well said! it blows me away how many people on the internet will sharpen a knife and start at 600 or 1000 grit and recommend that, the other day i seen someone say you want a 1k and a 3k and 6k stones which in reality should be finishing stones if anything

@panganaranga

2 ай бұрын

Absolutely made the mistake to buy me a much to fine stone for years. Now got me the Sharpal as recommended. Works really good in combination. Of course you want a medium stone but it works very good. But, i fucking ruined my Adventurecraft with it. Maybe due to the fact it came with a uncorrect grind. Corrected the grind, but never got it really sharp again. Dot know if itś the blade geometry or whatever. But I canˋt fkn handle the blade. The low profile makes it difficult to keep the angle, okay. But I am not really new to sharpening. Inthink I can hold an angle okaish. At least all the other knives shave with ease. And now 1/10 of the blade is gone and I dońt even know if the geometrie is anywhere near to even get it sharp. I can definitly say, a coarse diamont stone will eat a blade if you get frustrated. 😂😂😂😢

@williammartin2593

2 ай бұрын

He is a very talented teacher.

@NeevesKnives

2 ай бұрын

@@panganaranga well you are going to remove the same amount of material in most cases regardless the stone you are using, a coarse one makes it remove faster so you dont have to spend so much time, which also will help you get better edges as you dont need to spend so much time on the stone getting fatigued or frustrated

@HellGatefr2

2 ай бұрын

This probably comes from japanese knives enthousiasts who are used to working with extremely thin edges, which grinds fast especially on "carbon steels", what do you think ?

@panganaranga

2 ай бұрын

@@NeevesKnives yeah man, nothing new, since the new stone it takes me 2 minutes for a knife to get it crisp. But this one kicks my ass. All I can say is that I feel it takes more time on the strop to get the burr off. Thats all the difference I might feel with the steel. I think itˋs more the fact the geo has left the chat and the low profile makes it too hard to keep an angle. I know, you can cut yourself on an 90 degree edge, did many times. But it has to be sharp.

Before i got my first sharpening stone i never believed one can actually make a knife totally dull on a sharpening stone. Yes - we can. 🎉

@joshcarter-com

2 ай бұрын

Where there’s a will there’s a way! I managed to completely dull a number of knives while learning to sharpen. When I finally cut myself with a kitchen knife I’d sharpened the day before my reaction was, “yes! Finally! It’s actually sharp!”

@Alexander_Kale

Ай бұрын

When I first started sharpening my knives myself, every now and again I would mess up so badly, the knife would be less sharp after the sharpening than it was before. Shit happens.

@boxed_in4357

Ай бұрын

​@@joshcarter-com I assume then you realized "oh wait im bleeding

Practice makes PERMANENT. Bad practice makes bad performance. One of the most memorable things a coach ever told me.

@littlebabycarrotful

2 ай бұрын

Oh that's pretty good

@GuitarGuy057

Ай бұрын

That's how I say it as well.

@zennez1985

Ай бұрын

Totally agree with that!💚🤘

@larryshreve9076

28 күн бұрын

Only perfect practice makes perfect - Lee Trevino

Ignore the haters and keep on going. You're making by far the highest quality content on these subjects that has ever graced the youtubes. By far.

@Taziod

2 ай бұрын

Who's hating?

@ChoseDeath

2 ай бұрын

I've been sharpening knives for decades at this point. And it's always good to hear new perspectives. This channel has helped me, and my knives will all comfortably shave hair. I'd say he's pretty good.

I wish KZread had a double or triple thumbs up icon. Outstanding. Thank you.

based on one of your past videos, getting a $1.50 knife from the dollar store might be the perfect way to get practice before you start grinding away on your new Spyderco. I had the exact failure that you described 50 years ago when I bought a black Arkansas stone, the holy grail of stones back then, and proceeded to still have a dull knife after working that damn thing for hours! I never did actually figure out what I did wrong, but this video explains it well.

@joshcarter-com

2 ай бұрын

Haha I made the same mistake about 40 years ago as a Boy Scout. I couldn’t figure out why I was never making any progress!

@ChoseDeath

2 ай бұрын

Lord yes. I got turned onto diamond stones about 10 years ago, and it is so much better than working with those oh so good Arkansas stones. Don't get me wrong, I love my Arkansas, and I can do some serious damage with a strop. But a big, heavy grit stone is where it's at. Spyderco and Buck are fine from the factory, but the last few Case knives I got needed some work. Disappointing, actually.

@PhilippeCarphin

2 ай бұрын

I wish I had done that. The first knife I sharpened was the knife on a Leatheman tool and I turned it into a toothpick. Now I have nice pocket knives so it doesn't matter that I ruined the Leatherman's blade but I still wish I hadn't.

@ChoseDeath

Ай бұрын

@PhilippeCarphin I was really lucky. My Uncle is a bit of a whiz when it comes to bladed edges of any kind. And he talked me into buying a cheap Taiwanese Gerber to practice on. I still have that thing bless its heart. Did the same thing you did!

I love that you said perfect practice makes perfect. That's the damn truth, not this practice makes perfect fallacy.

@reaganharder1480

2 ай бұрын

Another version I've heard is "practice makes permanent", which implies that not only is bad practice unhelpful, it is actively harming your ability to learn to do it right.

The best knife sharpening tips out there!

It took me years to learn this simple fact. Saw too many videos showing starting on 1000 or 2000 grit stones and wasting precious time. I will recommend this video to anyone wanting to learn the easy way to sharpen knives.

“Perfect practice makes perfect.” One of my favorite quotes of all time! Applies to so many things in life

@hkguitar1984

2 ай бұрын

So very true, playing guitar, target shooting and sharpening knives, its all about learning discipline and growing your own personal skills.

