Kitchen knife sharpening

[Tom Stenzel]

My wife uses a glass cutting board. I've pretty much given up keeping the knives sharp. Except for the Forgecraft carbon steel knife I keep hidden in the basement. I use that when I'm stuck in the kitchen. No, I don't use the glass cutting board either.

With my chemo my immune system went in the toilet. So everything in the kitchen now gets washed in hot water even if it's bad for it. Sorry guys, perfection won't be found at my house, now or possibly ever.

I always thought that it was the caustics in the automatic dishwashing detergent that wrecked knife steel and glassware. Abrasives in the detergent is news to me.

-Tom

[Steve H Graham]

What I read was that phosphates are abrasive, but apparently they were banned in 2010.

[george wilson]

Sorry to hear about that,Tom. We do what we have to. I wish you the best of luck.

[Tom Stenzel]

Appreciate the thoughts George. You sure haven't had it easy either. I appreciate that you're able to give advice here.

Though the hot water isn't the kitchen knive's worst enemy here at the house. The GLASS cutting board is the real problem. I've tried, even making a walnut/maple cutting board to use.

At first I didn't understand it, then found my MIL using one. Oddly enough her knives have problems too. It's something my wife grew up with- kitchen knives don't hold edges. It's the way the world is.

She's a wonderful person, I'm lucky to have her so I better just shut up!

-Tom

[george wilson]

You need to get her away from that glass cutting board. Tell her that microscopic shards of glass get into the food. That ought to turn her off of it! Make or buy her and end grain cutting board. We have an end grain bamboo board that works fine. End grain is better for keeping edges than side grain.

[Steve H Graham]

Don't feel bad. I found someone using one of my Japanese knives to scrape staining off of a glass stove top.

[Mel Fulks]

Good info here always gives help even beyond the immediate subject. I had no idea hot water would dull a knife . In using a straight razor I have been rinsing with hot water since that is needed for face. With cold water the edge stays sharper through shave, I never would have believed that possible.

[Brian Holcombe]

Don't feel bad. I found someone using one of my Japanese knives to scrape staining off of a glass stove top.

Increase the quality of training for staff members?

There are some requirements in life, those are;

- How to cook a steak

- How to light a cigar

- How to enjoy a whisky

- How to maintain your tools.

[Steve H Graham]

Personally, I would have used a router.

[Mike Null]

I've searched and haven't found any evidence that cleaning knives with hot water dulls the edge. For those who say yes, I'll go along with that but I wash mine by hand with whatever temperature water comes out of the faucet--but not cold.

Like most of you any special efforts would be futile anyway as OWMBO has no regard for how she uses or cleans them. (she doesn't put them in the dw though)

[Shawn Pixley]

Increase the quality of training for staff members?

There are some requirements in life, those are;

- How to cook a steak

- How to light a cigar

- How to enjoy a whisky

- How to maintain your tools.

How to cook fish. (Most treat fish incredibly discourtesously)

[Brian Holcombe]

Indeed! Add it to the list.

[Dave Cav]

The Spyderco medium stone finally showed up. It was out of stock (or something) at Amazon. First impression is that it's very smooth and flat, and a lot more "fine" than I expected for a medium stone. I put it to work on our kitchen knives, and it took quite a while to put an acceptable edge on any of them. It was obviously removing material from the edge, but it wasn't doing it very fast. I got all of the major knives reasonably sharp but I thought it took a longer than it should have, based on my experience with my Shapton stones, which, admittedly cut pretty fast.

Later on, I went out to the shop and dug out my ancient blue DMT medium diamond stone, and went to work on the steak knives (they're pretty decent knives for steak knives, not junk from Target or Wal-Mart). The DMT stone re-established the bevel and the edge rapidly, and then about 20 strokes on the Spyderco had them just about saving sharp, which is as sharp as steak knives need to be. I went back and re-sharpened two paring knives using the DMT first and then finishing with the Spyderco, and I think they're noticeably sharper than when I sharpened them with just the Spyderco alone. Since I rarely, if ever, use the DMT diamond stone in the shop any more, it'll stay in the kitchen with the Spyderco.