Knife Sharpening Basics- Stone Setup- Japanese Knife Imports

hi my name is John from Japanese knife

Imports and today I'm here to talk to

you guys about what it takes to have a

basic knife sharpening setup this is a

question I get a lot of the time and

people come in they see my setup or they

see some of the things that I've done on

YouTube videos and I have a lot of

stones and a lot of things that kind of

help make my sharpening easier um but I

don't always recommend that people go

crazy like that when they get their own

sharpening setups so I'm going to talk

about a couple of different things uh

one is the the bare basic Essentials

that you need to get started in

sharpening and two is a good allaround

kit that will cover everything that you

need uh for all kinds of sharpening that

you might want to do and I have some

examples here with me today that I can

show you as we go uh so the first thing

that I want to mention is that when

people get started in sharpening I often

tell them that it's not a good idea to

go crazy and get core stones and fine

stones and all that kind of stuff

because what happens is you don't have

the skill level to back everything up

yet so you're working on a COR Stone but

you end up making mistakes and they end

up being big mistakes because it removes

a lot of metal very quickly so what I

generally recommend to people in the

beginning is to get a very good medium

grit Stone and get started from there

one of the ones that I recommend is the

king 1000 grit Stone which is something

that we have on our website but I have a

couple other uh 1,000 grit Stones here

that I'm going to show you today uh that

are from our gishan line which is a line

of stones that we have custom made for

us uh that I find to be just a really

good line of stones all around uh I

might be a little bit bias as they're

made for us um but the gishan 1000 grit

Splash and Go Stone here is a nice way

to get started and the gishan 2000 grit

uh soaking Stone it's a ceramic stone is

another nice way to get started they're

both great medium grit stones that will

take care of your day-to-day sharpening

and leave you with an edge that's good

enough for any kind of real kitchen task

um by starting on a medium grit Stone

you're not going to be able to remove

major chips you're not going to get the

same kind kind of refinement that one

might get from a finishing Stone but

what it will give you is an opportunity

to work on your Technique and getting

your angle consistency down and really

understanding the basics of sharpening

and once you're no longer getting what

you need out of that stone anymore what

you can do is then you can move to a

coarse Stone to to help speed up your

sharpening and to help get rid of major

chips and do repairs and you can add in

a finishing Stone to help you get a

little bit more refinement out of your

Edge that when you're doing more

delicate slicing techniques uh for

example slicing fish or meat uh that you

can get a little bit more refinement out

of your Edge and get a smoother cut with

less damage to the food so uh the one

thing you want to start out with is a

good medium grit Stone you're also going

to need something to flatten the stone

and there's a lot of options out there

uh for example I use a diamond plate

much like this one which is the diamond

flattening plate we sell there is also

uh a kind of synthetic flattening stone

that looks like this uh that can be used

uh the reason that you need a flattening

device is that as you sharpen on your

Stone it wears down over time and keep

become dished and the more dished your

stone is the more difficult it is to

hold a consistent angle so especially

for new sharpeners it's really important

to keep a very flat stone uh these are

two ways of flattening your stone by

using a diamond flattening plate or uh a

synthetic flattening Stone but you can

also use wet dry sandpaper a really

coarse grit inverted on a hard flat

countertop uh you can use dry wall

screen in the same way uh pretty much

anything that you can use to to lap your

stone and keep it flat and I have a

video that I put up on Stone flattening

which you may want to watch um some

people also like Stone holders uh

something to keep their Stone together

while they're holding it uh keep it in

place and give them a little bit of

knuckle clearance and so we have a setup

that looks kind of like this that comes

with a a little plastic base and uh a

rubber Stone holder and some other

additional pieces to help give a little

bit more height um again it's a very

nice and convenient thing to have uh but

you can also use a damp towel on a

corner corner of your countertop and you

want to make sure that you pick a corner

where the hand that you're going to be

holding the handle of your knife with is

not over the countertop so you'll pick a

corner where your right hand for example

if you're right-handed your right hand

is hanging over the countertop and that

will give you a little bit of knuckle

clearance that you might not otherwise

have if you picked a different space on

your countertop uh there are a lot of

other Stone holding options and we have

a stone bridge for example that we sell

um but this Stone holder with the base

is a very convenient way to get started

as well uh so medium grit Stone

something to keep it flat something to

