OK, thinking about taking the plunge, Edge Pro Apex....

AllenOK

New member
What all can you suggest that a professional cook would want? How many different stones am I going to need (not want, but actually need?).

I currently have a Smith tri-hone setup, with an aluminum oxide "coarse", and two natural Arkansas whetstones, one in "medium" and the other in "fine". I'm not actually sure about the level of grit.

I do not, at this time, own any Japanese knives. I may purchase one in the future.

Will I need a diamond stone of any sort, to really cut a good bevel on a knife?

I know some of you all use the blue masking tape to protect the finish of the knives you sharpen. I have some at home, and we use LOTS of it at work.

I don't know if I want to build a strop to maintain a really fine edge.

I believe I'm going to need a ceramic rod to hone the edges, correct?

Any other advice/tips? And yes, I have some good beater knives to practice on without killing my work knives.
 

Rob Babcock

New member
Don't worry, you'll love the EP! My advice is to buy the top of the line kit, for several reasons. First off the price difference is minimal and the new kit includes more stones than the older ones, including a new ultra-ultra-fine 1000 stone. As a rule your run-of-the-mill Germans (Henckels, Wusthof) won't benefit from higher grit polishing; those boat anchors can't hold an edge than fine. But you'll have them for the better knives you'll almost inevitably get!:clap:;)

Also the upper kits include the ceramic hone, and you're gonna get a lot of use out of that. It's absolutely perfect for soft Germans. Use the 120, then the 220 followed by the 320, then finish with light strokes on the ceramic. Not much point to going finer and you'll have a very durable & sharp edge.

A strop is a good idea, although I doubt I'd bother doing for mass market Western cutlery. Maybe if you have some carbon knives. A strop works very well but for use at work the ceramic is a bit more practical.

When you do get into J-knives I suggest you start with a Tojiro. Very good steel and it will get sharp and stay sharp pretty well. You may want to thin it out a bit behind the edge (although the spine is fairly thin the bevel looks almost convexed).

I wouldn't waste my time on diamonds for sharpening; nothing is better than waterstones. They cut faster and are more economical. Plus softer steel (<60 hRC) will tend 'wrap' around the diamonds and pull them out of the matrix- your diamond stone won't last very well. However, a DMT Dia-Sharp XXC is the best product I know of to flatten EP stones. Well worth it for that. And if you buy one you'll have it on hand for the things it's really good for, like fixing broken tips and grinding really big chips out the edge.
 

UnConundrum

New member
Gold Site Supporter
I'm probably in a pretty big minority, but I bought an EP and rarely use it. I think it's a great idea, and it's clearly well made. Problem was that I just couldn't sharpen a knife without scratching it. I have some high end knives, and those scratches just weren't desirable. For a lot less money, I bought some regular water stones, and can maintain a decent edge with them. There are a lot of cds you can buy with instruction on knife sharpening... Click here for example . I've never scratched a knife with the whole stones, although it is possible.
 

RobsanX

Potato peeler
Super Site Supporter
I got the EP Apex 2 with all the stones and ceramic rod. If you plan to change the bevel angle of your knife then be prepared to spend some time with the coarse stone.

Don't worry about "killing your knife." You can work methodically and see results before you do any major damage.

Scratches not withstanding, but my knives are tools, not show pieces... If you're worried about scratching, then you can easily take appropriate steps to prevent it...
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
You won't be sorry Allen. The EP is a nice tool. :wink:

When I do friends knives I always sharpen them with the EP the first time to ensure getting the bevel angle I want. I normally give the Germans a 10 degree secondary bevel and a 15 degree primary. If there is a lot of metal grinding required I start with an 80 grit 6x1x1/8" Ruby stone from Congress Tools. Otherwise I use the EP 120. Unlike Rob B. I use all the stones on both bevels. It may not do a whole lot for the edge but I like polished bevels and the reduction in friction helps cutting. Also, I only use the ceramic rod for touch ups between sharpening, not during the sharpening process itself.

Buzz
 

PieSusan

Tortes Are Us
Super Site Supporter
I have always felt that it is best to let an expert sharpen really expensive knives and scissors. (Your welcome, Chico) lol
 

S.Shepherd

New member
What all can you suggest that a professional cook would want? How many different stones am I going to need (not want, but actually need?).

I currently have a Smith tri-hone setup, with an aluminum oxide "coarse", and two natural Arkansas whetstones, one in "medium" and the other in "fine". I'm not actually sure about the level of grit.

I do not, at this time, own any Japanese knives. I may purchase one in the future.

Will I need a diamond stone of any sort, to really cut a good bevel on a knife?

