Is it possible to sharpen knives professionally only using bench stones?

David Martin said:
It can be done with SiC stones. Having a good coarse stone is your best help. Then finish on a finer stone. I like my Tri- Hone 313 but their pricey. Stringing electric cords at shows is a real hassle. Then in a parking lot -- forget it. Yes, you need to do them a burr free job in 15 mins.. On larger 9" knives 20 mins. tops. Sure I carry different type stones but diamonds are only a finish stone. As, they wear and are expensive.
Good luck, DM
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Hey DM, how the heck are ya? (I haven't been here for a while--life :)).

I forget, when you get super steels to sharpen, what's your basic progression and what stones are you using? Are you using SiC as the coarse stone as we were discussing last a couple years ago, and then moving on to finish with a fine diamond stone?
 
Anything is possible, using stones would not be ideal since as a professional, time is your most valuable resource but you would want to invest into some vitrified diamond stones for sure If for whatever reason you're dead set on using stones.

you need a stone that doesn't readily dish and that also isn't prone to tear out and that has a renewable surface and fast cutting speed without creating deep nasty scratches.

Honestly though I think it would only take a week of serious work for you to soon realize that power equipment is not your enemy but will certainly help you.
 
I think the biggest thing is your not in control of the knives you receive to sharpen.

Horrific geometry, steel, heat treatment.

Horrendous damage, misuse and improper previous sharpening and care.

No matter what, every knife had to be brought to its highest potential sharpness even though everything is working against you and It's in poor taste to tell the customer that the knife is not very good It's always their special little knife.

Made me realize real quickly that I only liked to sharpen nice knives.

That's why I became a maker, so I only have to sharpen the best knives :p

Eli Chaps said:
This guy did several videos of how he got into pro sharpening:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqrc2r0WbBEgJMF1NITH-xQ

I thought there was a lot of very good advice in there. He's power-tool guy but still lessons for manual.

For a whole lot of reasons, I can't imagine manual sharpening for a living. :eek:
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DeadboxHero said:
I think the biggest thing is your not in control of the knives you receive to sharpen.

Horrific geometry, steel, heat treatment.

Horrendous damage, misuse and improper previous sharpening and care.

No matter what, every knife had to be brought to its highest potential sharpness even though everything is working against you and It's in poor taste to tell the customer that the knife is not very good It's always their special little knife.

Made me realize real quickly that I only liked to sharpen nice knives.

That's why I became a maker, so I only have to sharpen the best knives :p
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Yeah, I do enough sharpening for friends/family and see what they hand me and I think wow, dealing with that several times more and every day? Yikes!

And like you said, the pressure I would put on myself to give them the best I could do would burn me out. Surely not discouraging anyone, just saying that even I had the confidence in my skills, I know I couldn't do it.
 
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Yes to the above observations. I have no problem even with manual sharpening if its just Western kitchen knives or budget steel pocket knives at relatively low volume. But when stuff comes in that is crap steel or even worse, high carbide steel AND its trashed that's where the problems get cumbersome.

Also chisels or plane irons that are out of square or have big dings.
 
Eli Chaps said:
Yeah, I do enough sharpening for friends/family and see what they hand me and I think wow, dealing with that several times more and every day? Yikes!

And like you said, the pressure I would put on myself to give them the best I could do would burn me out. Surely not discouraging anyone, just saying that even I had the confidence in my skills, I know I couldn't do it.
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I sure couldn't do it at $5 a knife when I know I'll probably have to reprofile most of them the first time that I clamp them up. Personally, I wouldn't waste my time for less than $40 a knife the first time. Then $10 to sharpen it the next time if I had previously reprofiled it, unless it has damage to it.
 
I sharpen on the side in my local area (N. CA like the OP). Most restaurants have moved to knife rental services that include free sharpening.

Most home cooks don’t know or care about sharpening and will not pay more than a couple bucks to have their knives sharpened. I try to do most knives in 2-3 min for $5 each. Zap them with a 120 to clean up damage and set a decent bevel. Head to a power strop with green compound to deburr and polish - done.

Nicer chef’s knives may get a couple intermediate grits, but keep in mind that most people have never used a polished edge and won’t perceive it as sharper than a toothy edge. If the knife ends up in the dishwasher or tossed into the sink after it’s first use then all of your extra work refining and polishing is useless.

I use a 1x30 now, but used to use a Ken onion BGA. If I was trying to be super portable with low power requirements I’d think about a big camping battery + 2 of the Worksharps set up with coarse and fine belts.

I can do a basic sharpening on about ~10 kitchen knives or scissors per hour on the worksharp. Could do a few more few more per hour if there is no need to stop and change belts.

Keep in mind that you can charge a lot more for garden tools and scissors than kitchen knives, but they take way more work and typically require a lot of cleaning up rust and detail work. Finer scissors require different equipment like a flat hone or wheels.
 
Wislenwiiley said:
Let’s say sharpening 20 kitchen knives a day was what you needed to make enough to pay the bills. And you went around to restaurants sharpening their beaters(not the expensive Japanese knives). Considering the amount of damage done to these knives (chips and broken tips) is it possible to reset the edge on these things in let’s say max 20 minutes per knife with just a coarse stone 60-120grit? I have no experience as to what condition cooks bring their knives to pros to get redone. Just looking for some insight into whether a no power equipment approach is even possible for these conditions.
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I did this for a bit. I ended up hating it. The amount of trash X50 cutlery out there was staggering, and the damage was so high, and everything was a damn German style with bolster—these are the factors which reduced a sharpening progression down to just a DMT EC and a quick strop on the Spyderco UF. Results were good, people were pleased, but the whole job was just gummy garbo knives. And then when someone did manage to surprise me with a real knife, I wasn’t really able to truly sharpen them, because I either needed more time or more money, which either didn’t work with a volume business formula or grossed out the customer and made them feel like I was trying to gouge them just because they had an expensive knife.

A critical failure in the foundation of my attempts also became evident quickly: no one really knows what “sharp” truly is. None of those people was like us here; out here we are regularly shaving hairs and a disproportionate percentage of us (myself included) are so intense about sharpening that we don’t consider the job done until we can split a hair root-to-tip.

Instead, mostly everyone thinks a brand-new shitass knife from Walmart is the pinnacle of sharpness.

The end result was a failure for me as my results could be wayyyy better than a factory edge, but no one was willing to pay for the time, nor truly understood what “real” sharpening referred to, nor even had a knife worthy or capable of wearing such an edge anyways!

However, if you can gain the business and show up weekly, I think you could make a hell of a go with a 1x30 grinder slapping fresh 220 edges on, or even 320/400 belt edges (to stand out and above). A good job with this tool will offer the customer an edge that exceeds expectations at a speed that allows you to work at a sustainable pace and volume
 
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