Knife Sharpening

Since I’ve spent a considerable amount of time butchering deer for guys lately-90% of them had knives so dull they couldn’t be used-which is why I always bring my own if going to someone else’s home to cut up their deer.
Guys have handed me these “really great game processing knives and tools” that they wasted their $50.00-$75.00 or more on,and the pieces of crap wouldn’t cut through a cake without tearing it up.
Sharpening a knife is not all that complicated,it ain’t rocket science,you don’t need an engineering degree to get your knives sharp and keep them sharp.
You need a few basic things-a set of sharpening stones-( whetstones)-a butcher’s steel-a real one,not the 8-10″ pieces of shit that come with the equally useless knives in the wooden block on most people’s kitchen counters-an 18″ butcher’s steel-go to any restaurant supply store,any store that sells top quality cutlery,or order one online.
Lastly,you should have ceramic sharpening “sticks’-either the sticks that go in a wood block,or the inexpensive plastic sharpeners that have carbide sticks on one side,and ceramic on the other.
I have a tri-hone set of 3 sharpening stones made by Smith’s,it’s a coarse,a medium,and a fine stone,attached to a triangle shaped piece of wood that rests in notches in the wood base-you just turn it to whatever stone you need,as you do not always need to start with the coarse stone,sometimes you just need to “touch up” a blade.
I have a real butcher’s steel,have had the same one for 35 years or so,got it way back when I was a line cook,before I finished the apprenticeship and became an executive chef.
I’m on my 3rd tri-hone,they seem to last about 10 years-less if you’re keeping a bunch of knives sharp as you’re running a kitchen in a country club.
I use a small sharpener that has carbide and ceramic “sticks” ,along with a diamond coated,tapered rod for sharpening serrated blades.
The key to sharpening your knives is to be able to hold the same angle every time as you move the knife across the stone.If you can not do that-cut yourself some wood wedges,and hold those under the blade.
You want to use a 20-25 degree angle-( 20-25 degrees for each bevel-or a 40-50 degree inclusive angle)- for knives used to butcher game animals,mine always seem to end up at around 22.5-23 degrees,which works fine for me,if I need something more like a razor blade edge,I use a flatter angle-closer to 18-20 degrees-which is what I use for my filet knives.
As long as your knife blades are not full of nicks,or have chunks missing,you should only need 10-15 strokes on each side,starting with the coarse stone and repeated for the med. and fine stones,follow that up with 8-10 strokes on each side on the steel.

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