On a knife's Edge

I have this old knife that I really love.

It’s a slick chef's knife with a comfortable black handle.

I got it when I moved out of home over 26 years ago.

It was old even then.

Super useful old knife and it's my go-to for preparing vegetables and all sorts of yummy meals.

I love my food…as you probably know.

But unfortunately, sometimes it gets dulled.

Sometimes the edge get’s so dull and exhausted that it squashes the tomatoes instead of cutting them.

Which tells me I’ve neglected it.

Then the tomatoes are all squished and yucky.

Which is no fun at all!

Also, when the knife is in this state, it can be quite dangerous.

I can really cut myself and get injured pushing ahead while it’s in that condition.

But, the old knife just needs a bit of tending to.

Doesn’t take long either…when you have the right tools.

In fact, I got this really great sharpening stone a few years back.

It has two different sides.

One side for when I need to remove the knocks it’s taken through the week.

And the other side to give it back the edge it needs to work well.

But before I use the stone I need to soak it in a tub of water.

While it soaks, the warm water interacts with these fantastic minerals in the stone AND?it’s ready to help the knife in about 15 minutes.

The process activates the stone's sharpening power and protects the stone from damage.

I used to think that each time you sharpened a knife you had to remove metal.

And I would see all these skinny, destroyed old knives that had been sharpened incorrectly.

I was wrong.

When you know HOW to sharpen, you rarely need to remove any metal at all!

You don’t need to remove anything.

What actually happens when the knife gets dull is that the edge rolls over.

So when you look at it closely (microscopically) it looks like the edge of a sheet of paper that just needs to be straightened.

When I first learned to sharpen my knife, I wasn’t very good.

I’d try to PUSH the edge of the blade across the stone.

Sometimes a little too forcefully.?

So it was actually rolling the edge more.

The edge appeared completely exhausted and duller than before.

But then I learned what was REALLY happening on the knife edge…

...and realised that ALL I had to do was DRAW the edge BACK.

The process is called HONING.

Actually backing up the blade across the stone, rather than pushing forward.

You back the edge off a few times and within minutes it’s straight and sharp and ready to use.

SOOOO much easier to take a moment to prepare the stone and draw back on the blade, instead of forcing it, like I used to.

I love this old knife.

I intend to work with it for the rest of my life.

With the care I now give it, with a little honing, it’s sharper than ever.

I’d glad I learned a better way to look after it.

With a little attention at the right time, my old knife is always ready to go.

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