sharpen my knives

This guy has a great low tech local method of picking up knives for sharpening:

• box up your kinves, write Seattle Knive Sharpening on top
• include your name, email & phone in the box
• drop off at one of two UPS places
• they sign you in, call the guy
• he returns knives in a couple 1 or 2 days (call you)
• you pay with check @ UPS and they give it to him

Anyway, it was nice to have such a simple site with instructions that are more like a scavenger hunt. In this case the absence of succinct offline instructions works better than an online form.

Michelle tipped me about this Seattle guy that sharpens knives. I plan to drop off my knives and fabric sheers this Friday. Sweet!

I sat down to do this a few months ago – got the sharpening stone out and lined up the knives and did my best, but I don’t think I did a very good job. I think if I had some help once, and was really happy with the results, than I’d get it down to a monthly routine and would consider this goal completed.

It’s satisfying to learn to sharpen your own knives. The price of a good sharpening stone (whetstone, not wet stone, though some are used wet; but whet means “to sharpen by rubbing”-wordnet.princeton.edu) and the time it takes to learn to get the angles right will pay off big time the first time you get a blade shaving sharp. :)

So easy. Don’t be afraid of fucking up your knives—you can always take them to a professional. Just use the little stick thing and you’ll be okay.

i’ve got my knives tightly wrapped up, sitting in my car, until i can get to Sur La Table to have them sharpened. they said it takes 24 hours. yep, one more step closer…hopefully i won’t get pulled over.

apparently my knife sharpening technique using my home sharpener is nowhere near what a professional could achieve. time to hunt down that professional because it’s no fun cutting an onion with a dull blade.

It’s very meditative. I might even check them tonight.

It was my birthday on Friday, and I got a wet stone (which i’ve been wanting for a few years). And even better than a wet stone, I got an hour to myself to sit at the kitchen table and very slowly sharpen the knives. It was a first go with the stone, so I’m not expecting perfection yet, but they were pretty good. It’s a very meditative past-time. Relax the shoulders, keep the angle right, keep the pressure constant. Clear the mind. I can’t do it too often or I will wear the knives out, but it was nice. I’m not taking this one off my list yet, because I am going to research a bit on how to do it properly.

I’ve been a bit funny about my knives for years, but nobody is going to take that statement seriously when I say I have never learned to sharpen them properly. I used to live in Japan and inherited from various friends a few good knives, and since bought a few for myself. I have a ceramic sharpener (two sets of double wheels) which is fine for honing a knife that is in fairly good condition, but not much good for the once a year edge. So I have asked for a stone for my birthday, and I have found a couple of good web sites which walk you through it, and I will give all my knives a good go.