As a fellow hand tool woodworker and a certifiable knife knut, I'm compelled to ask. Don't your knives deserve the same love and appreciation that your chisels and plane irons get?
If there were something as effective as this for planes and chisels and affordable, I would use that for most sharpening instead of going to my stones. I got one of these for my apartment and my housemates were able to keep the knives sharper than before.
Mine sure don't. Sharpen as it pleases you. I also wonder if you'd notice a large performance difference between AccuSharp sharpened knives and knives sharpened as you sharpen them. Maybe if you keep up with kitchen knife sharpening, but most people don't sharpen kitchen knives regularly. Even the two professional chefs I know regularly neglect their home knives. Perhaps they and others would sharpen nearly every time they used a knife if it only took 10 or 15 seconds to sharpen as it does with an AccuSharp. And if they weren't shamed for using the quick and effective enough approach.
I love the Accusharp for kitchen knives, especially those with stainless blades, which cut better with a slightly toothy finish. My Japanese knives benefit from a steeper angle and are done on stones. I have a ceramic honing rod that extends the period between sharpening.
If you haven't done so before, I suggest experimenting with placing the Accusharp on the counter with the blue part up, and move the knife across it. I find it's a much more stable/controllable setup, but opinions differ.
The instructions say to do it the way Megan is doing in the photo. You leave the tip of the knife hanging off the edge of the counter a little so that at the end of the stroke your hand drops down instead of bouncing off the counter. Your fingers are safely contained in the handle so there's no danger of them coming into contact with the blade. Moving the blade seems to me to open up a lot more possibility of it contacting flesh.
These get a blade razor sharp. While serving in the USMC during Desert Storm, I used one to keep my KA-BAR sharp. Ended up costing me 6 stitches in my thumb. Not fun anywhere, but especially in the Kuwaiti desert with no lidocaine. Still have the scar.
Thanks Fitz for addressing kitchen knife sharpening. I confess that it is a chore often neglected at my house and a source of embarrassment when relatives visit and complain about my cutlery.
The more difficult problem is keeping those serrated blades sharp. I cringed when a saleslady at a fancy kitchen store said to just throw it away and purchase a new one.
An answer to this conundrum came last weekend at the Lie Nielsen tool event at the Lost Art Press building where guest speaker Matt Bickford was demonstrating the use of the molding planes he produces. When asked about sharpening those shaped irons in his planes, he stated he often uses the same technique he uses on serrated kitchen knives. He hones away metal on the flat side of the blade and lightly touches up the shaped side of the blade only when necessary to avoid altering the cutting profile of the iron.
I have one of these, and bought one for my (then 86 year old) mother, who just wants a decently sharp knife and does not know or care or want to care about steels and stones and grits and everything else. Just "pull the thingy along the knife edge a few times." I love mine, and she really loves hers.
YAAAAYYY!! Something I already own and use and NEVER admit to... like talking about religion or politics, I never mention sharpening methods outside immediate family!
The Pro model is not worth it, unless it has been updated. The extra metal are the decorative plates in the outside. One was bent on mine, so I took it apart to see if I could straighten them. The innards are the same as the regular model. The Pro model also has an elastomeric surface, which I don't prefer over the hard plastic. Sometimes those get gummy over time, but not always. I do not know if that will happen in this case.
I use these for my utility knives. They do work but I think you can take off a lot of metal if used aggressively. Keeping the blade aligned properly is important to keep the bevels equal.
It's been stones, strops, and (honing) steel for my kitchen knives ever since I got into woodworking, but I was a restaurant cook long enough to understand well how ubiquitous and ubiquitous the Accusharp is. Which is to say: madam, you wound me - but I pass no judgment.
I must ask: is a honing steel in your arsenal? They work wonders for the edges on my high-carbon blades, but their bigger benefit is preserving material: where an Accusharp removes a tiny bit, the honing steel should simply straighten out your edge - something like burnishing a card scraper.
NB: my grandfather left me his chef knives, including one he used in the Pacific Theater of WW2 when he served as a cook for the crew of a tank landing ship. I treasure this knife as an heirloom, and I wish I could use it -- but he sharpened the poor thing so much, the part of the blade that should be flat and perfect for heavy chopping now has a concavity of almost 1/4". I can grind it flat, sure - but then its profile will be more for a specialty like carving ham rather than the utility service it was born to fulfill.
