Whetstone with an angle guide
I was thinking recently to maybe buy a whetstone so I can sharpen my knives at home. I read all the threads here, on reddit, elsewhere.
I understand that:
- It is an art, rather than a simple process.
- It is very easy to curl your edge and ruin your knife.
- It is a good idea to get a stone with grit around 800-1000 for general sharpening and possibly a 3000 grit for refining the blade at the end. (I don't have a knife that justifies a 6000+ stone, yet.)
With regards to 1 & 3 there's not much I can do or say, things are what they are. But with regards to 2, I am a bit confused. All the comments I've seen say that with low quality stones (or with too-fine-for-what-you-actually-need stones) the problem is that you will need to do 50 passes and maintaining an angle is impossible, so you're bound to screw things up.
How come nobody mentioned angle guides? I see them everywhere on Amazon, and they seem to solve exactly this problem. Is there something "they're not telling us" about these gadgets? Are they secretly bad, or become useless very quickly as the stone wears down?
Best Answer
I found https://youtu.be/kwg18GUJ3nw?t=222 where he explains that angle guides are nice, but they can reinforce bad practice, take away your ability to sharpen by feel, or be flexible with regards to the angle at the tip. Moreover, the clip-on guides can scratch your knife, which is sometimes undesirable if it has a nice finish (e.g. Damascus or hammered).
Pictures about "Whetstone with an angle guide"
How do you use a Wedgek angle guide?
The general angle to sharpen a knife is approximately 15 degree to the sharpening stone. I tried using this knife sharpening guide on a 1-1/2 inch width knife and also 2-1/2 inches width kitchen knife.Whetstone Sharpening Angle Guide
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