- 包丁を研ぐ - 砥石の役割

- Sharpen the knife - The role of the whetstone

What is the situation when a knife cuts or does not cut?
Also, how does a whetstone turn a knife that cannot cut into a sharp knife?
If you understand the logic, you will be able to improve your knife sharpening skills.

1. Knives that cut, knives that don't cut

If you look at the cross section of the cutting edge of a sharp knife, it will be thin and sharp. Also, if you zoom in on the surface of the cutting edge, it looks like a jagged saw blade.

On the other hand, knives that do not cut sharply have a rounded cross-section, but if you zoom in on the surface of the cutting edge, you will see that it has a straight shape.

As the knife blade is placed against a hard object such as a cutting board, the edge of the knife becomes rounded and the jagged edge becomes straight.
If you use a regular knife every day, the blade will become uncut after about a month.

2. sharpen it so that it can be cut   

A whetstone is made of particles (abrasive ) harder than the stainless steel or steel used in knives, hardened with a binding material.

When sharpening a knife, the knife collides with these hard particles, causing the knife to become sharp. The edge of the knife is sharpened by sharpening it, and the jagged edge is created by chipping the knife into small pieces.

At this time, the hard particles of the whetstone are also ground down, become rounded, and peeled off from the whetstone (the whetstone is also ground). Then, new hard particles appear on the surface of the whetstone, so the sharpening performance of the whetstone does not deteriorate.

3. Difference between whetstone and sharpener

I've never used a whetstone before, it seems difficult. Isn't it okay to use a sharpener? I think there are many people who say that. This doesn't mean sharpeners are bad. However, a sharpener cannot replace a whetstone.

A sharpener temporarily improves the bite by roughening the edge of the blade, and is very useful when you don't have time to resharpen the blade and you need it urgently.

On the other hand, the purpose of a whetstone is to return a rounded edge to its original sharp shape by applying the whetstone to the entire edge of the blade at a fixed angle, so the purpose of the whetstone is fundamentally different.

A sharpener is useful if you want to improve the sharpness while cooking, but if you use it too much, the strength of the edge will decrease and cause chipping, so clean it with a whetstone once or twice a month. We recommend that you have it.

 

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