I know some of you all use the blue masking tape to protect the finish of the knives you sharpen. I have some at home, and we use LOTS of it at work.

I don't know if I want to build a strop to maintain a really fine edge.

I believe I'm going to need a ceramic rod to hone the edges, correct?

Any other advice/tips? And yes, I have some good beater knives to practice on without killing my work knives.


you'll be fine the direction you're going in. Like any sharpening, there's a slight learning curve. Sounds like you're already proficient doing it by hand.

If you decide to get into harder steels than the western styles then we can talk about Japanese stones, DMT stones, glass stones, etc.
 

Rob Babcock

New member
I'm probably in a pretty big minority, but I bought an EP and rarely use it. I think it's a great idea, and it's clearly well made. Problem was that I just couldn't sharpen a knife without scratching it.

Most of the time I don't care all that much if my work knives get scratched, but if you're working on one you want to keep pretty just cover it with painters tape. Works like a charm!
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
Most of the time I don't care all that much if my work knives get scratched, but if you're working on one you want to keep pretty just cover it with painters tape. Works like a charm!

That will work. I keep my EP washed down often and have no scratching problems.
 

joec

New member
Gold Site Supporter
Guys keep in mind that Warren has a set of Carter International Damascus Pro knives that probably cost as much as your current car but only if new. This man has some serious kitchen equipment period. I really don't blame him either as I own one knife like his and won't let any one sharpen it but either myself of Dave, Warren's adopted son. :respect:
 

UnConundrum

New member
Gold Site Supporter
Actually, I tried it out on my KD petty, LOL the "cheaper" knife ;) (btw, Dave got the scratches out and re-etched it for me) I tried the painter's tape, and it just rubbed off. Just couldn't get the knack of it. Great idea, I just couldn't make it work like I wanted.
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
The EP gives you an angle so you don't screw up like hand sharpening. Why tape the blade? Tape the EP and keep it clean and you will have no problems.
 

The Tourist

Banned
Any other advice/tips? And yes, I have some good beater knives to practice on without killing my work knives.

Because of your profession, I would call Ben and get his "Pro" model. It uses the same stones, but the fixture is a lot more rigid, and you probably will be using longer kitchen style knives.

Other than that, you're going to have to investigate pumice, pastes, the finest grit stones and glass.

I sharpened for professionally for over ten years and was "cursed" during one period when I viewed Japanese sword polishers. That seemingly simple thing got me interested in finding a history book, and then...

I could have gone two distinct ways, and both paths exist. There are numerous plans for building an historically accurate polishing table/area.

I was/am itinerant, and my supplies had to be mobile. Granted, I do carry polishes, bit of brass, tiny little fixtures, a tinking hammer and commerical pastes.

Ben was lucky enough to find me some older glass used in antique lighthouses and old locomotive train headlights. He made some special mounts for me, which I truly cherish.

Do you need this stuff? Well, no. A fugu chef might want a pristine sashimi knife. Dead clients are a real downer for future business. But I do take my personal gyuto to The Ginza of Tokyo so they can prepare my party's dinner.
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
But I do take my personal gyuto to The Ginza of Tokyo so they can prepare my party's dinner.

You take a Gyuto to a restaurant and give it to the chef? Doesn't have his own knives? Doesn't know how to sharpen? Is the chef your brother-in-law? You must know him well otherwise I think he might be offended.

AllenOK, it's getting a tad deep in here. If you purchase an EdgePro, I recommend the Apex unless you have a need for the scissors attachment. I have all of the stones but I think you could be very happy with no more than the 120, 320, and 1000 grits. Those will get the job done and the bevels will gleam. Make sure you get the ceramic hone as well. It's an Idahone "fine" grit and works extremely well between sharpenings. The polishing tapes are unnecessary IMO. The 1000 stone edge is very nice by itself. A simple home made strop about three inches wide loaded with chromium oxide will get the job done much faster anyway.

Buzz
 

The Tourist

Banned
You take a Gyuto to a restaurant and give it to the chef? Doesn't have his own knives? Doesn't know how to sharpen?

Actually we have a lot of fun.

I took a santoku with me the first time. As you know, we sit "in the round" amid a grill. The chef entertains by juggling salt and pepper shakers and spinning the knife. He saw the knife box and asked me "if I knew what it was." I showed him the knife.

He set his knife aside and prepared dinner. I had sharpened/polished a small JWW picnic knife, and included that little knife along with the tip.

It got to be fun.

Yes, the staff sharpens their knives. But I've seen them "saw" a bit through food, especially when they cube the pieces of steak. I've found this to be true in a lot of cases.

