📝 Article 1: The Fundamentals of Knife Sharpening – Understanding to Cut Better

Sharpening, Honing, Maintaining: The Complete Guide to Understanding the Edge of Your Knives

🔪 Introduction: The Perfect Cut Begins with Understanding

Owning a quality knife is the first step towards culinary excellence, but performance lies in its maintenance . How many times have you heard or used terms like "sharpen," "hone," or "maintain" without truly grasping their technical nuances?

To become self-sufficient and ensure the longevity of your tools, it's essential to master the vocabulary and anatomy of the blade. This article is your gateway into the world of sharpening. We'll break down why your knife loses its edge and introduce you to the three fundamental concepts: the edge , the bevel , and the angle .

Get ready to turn the haircut into a pleasure.

1. Untangling the Vocabulary: Sharpen, Hone, and Maintain

In everyday language, these three terms are often confused. However, each refers to a specific action and a different level of abrasion, essential for the health of your blade.

1.1. Sharpening (or Honing): The Daily Task

Sharpening (or honing) is the gentlest and most frequent action. It does not aim to remove material, but to straighten the edge of the blade which has become twisted or deformed through use.

• When to do it? Ideally before each use (or after a few intense cuts).

• Typical tool: The steel (steel, ceramic, or diamond). ➡️ See Professional Steel

• Result: The edge is realigned, the knife quickly regains its sharpness. This is preventative maintenance .

1.2. Sharpening: Restoring the Edge

Sharpening is the fundamental action. It involves abrasive work, that is, the removal of a small amount of material to create a new cutting edge. The cutting edge is literally recreated.

• When should you sharpen it? When honing with a steel is no longer sufficient, when the knife "slips" on the food, or when it is visibly dull. This usually happens after several weeks or months of regular use.

• Typical tool: Sharpening stones, rolling sharpeners, guided sharpening systems.

• Result: A brand new, sharp edge, capable of shaving. This is corrective restoration .

See ➡️ Water Stone ➡️ Magnetic Rolling Sharpener

1.3. Maintenance: Overall Maintenance

Maintenance encompasses all practices: cleaning, drying, secure storage, oiling (for carbon steels), and of course, regular sharpening.

2. The Reason for the "Knife That No Longer Cuts"

A knife that no longer cuts is usually not so because it has lost its edge, but because its edge is displaced .

2.1. The Rolling and Deformation Effect

On a microscopic scale, the cutting edge of a knife is incredibly thin, like the peak of a mountain. Every time you cut, this peak comes into contact with a surface (cutting board, food). Under pressure and friction:

1. The thread twists: Instead of staying perfectly straight, the thread bends slightly to one side or the other (a "rolling" or "lip" effect).

2. The angle is no longer optimal: This twisted wire no longer presents its ultra-fine edge to the food, but its lateral surface.

3. Result: The blade slips, tearing the food instead of slicing it cleanly.

This is where sharpening (with a steel) comes in, which corrects this microscopic deformation so that the mountaintop is once again perfectly centered and vertical.

2.2. Actual Wear and Tear

If you continue to use a bent knife without sharpening it, the small deformed lip will eventually break or wear away, creating micro-tears or rounding along the edge.

This time, sharpening is necessary. An abrasive surface (like a stone) must be used to "remove" the cutting edge by a few microns, creating two new perfect faces that meet to form a new ultra-fine edge.

3. The Anatomy of the Cutting Edge: Edge, Bevel, and Angle

To handle a sharpening tool successfully, you need to visualize the three key elements that make up the cutting area.

3.1. The Thread (or Cutting Edge)

The edge is the precise point where the two sides of the blade meet. It's the thinnest line of the knife, the one that does the cutting work.

• The ultimate goal of sharpening is to make that line as fine and straight as possible.

• The sharpness of a knife is measured in microns. On a very sharp knife, the edge is often thinner than a human hair.

3.2. The Bevel (or Edge Geometry)

The bevel is the flat or curved surface that leads from the body of the blade to the edge. It is the facet that comes into contact with the stone or sharpener during sharpening.

• Most Western kitchen knives have a symmetrical bevel on each side.

• On traditional Japanese knives (like the Yanagiba ), there may only be one bevel (asymmetrical bevel).

It is on the bevel that you work when you sharpen. By removing material from the bevels, you create a new edge.

3.3. The Angle (The Key to Performance)

The sharpening angle is the inclination at which the bevel is formed relative to the plane of the blade. More precisely, it is referred to as the included angle , which is the sum of the angles of the two bevels.

• If you sharpen at 20° on each side of the blade (working angle), the total included angle (the opening of the V of the cutting edge) is 40°.

• The knife's performance and durability depend entirely on the consistency of this angle. A very narrow (sharp) angle cuts better but is more fragile. A wider (obtuse) angle is more durable but less sharp.

Maintaining the Angle: The Main Challenge

The difficulty with traditional sharpening using a whetstone lies in maintaining a perfect and consistent angle from the heel to the tip of the blade. Even a slight variation (a few degrees) will prevent the creation of a truly high-performing edge. This is why modern tools, such as angle-guided rolling sharpeners , were developed: they eliminate human error by guaranteeing a consistent angle.

4. 🗃️ Summary: Key Takeaways

✨ Conclusion and Next Step

You now have a solid foundation to understand the mechanics of a cutting knife. You know that cutting quality is not a matter of chance, but of the precise geometry of the edge and the bevel.

Remember this: the secret to a knife that is always sharp is not strength, but the precision of the angle and the regularity of maintenance.

But what is the ideal angle for your knife? In our next article, we will delve into performance by breaking down the different sharpening angle standards (15°, 20°, Japanese vs. European) and how to choose the one that suits your needs.

➡️ Go to Article 2: The Perfect Angle: Mastering Sharpening Angles (15° vs 20°).