectively. I will also most likely use my surgical black Arkansas stone as a final blade polishing stone. So sit back and check out how I do knife sharpening and enjoy the video!