The COARSE GRIT FALLACY - The Biggest Beginner Knife Sharpening Mistake

You need to design something for dumb people like me and sell it to me!

Is the tip of the knife not touching the sharping stone until the end of your stroke?

Just pick a crappy knife and learn on it.

>fallacy
whot? fallos?

Very solid explanation & perfectly comprehensible! As always!

Love from Germany💚🤘

That's the way I was taught too. The coarse stone should be doing ~95% of the work and if the edge doesn't feel keenly sharp it's not time to move to the finishing stone yet. Same thing applies when lapping surfaces, you want to start by taking material off, not rubbing a pretty polish on it.

Blast from the past (1986), Drill Sargent said practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.

Summary of the obvious: practice with an item that can be readily replaced.

❤❤❤

You left out the most important part of using a coarse Stone. A coarse Stone leaves a thicker burr that you can feel with your fingers. A finer grit stone leaves a smaller burr that you might not be able to feel if you don't know what you're looking for

would love to see you review the 'Lansky' blade doctor!

If that were true 40 grit would have made my cast iron skillet unusable because it would have withered to nothing.

What a multi-talented guy, both a great teacher and juggler :D

can i use sharpel stone for chef knifes? like wusthoff?

Practice doesn't make perfect ... Feedback makes perfect

Ask a friend if you can borrow their favorite knife. 😊

I’ll have you know that I have scratched the shit out of a satin-finished hollow grind while sharpening on a 1200 grit stone 💪

The best learning aid for properly apexing an edge is ... a bastard file. You can create a burr very quickly and make it very obvious where the burr is and how it flips from one side to the other.

Lol I learned exactly how you did. I started on a 1000 grit stone and got absolutely furious after days of getting no where and seeming to go backwards at times.
I then grabbed the coarse stone in the set and bam! My self confidence as a teenage boy came rushing back. 😅

I've bought a fairly good but a cheap set of stones and diamonds, and I was wondering if gradually increasing the grit is necessary for a better result, or if I can simply go from 250 grit diamond to 1000 grit stone?

Brilliant, thx! Froggy

I watch a lot of juggling videos…. They ALL have knife sharpening in them! 😂

Well said

This is really good advise. And for most folks that coarse stone and a good leather strop are all you will ever need.

I got a 1x30, belts from 120 to 2000 and two stropping belts. Even with my screwed up hands i can get a knife hair splitting sharp in 5 minutes.

You're the BEST!

"Perfect practice makes perfect" - exactly as said by football great Vince Lombardi.
Most people mistakenly leave out the "Perfect" part, which is the most essential part.

Why have I become obsessed with knife sharpening? I've never sharpened a knife in my life 😂

I think this is really good advice, with some exceptions. The 400 stone you show would be really good, but I would not hand my 140 grit atoma to a newbie. Not necessarily because its too aggressive in taking off material, but because at that coarse of a grit its difficult to use. Theres no feel in it and running a blade across it feels like its bouncing off a rock half the time, and getting stuck between rocks the other half. But again, this is the exception and not the rule imo.

When you use that angle guide on the PM2, which has a full flag grind, how far off of the 14° or whatever the angle guide says will yoy be? im trying to figure this out right now for a delica and an Endura, and I dont have an angle cube.

Just articulate a rule like «if you need more than 10 or 20 passes on the 1000 grit stone, you should use the 400 instead».

Excellent advice.

Well said. I got 1000 grit and was immediately disappointed by bow long it took. Should have had this channel when I bought it...

I had a S&W “tactical” I found on a road. I used it as my first learning knife.

What I discovered was that I never got any kind of edge until I used a coarse stone and created an apex. I’m still not great at sharpening, but I can now produce usable edges.

I did exactly what your talking about. Got a double sided 1000/6000 stone and it didn’t do much of anything. Wearing out the 1000 grit stone with so many passes and still not very sharp. Talk about frustrating. Gonna get a coarse diamond grit.

"I want you to apex" - OUTDOORS55

First, thank you for the video- good stuff! Second, need a strong magnet version of the angle guide... anything like that around? Something with embedded neodymium magnets and a non slip mat on the knife surface join.

5-ball ain't no joke! Much respect.

What Alex doesn't know about knife sharpening isn't worth knowing.

I had not known that. You just saved me a LOT of time. Thank you!

The reason I don't own a diamond stone. My Norton crystalline will really take off metal .

Only learned to sharpen 6 months or so ago, so I’m no expert but I get the best results with a few passes on my 325 grit Sharpal to get an apex before moving to the 1200 then burr removal on a black Arkansas. S90V will whittle hair both ways in less than 30 minutes.

Glad you weren't juggling knives.

Fantastic teacher in knife sharpening.keep the great work up

👍🙂

I bought that $21 cheap diamond stone and decided to teach myself a new skill. Saved $300-$400 buck not buying a fixed angle sharpener. A few well placed strokes on working blades and VOILA ! Sharp as fuk @ 400 grit. The edge holds longer with the course grit. A couple passes on an old leather belt and I am done.

M4 is the best steel.

I have a puck 120 corse/280 fine side. I ve gotten my knife to be sharp but can not get it any sharpen then it is. I struggle to know if should be sharpening at 15 or 20 but having done both, my knife doesnt increase in sharpness. Any tips.

M4 is the best 🍻