Sharpening with a whetstone | How to get started

this video is sponsored by squarespace

so here's a primer on

sharpening kitchen knives with stones

whetstones they're called with an

h we'll talk about what the h means

we're going to cover the basic theory of

knife sharpening

the minimal gear you'd need technique

cleanup and maintenance

even if you don't plan to actually try

this yourself this video should be

interesting if you like to understand

how things work

i mean in this humble home cook's

opinion the best sharpener is the one

that you're actually going to use

a well-reviewed multi-stage pull through

sharpener like this has

served me well for many years the first

stage cuts the new edge the second stage

refines it easy

i think these are good enough for us

normals as long as you get one that's

made for the basic kind of knife and

steel that you have

we'll get to that but it is true that

the pros generally sharpen

with stones the old-fashioned way the

hard way

or they pay someone to do it the hard

way as

many excellent chefs have paid my buddy

chef davis wells to sharpen their knives

a few james beard award winners ashley

christensen

steven satterfield chidi kumar who is

nominee always the pride maid and not

the bride but i love you chibi

these are some of the very top chefs

here in the american southeast and davis

does their knives or he used to do their

knives

it was eventually easier to actually go

back into a kitchen

because sharpening 40 to 60 knives a

week

is really a lot of strain on

my body especially my hands and joints

when working the line at high-end

restaurants

is the comparatively easy job then you

know you're talking about doing

something that's pretty tough why do

people bother

most other sharpening devices are

basically ripping metal

across the edge so like a pull through

sharpener or

they are grinding it off mechanically

and the advantage here is a stone

remains cool

so it won't detemper the blade which

will make the blade

prematurely dull or not even get too

sharp

it results in a finer clean edge

and by not mechanically grinding

you're not removing more steel than you

really need to be

for a truly sharp knife and that last

point matters especially if you invest

in some really nice

knives like davis owns thousands of

dollars worth of steel

the less metal you remove every time you

sharpen

the less money you're grinding away the

longer the knife is going to last you

and of course stones offer you total

control

you can use them to cut a very narrow

cutting angle like this

be really really sharp or you can use

them to cut a

wider cutting edge like this this will

be really tough like an

axe and you can use stones for the

standard western double beveled knives

or

single beveled asian style knives like

these knives that only taper down to a

point on one

side we're talking about double beveled

sharpening today but stones can do it

all

that doesn't mean however that you can

sharpen any knife on any stone

this is the first kind of unfortunate

thing about sharpening with stones

there isn't really one all-purpose piece

of gear that you can buy

to get started you're going to need to

buy at least two or three things even if

you only have

one knife to sharpen so from the top

here's davis showing us this

cross-section view of a dull knife the

cross-section of a blade is known as its

geometry

and the whole point of sharpening is to

take two planes like this like this

and make them converge

at a point of zero thickness right here

and as we progressively grind away metal

to make those planes converge

a little piece of metal will shoot past

like this and it'll feel like a little

fingernail

on the edge of it this is known as the

bur and you can feel it safely by

pulling your thumb

across perpendicular to the blade you go

parallel to the blade you're going to

slice yourself open but if you go

perpendicular to the blade

that's safe that's what we do when we're

shaving right you can safely

feel for the burr and you kind of have

to feel

for the burr because you really can't

see it not even under my microscope

camera

this area down here this is the face of

the knife this area is the newly

sharpened

bevel and this tiny distinct strip

at the top if you can see that that is

the burr

if we look at the knife from above i

can't even see the burr

what i can see now is where the burr is

missing

in the spot where my microscope just

touched the edge

missing bit of burr right there the bur

bends or breaks off really easily and

it's supposed to

and the whole point of sharpening is to

create a burr

and a nice consistent even bird down the

whole length of the blade and then

remove that

so that you just get that with a clean

point of again zero thickness

and that happens in the finishing phase

of sharpening

we use a coarsely textured stone to

grind out that new edge grind out that

bur

and then we have to switch over to a

more finely textured stone

we use this to polish off that bur and

to align the

micro serrations we've been talking thus

far about the geometry or cross-section

of the blade

now we talk about its profile all knife

edges

are serrated and they are what are

called teeth

and these teeth are determined

by the grit at which they were sharpened

a coarser stone with bigger micro

particles is going to cut

bigger wider teeth right like if you

imagine like this

is a big particle in a big coarse stone

it is going to knock a big chunk out of

the knife as the blade comes down

across that particle if this is a small

particle from a finer stone

it's going to take a smaller chunk out

of the blade as it passes by

the number on these stones indicates the

particle size

confusingly the bigger the number the

smaller the particle size

this is because the number goes by the

spatial density of particles

fewer big particles will fit into a

given area right that's why you would

call the grit

of this one ten and the grit of this one

twenty a twelve hundred stone like this

is

a medium grit stone davis does not

recommend

super coarse stones for us beginners

because we might end up grinding off

way too much material he recommends we

start with a medium grit stone this is

going to be our coarse stone

this is for that initial phase of

cutting out the new edge that's what

will give you those big teeth

working the knife against a finer stone

wears away at that

bur of big teeth so that eventually

these become fine enough

where they could you know shave the hair

on your arm dice an

onion without making you cry these are

the things that a

real sharp knife does well and that

right there is the main reason why chefs

don't cry when they cut

onions it's not that they're tougher

than you they just have

way sharper knives that rupture fewer

cell walls

that said it is possible to sharpen the

knife to the point where the teeth are

kind of

too small too fine and they have trouble

kind of biting

into tough things like tomato skins

people who get really advanced with this

stuff

will finish a knife with a coarser stone

to get big teeth for cutting certain

things

and they'll finish a knife with a finer

stone to get tiny teeth for cutting

things like

raw fish you know doing sashimi where

you want a really nice

glossy smooth finish you want

very very fine teeth

and that way the japanese feel you

actually improve the taste

of the fish so which grit of stone you

buy depends on what you want to do with

your knife

furthermore it depends on what kind of

knife you have

broadly speaking you've got german or

european style knives

and you have japanese or asian style

knives they differ in their profile

that is their shape they differ in their

geometry

and they differ in the hardness of the

steel as indicated by the numbers on the

rockwell hardness scale german french

on the low end you'll start at about 52

to 54 rockwell hardness and these will

go

all the way up to typically about 58.

