5 Tips for Sharpening Japanese Knives

This has nothing to do with the sharpening angle, but instead about the orientation of your knife across your stone or plate.

Presenting the cutting edge perpendicular to your hands' direction of travel back and forth requires a lot of strength and practice to hold a consistent angle.

By presenting the knife at 45 degrees across the sharpening surface, you can reduce the amount of work your hands need to do and support them in holding a consistent angle.

We see a lot of advice on sharpening kitchen knives to start on a #1000 waterstone, which is a medium grit.

We find that it can take a lot of work to reprofile a knife from the factory edge to your own hand-sharpening angle. There is no way to avoid doing this, and so we recommend starting nice and coarse to make this a less arduous process.

If you sharpen with us at a JTA sharpening night, we'll probably put you onto a diamond plate first to get your angle onto your knife, and this is what Christian demonstrates in the video.

If you have coarse waterstones (around #400) these are also a good option.

Of course, if all you own is a #1000 waterstone, this will also do the job - just be prepared to take the time needed to get your edge.

Although Christian is a righty, the advice stands for lefties too.

The dominant hand (Christian's right) is tasked with holding the knife at a consistent angle.

If you struggle to do this, keep your strokes short while you build a bit of muscle memory.

The "off" hand (Christan's left) is placed on the blade and pushes the knife along and down onto the stone as you make your passes.

This hand can be moved along the blade and back slowly as you move your work along the edge.

For beginners, working up a burr and identifying when you have done so can be a nebulous concept.

Different knife steels and different sharpening surfaces raise burrs in different ways.

Generally, stainless edges form larger burrs than high carbon steels.

Coarser stones create larger burrs than finer stones.

Before moving up the grits from a diamond plate or coarse waterstone, you should absolutely be able to run your finger over the back of your cutting edge (the side you haven't been working on) and feel a rough edge tickle your fingers.

It will probably appear closer to the heel of the blade first. It is important to raise that burr along the whole edge before moving on.

Waterstones' propensity to wear and dish works in a sharpener's favour most of the time - but if it goes unchecked, it can start to work against you.

Sharpening on very dished stones makes it difficult to maintain a consistent angle.

We greatly prefer to flatten a little often, than to have to flatten a lot after finishing sharpening.