I’m looking for a better knife sharpener for my hard steel chef knife. I think whetstones are the way to go, but most of the sets I see are 4 double sided stones. Do I need that many stones?
Is there a totally different type of sharpener that you have had success with?
Edit: I should add that I like my knife very sharp, and I have a few tiny chips in the cutting edge from a cheap drag-through sharpener.
Get a shapton 1000 grit ceramic whetstone, they’re excellent and not terribly expensive.
Those 4 sided ones are neat and all, but a decent stone will give you a better edge especially if you combine it with stropping.
I hate to suggest r*ddit, but r/sharpening was pretty good
Get a honing steel if you don’t already have one to help maintain the edge as you use the blade too, I keep one in the kitchen.
YouTube would probably be another place with good sharpening tutorials but you really just need a stone or two, an old leather belt to use as a strop, some stropping paste, and a honing steel. Shouldn’t cost more than $50-60 total.
The stones eventually wear down of course, but they’ll last a good while and you can flatten them when they start to dish.
I do have a honing steel! I’d be glad to use one stone with two sides instead of those stacks. How do I know if a stropping paste is good? A certain ingredient? A brand?
I’ve never really given that any thought lol, I couldn’t even tell you the brand I have, I just looked up “stropping paste”. It’s some green stuff that came in a white capsule.
Also, I specifically made this post to avoid searching reddit, haha!
I wonder if there’s a sharpening community on Lemmy or magazine on Mbin/Kbin…
If you find one, please share a link under this post.