glass is 60 rockwell hardness

i'm sure we have knife nerds quibbling

in the comments already and now we've

got glass nerds yes there's definitely

different kinds of glass he's talking in

generalities your basic window glass

so if your knife can scratch glass and

leave a mark on it it means it is

above 60 rockwell hardness so

german and french steels generally you

want to finish

in the you know 2

000 to up to 4

000 range beyond that largely because of

chromium content

and softness of the steel you won't

really improve the edge and chances are

it will feel duller on the other end of

the spectrum you have

japanese steel which is often getting

into the 60s on the rockwell scale

harder than window glass

the harder the steel the finer or

narrower the edge it will

hold very very tiny very spiky

teeth very very sharp very very clean

cuts

but these are hard to work with

hard to sharpen um very brittle

to be clear he's talking there about

knives on the extreme

hard end of the spectrum not all

japanese steel is that

hard and brittle but some of it is super

hard steel is less flexible therefore

it's less durable

a coarser finishing stone would just

knock that super fine edge right off

for really really hard steel you need a

finer finishing stone that's what that

6000

8000 grit range is for it's for knives

like these that are really for

sushi chefs now between these two

extremes you have

basically my knife this is made by

calphalon

it was about 100 bucks i think when

lauren bought it for me quite a few

years ago

and it is just an archetypal low to mid

market

hybrid east west knife they take

elements of japanese

knife smithing but really they're

produced and tailored to more of the

german and french market

now these hybrid knives are getting

super popular for a reason

i think that this is the ideal

all-purpose

home kitchen chef knife it's the only

knife that you need

it's made to hold a 15 or 17 degree

cutting edge cutting angle right there

so it's made from steel that's a little

bit between the european and japanese

steel

a little bit harder than normal german

steel but not much

not so hard that it becomes brittle and

breaks off and becomes hard to work with

and this of course dictates which grit

of finishing stone we're gonna buy

four to six thousand would be perfect

you know so you can finish

low for a little toothier edge or 6000

for a little finer

smoother edge so i got this 4000 grit

finishing stone that should work just

fine with the pretty standard hybrid

knives that i always use

but i'm just dipping my toes into all of

this people over time just find that

they like

certain grits for certain knives and for

certain effects

and they like different grits on

different brands of stone or different

materials of stone

you got your natural synthetic or

ceramic stones we're not even getting

into all that today

the rabbit hole has no end but when you

start you need a coarse stone and a fine

stone

now you can get a combo stone that has

one grit

on this side and a different grit on

this side you just flip it around to use

one of the other

those are cool the problem with that is

that sharpening on a stone

removes material from the stone

just as it removes material from the

knife and so

if you're doing that to both sides

eventually you can have a problem

where it doesn't really lay flat

eventually this is dished

and you might get some weird angles here

and then we flip it

those same weird angles will be apparent

in this top stone

so um i'm not a huge fan of combo stones

even though i have one

this leads us to the third and final

thing that you have to buy to get

started

you need a stone for sharpening your

stone

seriously they're called flattening

stones or lapping stones

lapping plates leveling plates i'm sure

there's subtle and debatable shades of

meaning within those terms

this particular flattening tool the

davis is using is called a diamond plate

it's just got to be something that's

bigger and harder than your stones

that you use to re-level your stones

so these are the three things that you

need to get started a

coarse stone a fine stone which could be

the same stone could be a combo

and then you need something to level the

stone with those are the three things

now

let's actually do this step one is to

wet your wet stone

soak them in water fun fact wet with an

h

does not mean to make moist it's a very

old anglo-saxon word that means to

sharpen

or more broadly to get something ready

hence the expression

wet the appetite wet with an h means to

prime or prepare your appetite

which incidentally will make your mouth

w-e-t

wet hence the confusion about what the

two wets mean

anyway all wet stones with an h need to

be

wet without an h but not all of them

need to be

soaked in advance there are splash and

go

stones that you only have to wet as you

