How to Sharpen a Knife | Paul Sellers

I know a lot of people struggle because they've got dull knives the steaks just won't slice and you've got an apple to slice you want it nice and thin to go in the bottom of that pie crust all of those different issues this is so simple this is how you should sharpen your knives if you've got a cutting board a book anything about this thickness three-quarters of an inch 7/8 of an inch somewhere on there take your knife if you can by these paddles these work great I use these all the time because I'm a woodworker but in the kitchen these work perfectly well too so I've got superfine I've got fine and I've got medium but if that's prohibitive you can use a piece of wood with different grits of sandpaper on them and this will get you dow n very quickly so I just put different grits on the paddles takes a few seconds to do so what you do is you put your paddle on a kitchen table top I've got my bench here and you just align it with the edge of your knife like this I'm going to put some black on here so you can see where I've removed the steel this works better than anything that I know I think so watch what happens here I move this here I want to get the whole bevel can you see I'm already getting the bevel there I'm going to go a little bit more so it's a bit brighter but just by rotating those shortcuts can you see I've got my bevel is being established and I need a bevel on both sides so I have to do both sides of the knife but what's this now I go over the whole bevel like this careful because you're creating a cutting edge but just in those short circular movements walk around keep your fingers away from the cutting edge work around this way all the way around this is where it gets a little bit difficult here flip over and do the same on this edge here this is my coarse grinding this is to get the blunt edge down after years and years of neglect now I know this seems complicated no this is anybody can DIY this you've got to take control of your life here I'm going to the medium on this one but this would be medium grit some papers somewhere about 180 something like that here pick up some sand paper from the local hardware store in a circle flip over do the same again so we work through the grits until we get to that cutting edge now I know this has already got a burr on one side from this so I feel for that burr this is already sharp so I'm going to my fine level so now I'd be at 240 grit something like that 250 flip over and do the same again this is super sharp this now we're at a super sharp level sharper than you've ever known your knives probably so be careful your fingers safety is your whatever you feel comfortable with but just work carefully now we go to the super fine keep replacing them trading them out now I'm at a very very polished edge here careful with your fingers flip over and do the same on this side and now we're right up against this edge here and we'll see what you can do with this knife work up to the edge like this that is basically it now clean this off make sure you don't have any residue this is sharp just to show you how sharp it is we'll go across the Apple this way see this is that sharper what this is a kitchen butter knife remember ooh so sharp I think you'll love it this is a simple method for you to DIY your kitchen sharpening you can sharpen any knife you can sharpen bowie knives you can sharpen any bushcraft knife if you're struggling this is the way to go so there we go one, two, three see that? that is so nice love it thank you you

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 302,872

Rating: 4.9662127 out of 5

Keywords: Woodworking, Hand Tools, Paul Sellers (Person), Sharpening, Knife Sharpening, Do It Yourself (Hobby)

Id: bailuQUh2mY

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

"Take control of your life"

[u/[deleted]]

If you are going to do this and just use pieces of wood with sandpaper like in the video, the length of the wood for the different grits MUST be the same dimensions, or it won't work.

If you have one at 800 grit that is 5 inches long, and then you have one with 1200 grit that is 6 inches long, you will not be honing the edge because they will be working the metal at different angles.

[u/bandalooper]

LPT: Don't sharpen a butter knife. You will forget and slice up your tongue or lips when licking the peanut butter off of it next time.

[u/Axle_Goalie]

I think the take away here is that he's made it so you can match the angle on both sides. No matter what you use to sharpen.

[u/Schwannson]

You can use the circular or back and forth motion for the course grit, but go only one direction on the finishing grit. I would recommend going into the blade, sharp side towards un-sharpened. Unfortunately, with this method you change the angle unless you're using tiny strokes, think of what /u/beren0250 said about the different lengths.

In fact, I change my mind, just don't do this. This may be OK for something you don't really care about for a quick fix, but if you have decent knives, just buy a sharpening kit (not a motorized one or those useless Wustoff handheld things) with stone/diamond grit. They're really not that expensive and they're consistent with the edge angles.

[u/ColonelBleepRescue]

It would have been nice if he was more specific about the grits. All I heard was 240 for the medium.

[u/SnZ001]

Came for the 5 min. video on how to sharpen kitchen knives. Stayed for a 34 min. video on how to sharpen hand saws.

If I had tried this owning-my-own-house thing before the days of YT and DIY vids, I'd be utterly clueless and totally fucked. I mean, in my parents' time, if you wanted to actually attempt any kind of project yourself for the first time, you basically had to rely on people you knew or friends of friends or maybe the local hardware store guy to help you out and/or give you advice. And there were/are certainly benefits to learning things that way - firsthand demonstrations/someone with expertise helping you out is always probably the best way to learn something - when it works out and you can actually locate and enlist someone who really knows their stuff to help out or give you advice. But that's not always an option. Especially nowadays, when almost everyone is working more hours and making longer commutes than ever before, leaving less and less time to spend even with their own families. And some of us just don't know that many people.

For many of us, houses are big, scary investments - and if they're not properly maintained, all of that money and all of that time and sweat and sacrifice just to make the mortgage can still end up turning into a huge, huge loss. So I'm extremely grateful for guys like this, who make it possible for me to at least take on SOME of the tasks that need to be done without having to spend precious resources on service vendors every single time.

[u/Zakrys]

I just watched the whole video, found it interesting but I still feel like I lost 5 minutes of my life since I'm never going to do it !

[u/m_tierney]

TLDW: Use sandpaper