Hard as it is for people like us to believe, Buzz, much of the world sees a knife as simply a nifty can opener. If the shift is over, the knife goes into the sink with the flatware.

(I think places like The Ginza understand fun, like a musical production "in the round." Yeah, it might not have the polished quality of a Broadway performance, but the clientele are also there to be entertained. If just sating their hunger was the main focus, they would just hit Mickie Dees.)
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
I like places such as your Ginza restaurant and it must be a lot of fun for you have some personal involvement. There's a spot like that about 10 minutes away from me and DW and I haven't been there in a few years. I'm getting hungry. Thanks for the reminder.
 

The Tourist

Banned
Iabout 10 minutes away from me...I'm getting hungry. Thanks for the reminder.

Buzz, take my advice, become "audience participation." Take a knife. I take mine in the decorative gift box with the Japanese charcters on the top so the chef knows what it is.

At my local restaurant they usually have ten seats around the grill. In most cases one family is on one side, and a second family on the other. In my case, the two families began to interact, and by the time they lit up the "little onion volcano" we were the loudest table in the joint!

(I must admit, even in the context of "working," I try to be polite and helpful. When the chef and I spoke one-on-one I was respectful of his togi craft. Respect is important, as you most certainly know, as this chef was a Japanese national, trained in his home country. I made sure he knew I was a tinker, not a polisher. We had a good time, and he expressed the little knife would become his personal paring knife.)
 

S.Shepherd

New member
[quote

(I must admit, even in the context of "working," I try to be polite and helpful. When the chef and I spoke one-on-one I was respectful of his togi craft. [/quote]

soo..the guy who works there is a sword polisher?
 

The Tourist

Banned
soo..the guy who works there is a sword polisher?

Not likely a talent in my neck of the woods, but they send their stuff out to craftsmen who are polishers. The local Madison polisher does swords, and I believe only swords.

(I found another tidbit from my shrink, who is Japanese. They/he box up their kitchen knives and ship them to Japan. And that's the 'good stuff' only. Trust me, the common stuff is only sort of sharp.)
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
(I found another tidbit from my shrink, who is Japanese. They/he box up their kitchen knives and ship them to Japan. And that's the 'good stuff' only. Trust me, the common stuff is only sort of sharp.)

So what happens in Japan? All the factory edges are only about 2000 grit and the very first thing I do when receiving a new knife is to put a real edge on it. Why don't you golden tongue your shrink and show him the meaning of the word sharp? Or, give him info on Dave Martell at Japanese Knife Sharpening. Dave is easily the best free hander I've ever seen, perhaps the best in the US.
 

The Tourist

Banned
Buzz and S.Shepard, both of you have expressed the same thoughts I have, or wondered about.

First off, I'd like to take S.Shepard's remark first. "A sharpener isn't a Togishi, but a togishi does sharpen."

In dealing with Ben and Keith, I learned that there are very few professional sharpeners who use waterstones in any capacity of their work. I'm a mongrel son, for example. In my cases are tools from just about every sharpening discipline, except oil stones.

So while I use a polisher's tools, I am not a polisher. And I make that clear. I'm a tinker. A tinker, by definition, repairs kitchen supplies.

Keeping that in mind, let's address Buzz' comment, "So what happens in Japan?"

Well, you can actually get someone to work on your knife and get it back fairly quickly. The polisher here in Madison has a backlog measured in years.

When I found out there was a polisher in my home town, I called him hoping to become some form of wax-on, wax-off apprentice. I called several times and left messages. His wife (who probably runs the business and acts as 'gatekeeper' as does mine) told me that sword boxes were piled up in their home like cordwood. He didn't have time to teach.

Additionally--and read this carefully--I believe there is a racial issue. My shrink is a fair, honest man of a sterling record. The Mayo Clinic offered him a position, and he turned it down. But in his heart of hearts, I don't think he'd feel comfortable turning over knives several generations old to American tinkers and polishers.

So, would a local chef borrow my knife? Of course. It's free, it's sharp, we had a good time.

Would an entire Japanese kitchen hire me to sharpen their personal knives?

Only in my dreams. They know who I am, they've used my edges, they have my card.
 

The Tourist

Banned
Chico - keep plugging away. You never know.

Well, taken in the context of AllenOK wants to learn how to sharpen his personal knives, having a chef do his own work is a good idea--in fact, necessary.

I don't work outside of Dane County. In fact, there has to be a wad of cash on the table before I'll take a job on the west-side of Madison. I'll probably stop doing salon scissors later this year.

Guys like AllenOK are the guys I look for, but they also fall into the same category every other "togi-ish" tinker works within. That being, "We have enough work, we're retired, we don't drop everything at a moment's notice."