use them

and then there are soaking stones that

have to be soaked far in advance

splash and go might be more convenient

but they're generally more expensive

and davis thinks they're bad for

beginners they're harder

less porous so they give you less

tactile feedback as you sharpen against

them that's why i went with soaking

stones as you can see it is absorbing

water like a sponge there

pros often keep their soaking stones

permanently in water they call it

perma-soak

though you have to change the water

periodically to keep it from molding now

if you're soaking a dry stone

how do you know when it's ready little

air bubbles will

release from it and you'll hear and when

that stops happening

it's ready to go then you can just do

this on a damp

towel on the counter the towel holds the

stone steady

and it gives you something to wipe the

knife on davis recommends using a

loaf pan or something to raise the stone

up higher

that way your knuckles won't bang into

the counter as you're working

our soaked coarse stone goes on top

there

and you want to have a bowl of water

handy so that you can keep everything

wet as you work step one is to use that

diamond plate to

flatten the stone which was made uneven

by our previous sharpening session so

you want even pressure along the middle

of the stone

and i'm trying to keep my hand directly

over the stone so i'm not

curving the edges at all

i will however take this and do

kind of an edge bevel which is going to

strengthen

the edge of the stone geometrically so

that ideally you don't get chips like

this

he's just rounding off the corners so

they won't be really extreme

sharp right angles one thing flattening

does as well

is it'll it brings up grit with which to

work

called mud that mud is basically the

lubricant for the knife speaking of the

knife

you can see that davis favors a

three-point grip for sharpening

his dominant hand is on the handle the

thumb is on the heel of the knife

and his finger is out on the spine and

then the blade is facing

him and from here up to my elbow

will stay pretty much fixed throughout

the whole

process and most of the motion is coming

from my shoulder

down to my elbow and this is how we're

going to keep

angle control right and then pressure

on the knife comes from my left hand and

i'm going to put two or three fingers

depending

on the knife here this hand always stays

over the stone for safety reasons

and this is the motion that davis uses

he's pushing

back and forth pushing harder on the

outward stroke which is probably what

your body will do naturally anyway

and as he's pushing back and forth he is

gradually

drawing the knife perpendicularly across

the stone to sharpen the entire length

of the blade

as he gets toward the tip he rotates the

knife slightly so that he follows

its natural curvature or belly he

rotates it by lifting his elbow a little

bit

rather than twisting his wrist the wrist

stays

fixed to make a consistent bevel now

let's talk about angles

the face of the blade is at like a 15 or

20 degree angle from the stone

some people use angle guides to get

exactly the cutting angle they want

davis recommends that even beginners

just go

freehand i'm sure when you get more

advanced you can really control the

angle of the edge that you put on this

knife

but if you're just starting out like me

david says you really can just

kind of feel for what feels natural

there's a angle that just feels right

that kind of feels like you're shaving

little bits of sand

off of the stone which i suppose you

literally are doing

if it seems like you're getting that

shaving feeling you're basically gonna

reproduce the bevel angle that the knife

had previously

do it feels right and you can only go so

wrong there is another kind of angle to

consider though and that is the angle of

the length of the blade

relative to the stone he's got that at

like 45 degrees

again that's kind of what the arm does

naturally and that's good 45 degrees is

right

looks like side one of the knife is

about done we'll check to see

how we're doing here to see if we've

raised that bur at all and we

in fact have and it's pretty consistent

all the way down

now he'll wipe the knife and re-wet the

stone

you'll feel the instinct to do that too

when things get too dry the knife just

does not move

smoothly across the stone you'll want to

wet it when it's time

when we're wetting we're also removing

some of what's called the swarf

which is the the steel that's abraded

from the knife

now look there he's rotated the handle

of the knife in his hand so the blade is

now

pointed away from him before it was

pointed toward him he's using the same

three-point grip it's time to sharpen

the other side of the edge and look

he has changed the angle the length of

the blade is now perpendicular to the

stone

it's 90 degrees as opposed to the 45

