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Sharpening kitchen knives. It's time for my semi-annual 'sharpen all the knives in the house' event. Treated correctly, most kitchen knives don't need to be sharpened more than twice a year... but they must be properly treated in between; i.e. stroked on a Butcher's Steel before each use, and a few strokes on a smooth ceramic rod once a month. A Butcher's Steel is a bit different from the ones sold with most knife sets. It is just a smooth steel rod. It doesn't have all the little grooves in it that most rods have. In fact, I don't use 'steel' at all. I use a tempered 'borosilicate' glass rod. (You can use the edge of your glass baking dish or measuring cup. "Pyrex" is borosilicate glass.) With a knife sharpened to 4,000 grit and polished on a leather strop covered with Chromium Oxide paste (50,000 grit / 0.5micron ) a French Chef's knife will just about fall through a tomato from its own weight.
Stitchawl
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