On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 11:33:04 AM UTC-5, Bob La Londe wrote:
Growing up in our family grocery store we used a triple stone setup with a
mineral oil basin below. My dad taught me how to hold and sweep a knife to
get a nice straight 20 degree edge. It took a lot of practice, but even now
when I sharpen a knife on a stone the edge taper is nice and flat. Some may
argue that it should be 17, and others may argue that some should be 25, but
I found the 20 degree edge (or the edge I felt was 20 degrees) held up very
well with only boning knives needing to be resharpened very often. We had a
steel, but it was never used or needed. We simply did not get rolled edges.
All the knives in our meat department were modestly inexpensive Forschner
knives except for one elcheapo fillet knife I had a shallower angle on and
used for showing off to cut tomatoes paper thin with a single swipe. Again,
except for the boning knives I almost never had to do more than dress the
edges of the blades with the finest of the three stones. Even the boning
knives rarely needed more than that. Usually only after training a new meat
cutter, or if I had been on vacation for a few weeks. These were knives
that got used for work every single day. They were not my private set.
These were communally used by every single person who worked in the meat
department.

If I saw somebody using a steel on a knife I knew I would have a little more
work to do on that knife. It was a sure sign they had taken the knife to
the stones and changed my edge geometry.

The key in my opinion to most knives is to figure out the best edge geometry
for your use and maintain the blade. It may vary depending on how you use
it. Remember a thin edge does cut easier and faster, but it also rolls and
wears easier and faster. I keep most of my knives at 20 degrees, but I do
have about a 25 degree edge on my parang as it mostly gets used for chopping
brush and wood. Yes, my fish fillet knives are shallower, but I also have
to touch up the tip where it bumps along the ribs more often.

That was a great post, Bob.

I learned to sharpen free hand when I was a very young kid, as my Dad got me a knife early on and checked it often to make sure I kept it sharp. He subscribed to the "sharp knives don't cut people, but dull knives do". I had a knack for it, and always had a knife in my pocket, even in elementary school, and it was always sharp.

My affair with my cutlery goes on today. Learning to sharpen free hand has made me able to sharpen, hone or touch up just about any knife to shaving sharp after I set the bevel I want.

I have really enjoyed the newer steels that are out now and have all kinds of them. Some are beyond hard and require diamond hones to sharpen. My hunting and kitchen knives are all stainless, but not that hard as I sharpen them frequently on my 1200gr diamond rod to keep them as sharp as possible.

I agree with your comment to sharpen to the use for the knife, as I put different angles on many of my knives based on their use. Hard use knives (my daily work knives that get all the crap work on the job) have fairly blunt angles on them. My kitchen cutters have pretty low angles to slice meats and veggies and the steel is soft enough (probably around 56 on the Rockwell) that they are easy to resharpen. Like you, due to the way I sharpen I don't have edge roll.

Not too many folks can sharpen a knife well these days, and even fewer can do it free hand. I sharpen knives for some of my friends, and when they bring me their knives we are both embarrassed by how dull they are. Try as I might, I can't get them to sharpen properly. A great deal of the problem is that they won't practice to build the muscle memory needed to cut the edge bevels the same on both sides. It works out, though. I sharpen their knives, and they keep me in some really nice cigars!

Robert