Yes! The AccuSharp is excellent for kitchen knives! I've used it for years and years. Reversed and the replaced the inserts once. People love how sharp our knives are when they use them. I hit knives with the AccuSharp nearly every time I take them out of the dishwasher. Yes, the blades get eaten away faster than they have to, but having sharp knives with speed and convenience is worth the cost. Yes, the wooden handles on the knives are grey and cracked by the dishwasher treatment, but they are still intact and solidly attached after 20 years of dishwasher treatment.
There is some skill involved when sharpening with the AccuSharp. Since it cuts metal from the cutting edge all the way across the bevel, there are times when "normal" light pressure doesn't sharpen the edge completely. I add a little pressure, and that allows the AccuSharp blades to cut more metal off the part of the bevel farthest from the cutting edge. Light pressure then suffices to get the cutting edge right into the intersection of the AccuSharp cutters. This is especially important to pay attention to when you first use the the AccuSharp since the bevel on the knife and the AccuSharp probably aren't identical. You can remove metal shavings without sharpening the cutting edge if the bevel on the knife is more obtuse than the bevel of the AccuSharp.
The AccuSharp can leave a bit of a "wobble" in the edge over time, but that is easily corrected with a coarse stone or grinding wheel every few years.
As you know laminated blades have a hardened steel cutting edge backed up by a thicker layer(s) of soft iron. The hard steel requires a hard and sharp abrasive to cut it. The soft iron tends to clog the abrasive (which is why DMT don’t recommend using their diamond stones for laminated blades). A water stone overcomes both problems by having sharp hard particles held together by a friable binder which constantly releases fresh abrasive.
I've been using one of these since Chris first wrote about them on the LAP blog and I love it. Sharpening kitchen knives used to be a time-consuming project which resulted in it not getting done as often as it should have. Now, if a knife isn't quite sharp enough, it's good to go after 15 seconds and a few swipes.
As a fellow hand tool woodworker and a certifiable knife knut, I'm compelled to ask. Don't your knives deserve the same love and appreciation that your chisels and plane irons get?
If there were something as effective as this for planes and chisels and affordable, I would use that for most sharpening instead of going to my stones. I got one of these for my apartment and my housemates were able to keep the knives sharper than before.
Mine sure don't. Sharpen as it pleases you. I also wonder if you'd notice a large performance difference between AccuSharp sharpened knives and knives sharpened as you sharpen them. Maybe if you keep up with kitchen knife sharpening, but most people don't sharpen kitchen knives regularly. Even the two professional chefs I know regularly neglect their home knives. Perhaps they and others would sharpen nearly every time they used a knife if it only took 10 or 15 seconds to sharpen as it does with an AccuSharp. And if they weren't shamed for using the quick and effective enough approach.
I love the Accusharp for kitchen knives, especially those with stainless blades, which cut better with a slightly toothy finish. My Japanese knives benefit from a steeper angle and are done on stones. I have a ceramic honing rod that extends the period between sharpening.
If you haven't done so before, I suggest experimenting with placing the Accusharp on the counter with the blue part up, and move the knife across it. I find it's a much more stable/controllable setup, but opinions differ.
My first inclination would be to move the knife, not the sharpener.
The instructions say to do it the way Megan is doing in the photo. You leave the tip of the knife hanging off the edge of the counter a little so that at the end of the stroke your hand drops down instead of bouncing off the counter. Your fingers are safely contained in the handle so there's no danger of them coming into contact with the blade. Moving the blade seems to me to open up a lot more possibility of it contacting flesh.
These get a blade razor sharp. While serving in the USMC during Desert Storm, I used one to keep my KA-BAR sharp. Ended up costing me 6 stitches in my thumb. Not fun anywhere, but especially in the Kuwaiti desert with no lidocaine. Still have the scar.
Thanks Fitz for addressing kitchen knife sharpening. I confess that it is a chore often neglected at my house and a source of embarrassment when relatives visit and complain about my cutlery.
The more difficult problem is keeping those serrated blades sharp. I cringed when a saleslady at a fancy kitchen store said to just throw it away and purchase a new one.