hold it and that's pretty much all you

need to get started um and the rest of

it is just working on the the basics and

techniques and understanding the

fundamentals of of what it is to do

knife sharpening and how things work um

down the road what you're going to want

is you're going to want a more complete

set and so I want to explain what that

entails as well so when you're looking

for a more complete set you're going to

want a COR stone and a corstone will be

something from about 400 to 600 grit

there are stones that are coarser than

that and they can be used by experienced

sharpeners for heavy work uh but

generally speaking for the majority of

people uh something in the 400 to 600

grit range will be fast enough to take

care of all your You major repairs and

stuff like that that you'll need to do

or thinning um and set you up nicely for

your medium grit Stone and so I have a

couple of coarse Stones here that I'm

going to show you the first is AR gesin

600 Splash and Go stone is actually a

new stone that we just recently

introduced uh it cuts relatively quickly

and works well in a wide variety of

Steels and it's convenient that it

doesn't need to be soaked uh the second

one is AR gesan 400 ceramic soaking

Stone uh and this is actually a faster

cutting Stone uh it's a little bit more

aggressive it has better tactile

feedback but it needs to be soaked

before you use it um anyways those are

two good options as far as cor Stones go

to get you started uh following that of

course you'll need your medium grit

Stone which ideally you'll have from

when you first started sharpening again

and we have the gishan 1000 and the

gishan

2000 we have some other ones as well but

these are just kind of nice really good

stones to get you started in your

sharpening process once you finish with

your medium grit Stone you're going to

start to look for a little bit more

refinement out of your Edge and so

you'll go to a finishing Stone and

there's a lot of finishing stones out

there and the first thing that I tell

people is don't go too crazy with the

finishing Stones don't look for

something that's a 20,000 Grid or

anything like that for kitchen knives

because it doesn't provide the kind of

edge that you're looking for you want to

make sure that with your finishing Stone

you're getting something that leaves you

a a nicer level of refinement but still

an appropriate amount of bite for

kitchen use and bite is going to be

something that's very important when

you're cutting up stuff in a kitchen you

have things like tomatoes and bell

peppers but even meat uh you need your

knife to dig in and give you some kind

of tactile feedback when you're cutting

stuff uh otherwise it doesn't really

promote good knife skills or good

technique when your knife just slides

through things or in the case of some

hard skinn vegetables uh a really overly

smooth edge will just kind of skid over

over the skin as opposed to digging in

and cutting uh so generally for a

finishing Stone what I recommend is

something in the 4 to 6,000 grit range

and then for those who like a really

like really fine Edge a little bit of

extra refinement you can go up to 8,000

grit and so I have a few Stones here

today that I'm going to show you uh the

first of which is arishin 4,000 grit

Stone which is a very fast cutting Stone

and works well on a wide variety of

Steels um it has very good tactile

feedback which is kind of nice in a

finishing Stone uh we also have some

splashing go Stones like the gashin

5000 and the gashin

6000 uh the 5,000 is a slower cutting

Stone but leaves a cleaner Edge a little

bit more easily and is a little bit more

user friendly uh the 6000 is faster

cutting um and leaves a nice finish not

quite as nice as the 5000 but very nice

still almost mirr uh and it leaves also

a good amount of bite the lastly we have

the gishan 8000 grit Stone uh which is a

very nice finishing stone for slicers or

single bevel knives where you're looking

for that extra refinement and a really

smooth kind of finish uh much beyond

that you end up losing a lot of the bite

that's necessary in in kitchen work uh

again I still use a Stone holding device

uh often the stone holder like I showed

a second ago like this uh I also use a

stone bridge which you can find on our

website and I use something for

flattening and I use these Diamond

flattening plates and I use the diamond

plates relative to other things because

they cut quicker they're easier to use

they last longer and they stay flat

longer whereas when you work with other

kind of synthetic flattening devices you

may notice that they also dish over time

and you need to flatten your flattening

Stone uh and that makes things a little

bit uh irritating and tough for me um so

that I think covers the the basics of

what you're going to need in your

sharpening setup a good core Stone a

good medium Stone a good finishing Stone

something to hold your stone and

something to keep your stone flat and

beyond that you'll need a little bit of

water and a lot of time and practice um

so hopefully this is a helpful video for

those of you looking to get started with

your sharpening and uh thank you very

much for watching as always if you have

any questions you can contact us at

Japanese knife imports.com uh my name is

John thank you so much for watching