Kitchen knife honer?

[traciehowe]

Hi all! I\'m brand spanking new to wood carving. In fact, I haven\'t even bought a knife yet, let alone any other tools.

I have been perusing the forums here looking for suggestions on how to start and I\'ve come across the topic of knife sharpening a few times. There appears to be a variety of tools for sharpening carving knives, but I\'m wondering if I need to buy anything if I already have a honer at home for our kitchen knives?

To be honest, I know nothing about sharpening kitchen knives either, as that\'s my fiance\'s department. I don\'t know how many different kinds there are for specific needs, but I was hoping that they are all more or less the same and could be used for carving too. What do you think?

[joepaulbutler]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

In my opinion, leave the sharpener for you fiance. Study some more videos and make a choice of what type of sharpening you want to try. It is a personal preference thing.
Not much help I will admit, but there as many way at arriving at a good edge.
. . .JoeB

[Steev]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

There are numerous styles of kitchen knife honers out there so any answer you get will be in general terms, but, the bevel angle and fine-ness of the finish that will make a good kitchen knife will most likely leave you less than satisfied for wood carving.

[Soggy]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Hi traciehowe; and welcome to the world of carving! Learning to sharpen is more difficult than learning to carve in my opinion.
Joe is offering good advice, check out some of the videos on YouTube, but remember \" Most expensive isn\'t always the best\" There are carvers who can put a razor sharp edge on a knife using nothing more than a piece of cardboard and some honing compound .
Wayne

[Arthur C.]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

All good advice so far. Sharpening by hand requires only that you learn the proper technique (lots of info online) and practice. The kitchen gadget will do you no good...I was given an electric kitchen knife sharpener a few years ago, tried it a couple of times, went back to honing by hand on a stone. You don\'t need any power but that of your muscles and mind. Keep in touch with us on the board.

[Claude]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Welcome to the forum!

Here is a little drawing to show you what a knife edge is supposed to look like... The cross section of the blade on the left is a typical kitchen knife. The secondary bevel at the cutting edge is to give the blade more strength on the edge when cutting bone or other hard items in the kitchen. The blade on the right shows a cross section of what a carving knife should look like - no secondary bevel. BTW, do not click on the thumbnail of the drawing to view it; instead, right-click on the thumbnail, then select Open In A New Window or TAB, whichever you prefer. When done looking, close the window or tab and you are right back where you were reading.

One of the easiest ways to learn how to sharpen a carving knife is to join a local carving club and watch the members. If there are not any clubs nearby, just go to YouTube and search for carving knife sharpening and you will find tons of videos. You do not mention where you are located, so go to Community near the top of the page, and select Clubs from the pulldown menu. Put in the name of your state or province and you will see a list. Hopefully, one is nearby.

Claude

[Nomad]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

For 90% of the sharpening I do in the kitchen, I use a ceramic rod.

In fact, this one: http://www.amazon.com/Lansky-8-Ceram...ic+sharp+stick

These rods do get clogged so o keep the rod clean, I use a medium rust eraser. Something like this one: https://www.sharpeningsupplies.com/L...FUodgQodFogDsw

or
http://agrussell.com/knife/3859

[mpounders]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Most sharpeners for kitchen knives use a different angle than what is needed for carving knives. And they don\'t work with gouges and chisels either. I would suggest that you might start with knives and tools that are already sharp and purchase a strop and some compound to maintain them by hand. Helvie, Drake, OCCT, Flexcut will always come ready to carve. A utility knife/box cutter is easy to sharpen in that you simply replace the blades as needed. The models that don\'t have a retractable blade are safest, like a Stanley 10-209. You will eventually want a knife with a longer and skinnier blade, but you can carve just fin with a utility knife! Be sure to get a safety glove and thumbguard too.

[Nomad]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Ooops! I guess I misread the original post. LOL! Plenty of good advice for sharpening carvings knives above. Yes, they are different from kitchen knives and generally require a different technique.

[miatawoman]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Ditto on your post Mr. Pounders. I started carving a couple of years ago, and I was too gung ho. It took me several sharpening stones and other sharpening items before I realized that you \"sharpen\" very rarely (if you are careful), but hone/strop constantly.

[traciehowe]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Wow! This is all great information! Thanks for your answers!

We do have a manual kitchen knife honer of some kind of metal variety. I should ask my boyfriend what it\'s made out of, but he never seems to be around when I doing carving research! It sounds like I might need to look into another way to sharpen though.

Great to know about the different bevels, Claude! Thanks for sharing the image. And I appreciate the names of the knives that come already sharpened, mpounders. That should help my first knife decision!

Thanks guys!

[mpounders]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Wow! This is all great information! Thanks for your answers!

We do have a manual kitchen knife honer of some kind of metal variety. I should ask my boyfriend what it\\\\\\\'s made out of, but he never seems to be around when I doing carving research! It sounds like I might need to look into another way to sharpen though.

Great to know about the different bevels, Claude! Thanks for sharing the image. And I appreciate the names of the knives that come already sharpened, mpounders. That should help my first knife decision!

Thanks guys!

It sounds like the sharpener you are describing may have two little sets of metal wheels that interleave together. The knife blade is pulled through the V-shaped intersection of the wheels to easily sharpen kitchen knives. Sorry, but that probably won\'t be good enough to carve with. You could test it by actually using one of your small kitchen knives, like a paring knife, and try carving a little on a piece of wood. It won\'t work very well! Carving sharp is different from cooking sharp.

[Bob K.]

Re: Kitchen knife honer?

Kitchen knives and carving knives are two totally different animals. The bevels on their blades are very different. Save yourself a lot of pain and frustration, and invest in some good carving tools and sharpening equipment. Leave that kitchen knife sharpener in the kitchen!