30 minutes of whetstone sharpening tips

I recognize your efforts at self therapy and applaud them.

My whetstone is very sharp.

/doingitwrong

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The Lansky Mini crock stick is ideal for kitchen knives, it’s very simple, gives an edge that’s easily sharp enough for most people’s kitchen needs, can be carried on a keychain, and costs about five bucks.
Works for pocket knives as well.

I’ve never liked those. They can chip a blade, the angle is very wide. And they remove metal in such a limited band so close to the edge you rapidly lose the overall geometry, leaving a knife that can’t be sharpened without some re-profiling. I have a pocket knife from a friend that used one of those religiously, and it took a lot of grinding to get an edge on there after he’d used the Lansky for a just a couple years. I needed to thin things out and put a completely new bevel on there.

On the plus side it taught me a lot about sharpening.

They work very well for touch ups, pretty common in meat processing/butchery and the default thing for fish mongers. But they aren’t a substitute for proper sharpening.

There are so many affordable sharpening systems on the market with controlled edge angles, and it so easy to make one’s own, that the only real reason to use a whetstone freehand is for the fun of it. (I have a couple of combination stones and some diamond plates, and I’m not terrible at using them, but when I need a good edge quick I’ll use a fixable-angle device.)

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