My knife is about 6 years old and had a fair ammount of use up until 2 years ago when it became subjected to hard labour. I recently bought a new knife exactly the same as existing as it has a good feel.
My original knife does not want to sharpen as it has in the past. It has a what feels like a sharp edge after sharpening but the knife is blunt after a very short time.
Does a knife blade have an expiry date in that it needs to go to a specialist sharpner for a new edge?
When you say "sharpen", do you mean 'hone' or 'true' the blade? There's a difference between sharpening or trueing a blade. The former (sharpening) is a rework/rebuild of the edge, done by a specialist. The latter is what you do after every use (or so) using a rod. It sounds like you need to hand it in to get it sharpened properly.
You can sharpen it yourself, of course, provided you have whetstones, or a machine, or something like that. I use whetstones for my knifes, but it all depends on type of knife, skills et.c. I hand them in every now and then too, purely because I'm lazy.
I do hone with a rod and it looks like I need a speciallist to give it a new edge but I don't think such a person exists in PE.
I do have a whetstone but lacking in skills.
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It might have something to do with how it was tempered. If it was just edge tempered you could have sharpened it past the hardened edge. But that would be very odd. I sharpen my own and have never had that happen. It does depend on the knife and how it was made/forged. Best knife I have ever had was my Marine Ka-Bar. I miss that knife. Had to leave it behind in the Marshall Islands. It went to a good home. But now that guy lives here in my town. Go figure.
Henrik measured the width of the new one and compared with older. Older is about men narrower. It does sharpen but looses it's edge in no time. New one to take over with the finer work.
A quick search on Amazon and it seems like most of these knives are stamped steel, not forged. Sort of a Victorinox Fibrox equivalent. If you own or are willing to buy an Accusharp hand-held sharpener that's likely all you'll need to get a good working edge on the knives that'll last a week or so at a time with heavy use and frequent honing. They're cheap.
If it's a forged knife that has become dull, it would probably benefit more from a pass over a set of water stones or a good belt-sharpening from a local hobbyist. If it's really been six years since it's been sharpened those options would be the best for re-establishing the correct angles and thinning the knife behind the edge if necessary.
holehogg When you thin and sharpen you lose metal on the edge, so in theory at some point a kitchen knife will become a steak or paring knife after enough dressings. I guess you can think of it as a pencil, when it gets to a nub and can't be sharpened anymore it's done.
What can happen when sharpening is that you can get the knife feeling sharp, but you have not removed the burr. So the knife will cut for a bit, but the burr will eventually fold over and it will no longer cut well.
A honing steel just realigns the edge. If there is a burr, the hone will realign it, but eventually that will not work any longer and the knife needs to be sharpened. Something like the Accusharp should work for you, and at ~ $10 (US) it's not too much of a hit.
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