If AllenOk drops his favorite butakiri slicing the silvers off of a gila monster a few hours being seating clients, he can do one of three things.

First, he can borrow/use a knife that sort of does the job. In some places a signature dish or portion control is the name of the game. Might be a bad choice.

AllenOK might put an emergency call into his tinker--and pay double time for the service. If the tinker is on his Harley 150 miles away having a good time, that cell phone call might be ignored.

Or AllenOK might take out his Edge Pro. He then applies the talents he has learned from Ben Dale and Keith D'Grau in repairing premium knives and just goes back to work, no sweat no strain no muscle pain. The tinker can always make his regular service call next Thursday and check the edge.

In fact, if AllenOK lived somewhere close in Dane County, I'd go over there and teach him how to use an EP, any 3x9 stones, glass, and leather.

That might seem odd, but it's a realistic approach. Tinkers are not going to be welcomed into every venue.
 

S.Shepherd

New member
Chances are, you'll never sharpen a Itamae (sushi chef) knives. They sharpen them to their personal preferences/how they like to cut. Aolt of them don't even like a new knife to have a sharpend edge on them when they buy them, they want to do it themselves. Most say it takes 3-6 months to get the edge how they like it.
A local sushi place buys my knives for use at the sushi bar. I put a pretty simplistic, but sharp edge on them........and still it takes them 3 months to fine tune it to their liking.
 

The Tourist

Banned
to be honest, doing this precess to kitchen knife would be a waste of time and money, there's simply no justification for it.

Oh, I agree. And that's 100%. No question.

But then, you should see the "pocketknives" Locutus and I carry. It's a complete waste of time, and we know it!

Locutus is more of a researcher than I am. Granted, I steal a lot from history books, but Ron (that's Locutus' real name) likes to push the envelope on projects and attain the absolute maximum any knife can render in any situation. Even those circumstance on his wilderness outtings. And he'll probably push a Strider to feats that might scare the crackers out of Mick.

Me? I'm just OCD putzy. Ben will send me a new stone, or I'll get a new knife (of any variety), I'll find out that NCIS is a rerun. And then voila, three hours later I'll have a jackknife so shiny it bounces cell phone signals.

Complete waste of time, manpower and resources.

However Ben Dale informs me that whenever "cutting edge" devices or procedures are discussed on forums, his phones light up. People from all walks of life want finer grit stones, info on pastes, glaziers glass and upgrades from Apex to Pro. They can't all be tinkers, they're just honing their private collections.

I will admit, the folder I carry when I ride could be perfectly servceable when sharpened with a 320 grit stone. But I must be honest, I am more comfortable carrying an EDC which is significantly sharper than most four star chefs have access.

My guess is that my shrink feels somewhat the same, aside from having a professional handle his antiques with care.
 

The Tourist

Banned
Most say it takes 3-6 months to get the edge how they like it.

I'm finding the same thing. In fact, my friends and I often say how three times is really the charm. After three or four sharpenings/polishings I think you have finally found all of the blade's imperfections and taken care of them--if only by dumb luck.

I have included a picture here to use as an example. My wife is my bookkeeper, and averaging costs, hours on task and charges per inch, she feels my time in general terms is about 50 dollars per hour. Truth be told, I feel good about that as an old guy with a wage ceiling to take into consideration.

Pictured below is a Myerchin L300 (one of my EDCs). Since I rep for that company, I get them for 36 dollars. It took me three hours to make the bevel as uniform as possible, and then go through several finer grit polishing stones, then paper and paste on glass.

I wasn't hurrying, I was just having fun with my new knife.

But given my wife's arithmetic, what you are actually looking at is a 36 dollar knife with a 150 dollar edge.

Is it worth it? Well, that's part of this discussion. I can see a first responder EMT wanting the finest knife he could find. A sailors' style knife with a superior edge might be worth it to him for slicing victims out of wrecked cars. After numerous conversations about excellence and value, my friend Locutus would insist on it!

As for me? Hey, I'm the one who bought all of the sharpening supplies and paid for the knife. I'm the one who stayed up late doing those three hours. I'm the one who has to lug it around as an EDC.

Is a Dodge Viper really worth more than my first house? Well, you be the judge.

DSC00440.jpg
 

The Tourist

Banned
That's a very good rate--in fact, it's the exact same rate I charge for hunting knives here in the south central Wisconsin area.

On high end Japanese chef knives I charge 20 dollars per inch.

BTW, I also charge one-dollar per inch on salon scissors (most times, I have to charge a bit more for damage). Most of these girls are fresh out of MATC and anything above that is too much for a kid starting her career.
 
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