An answer to this conundrum came last weekend at the Lie Nielsen tool event at the Lost Art Press building where guest speaker Matt Bickford was demonstrating the use of the molding planes he produces. When asked about sharpening those shaped irons in his planes, he stated he often uses the same technique he uses on serrated kitchen knives. He hones away metal on the flat side of the blade and lightly touches up the shaped side of the blade only when necessary to avoid altering the cutting profile of the iron.
I have one of these, and bought one for my (then 86 year old) mother, who just wants a decently sharp knife and does not know or care or want to care about steels and stones and grits and everything else. Just "pull the thingy along the knife edge a few times." I love mine, and she really loves hers.
I looked away... Fellow chef
YAAAAYYY!! Something I already own and use and NEVER admit to... like talking about religion or politics, I never mention sharpening methods outside immediate family!
The Pro model is not worth it, unless it has been updated. The extra metal are the decorative plates in the outside. One was bent on mine, so I took it apart to see if I could straighten them. The innards are the same as the regular model. The Pro model also has an elastomeric surface, which I don't prefer over the hard plastic. Sometimes those get gummy over time, but not always. I do not know if that will happen in this case.
I use these for my utility knives. They do work but I think you can take off a lot of metal if used aggressively. Keeping the blade aligned properly is important to keep the bevels equal.
More than one way to skin a cat.
I like the little bit of tooth that the Accusharp provides.
It's been stones, strops, and (honing) steel for my kitchen knives ever since I got into woodworking, but I was a restaurant cook long enough to understand well how ubiquitous and ubiquitous the Accusharp is. Which is to say: madam, you wound me - but I pass no judgment.
I must ask: is a honing steel in your arsenal? They work wonders for the edges on my high-carbon blades, but their bigger benefit is preserving material: where an Accusharp removes a tiny bit, the honing steel should simply straighten out your edge - something like burnishing a card scraper.
NB: my grandfather left me his chef knives, including one he used in the Pacific Theater of WW2 when he served as a cook for the crew of a tank landing ship. I treasure this knife as an heirloom, and I wish I could use it -- but he sharpened the poor thing so much, the part of the blade that should be flat and perfect for heavy chopping now has a concavity of almost 1/4". I can grind it flat, sure - but then its profile will be more for a specialty like carving ham rather than the utility service it was born to fulfill.
Yes! The AccuSharp is excellent for kitchen knives! I've used it for years and years. Reversed and the replaced the inserts once. People love how sharp our knives are when they use them. I hit knives with the AccuSharp nearly every time I take them out of the dishwasher. Yes, the blades get eaten away faster than they have to, but having sharp knives with speed and convenience is worth the cost. Yes, the wooden handles on the knives are grey and cracked by the dishwasher treatment, but they are still intact and solidly attached after 20 years of dishwasher treatment.
There is some skill involved when sharpening with the AccuSharp. Since it cuts metal from the cutting edge all the way across the bevel, there are times when "normal" light pressure doesn't sharpen the edge completely. I add a little pressure, and that allows the AccuSharp blades to cut more metal off the part of the bevel farthest from the cutting edge. Light pressure then suffices to get the cutting edge right into the intersection of the AccuSharp cutters. This is especially important to pay attention to when you first use the the AccuSharp since the bevel on the knife and the AccuSharp probably aren't identical. You can remove metal shavings without sharpening the cutting edge if the bevel on the knife is more obtuse than the bevel of the AccuSharp.
The AccuSharp can leave a bit of a "wobble" in the edge over time, but that is easily corrected with a coarse stone or grinding wheel every few years.
Hi
What is the difference when sharpening laminated knives vs standard steel knives?
As you know laminated blades have a hardened steel cutting edge backed up by a thicker layer(s) of soft iron. The hard steel requires a hard and sharp abrasive to cut it. The soft iron tends to clog the abrasive (which is why DMT don’t recommend using their diamond stones for laminated blades). A water stone overcomes both problems by having sharp hard particles held together by a friable binder which constantly releases fresh abrasive.
Megan do you use this sharpener for your R Murphy Carving knife you wrote about back in July 2024 on the Never Sponsored Substack?
I've been using one of these since Chris first wrote about them on the LAP blog and I love it. Sharpening kitchen knives used to be a time-consuming project which resulted in it not getting done as often as it should have. Now, if a knife isn't quite sharp enough, it's good to go after 15 seconds and a few swipes.