that he did on the first side

we do a 45 angle here and basically 90

degree angle here

and that theoretically creates teeth

like this

that are more beneficial from for

cutting that might seem kind of hard to

remember but again

like ergonomically i think this is kind

of just what happens naturally

you got the blade pointed towards you

and you just kind of hold it at like a

45

you point the blade away and then the

handle just naturally kind of goes to a

90 degree angle like that

it's just what comes natural and it

works it's the same basic motion

back and forth gradually drawing the

length of the blade

over the stone and now

the burr is no longer on this side it's

now coming back to this side

so we know that we're making progress

here

and that we've got basically two edges

that have come together more or less

at a point and so we've got a piece of

steel that's flipping back and forth

so now davis is going to repeat the

whole process a couple more times for

progressively

fewer passes and with progressively

lighter pressure

and that's going to reduce the width of

the burr that we've created

so that we can kind of preface that

before we move to a finer stone so we

have to do less work on that fine stone

but of course whatever davis does he is

sure to flip the knife around

and do about the same thing to the

opposite side as well

got to keep things symmetrical because

we are sharpening a double bevel knife

right

now some people use a little circular

motion instead of the long strokes back

and forth some people do other motions

what davis is showing us is a

traditional japanese method but it's

certainly not the only viable one

time now to switch over to the finishing

stone the finer grit stone that's what

that one is there

and the first thing we do with that is

to use that diamond plate the flattening

stone to get everything even

from our last sharpening session i

recommend buying the largest stones that

you can find because surface area

is important and mass is important and

the height of the stone is basically the

life of the stone so the the

thicker a stone is the longer it will

last you it's the same exact process as

we did

on the coarse stone he's just using a

little bit less pressure this time which

again

i find is what my body wants to do

naturally with the finer stones

he'll stop every now and then and feel

for the burr

or rather he's feeling for the absence

of a burr when the burr is gone the

knife is sharpened and the last thing

he'll do is

strop the blade a stropping motion is

the same thing but it's a one-way trip

pushing or pulling opposite the

direction of the edge

one way swipes and you are stropping

away

from the part of the knife that cuts

stropping

hones the blade or gets those little

micro teeth standing upright

it's the same thing that you can use a

honing steel to do in between

sharpenings

though depending on how rough and how

hard the honing steel is

it might actually remove some material

too there is no need to use a honing

steel immediately after you have

stropped the blade on your fine grit

stone

it is ready it is honed clean it off and

that knife is

sharp af and if there is any dullness

or snag in the edge we'll see it in that

cut

because it'll be kind of a tear and

those look pretty clean to me

so we're not endorsing any particular

products here there are some notes in

the description

describing in general terms what kinds

of gear you need to acquire

wherever you're going to acquire them

and then there's just kind of a bare

bones write up step by step of davis's

basic sharpening technique

and look i'm still all about my pull

through sharpener but you can't deny

this is better

look under the microscope see that nasty

scratch pattern there

that's from my pull through sharpener

where it looks beautiful and polished

that's what davis did on the stones

and as an added bonus that diamond plate

you can use that

to fix major structural flaws in the

knife like huge chips

or the dull point where i dropped this

knife in the street about a year ago

perceptive viewers have noticed that

he's just using a rough diamond plate to

cut a whole new

point of the blade there that tip is

almost as nice as this last one

if you're going to get into stones davis

says buy one of these a sink

bridge these are adjustable brackets

that hold the stone

over the sink then you've got your water

right there to keep the stone wet

and all the mess is contained in the

stink

that you can then just wash down when

you're done davis normally does the

whole process right there in the sink

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ragusa now go get your nose to the

grindstone

isn't it nice when you can use an idiom

literally well i guess that isn't

totally literal

this would be the literal version you

could do that too

no judgment here