@victorfranca17

2 ай бұрын

my favorite quote is " dont dip your pen in company ink"

@mnzrk

2 ай бұрын

terrible advice if you are already perfectionist though. just practice with best accuracy you have, but dont stress out if your best isnt very good yet

@HuckFTW

2 ай бұрын

@@victorfranca17 funny! My now wife and kids are glad I didn’t follow that one

@HuckFTW

2 ай бұрын

@@mnzrk you are wrong sir, perfectionists already live this quote every day!

i got sharpal cuz of your video, i am applying all lessons ive learned from you - was easy after applying good practice and avoiding mistakes. so i do use coarse to bring edge and after that just 1000 to keep it maintained. Thanks for all u do for us.

@jordanlewandowskii

2 ай бұрын

I'm waiting for the Sharpal to go back in stock! If it takes too long I may go with the Shapton and/or S SATC ones... but I'm hopeful so far haha Edit: Woah, it IS in stock, just not from the link he has in the description...

@helpdeskjnp

2 ай бұрын

I got the same thing from a few videos back. I was hoping it was a stone he was selling or it went to his store. I got the stone and I’m working on making my light saber.

@EternalKing06

2 ай бұрын

@@jordanlewandowskii I would advise against buying the Sharpal double sided diamond stone. That stone doesn't seem to be electroplated but the the diamond layer somehow seems to be glued to the plate, which explains why Alex thinks it's the "perfect" double sided stone with no cross contamination. If you look at reviews you can see many people reporting that stone bubbles or straight off peels, which is unacceptable for a $70 stone.

@twatmunro

2 ай бұрын

@@EternalKing06 -- I'm not sure I'd trust random Amazon reviewers over Alex. One of these things is a known quantity with regard to their knowledge and experience -- the other isn't. That said, I bought one of these Sharpal stones. I already had a cheapo £30 Chinese diamond stone that I use primarily for flattening whetstones. but I watched a handful of other KZread reviews of the Sharpal and those reviewers were very impressed. See the reviews from Fire Creek Forge or A Dose of Drew. Like Alex, they were a known quantity. Or you might want to read some of the comments here from other people who have bought the Sharpal on Alex's recommendation. They tend to be extremely satisfied customers. I sent the first stone back because there were some small chips on the edge of the plate on the fine side. I don't expect to see THAT on a £60 diamond stone, so I sent it back, got a refund, ordered a replacement. Replacement had exactly the same chips -- only more of them. They're tiny -- it looks like the plate has been held in some sort of device and the electroplating hasn't really taken there. I kept this second one, because I just wanted to see how the thing worked. The chips don't affect the functioning of the stone, but even so, it says something about the quality control of the company producing them. That said, the Sharpal is astonishingly good at what it's supposed to do. I'm using mine primarily to sharpen kitchen knives, so there aren't any supersteels involved, but both sides appear grit consistent with my Shaptons and produce a new apex and a burr in the wink of an eye. I also used it to reprofile a Scandi that was screwed up. You have to remove a hell of a lot of metal to reprofile a Scandi, but this did it in no time at all. Likewise with thinning a chinese cleaver. So I don't regret the purchase, but the two I bought weren't without their flaws. The other thing I'd say is -- the stone has a two year warranty, so if it does peel -- it's likely to do so within that time and you can get a replacement. One thing I did notice from the Amazon comments is that they seem to be pretty solid when it comes to fulfilling warranty claims. If that hadn't been the case, I'd have sent the second stone back as well.

@spoils8179

Ай бұрын

​@@EternalKing06so what would you buy instead?

Yep, agree 100%. As an aside, I just got one of those Sharpal diamond stones... and it's everything you said it is. Whether it will last as long as my worn-out DMT stone remains to be seen, but I've already done a lot of badly worn chisels with it (for a friend), and it's quicker and nicer than anything I've used before. So thanks for that.

@williammartin2593

2 ай бұрын

Sure. For a friend .

@osliverpool

2 ай бұрын

@@williammartin2593 Hehe. He's a builder, and brings his chisels to me every few months.

GLAD YOU'RE BETTER, GOOD JOB

Wish all youtubers had your integrity. Love you bro.

I agree. My thought is that some of these fine stones don't cut quickly enough and a person will give up before they see results. And that's frustrating. Corse stones offer instant feedback and I hate waiting

You're single handedly responsible for sharpal selling out of their 162n dual diamond plate lol. Just got my own finally, it's leagues beyond the Smiths diamond plates I got for 12 dollars at big R

@jammin3858

2 ай бұрын

That is the truth! After Alex's "unicorn" video, I had a heck of a time getting my hands on a Sharpal 162N.

@Zimpfnis

2 ай бұрын

When I saw his video I immediately thought. "Get one now, they'll be sold out for years." He should send a warning to these companies so they can ramp up production:)

Had no idea you juggled too. I like the change in content due to what's going on. Hope you're feeling better. I'd like to see how you store all the various stones/diamond plates when you're not using them. You have got to have a bunch of them.

When my son and his friends were starring to get interested in knife sharpening i got them a cheap diamond stone, and a couple $5 knives from walmart. Little bit easier to sharpen steel with a quick cutting stone lets the process go a lot smoother.

You are the best knife sharpening instructor. I have followed many others and all of them sharpen knives like robots. Never tell you the key guideline to getting a sharp knife. Thank you.

Glad you are better & posting videos again. You put out the best sharpening content !

Another great video. Thanks for keeping the information concise but extremely useful and relatable.

Love the juggling analogy! You're such a great source of info 😊👍

this and the 5 minute guide for newbies just reignited my desire to keep on learning! I had hard time with my cheap stones and didn't want to come back to them, but it seems that I just was not patient enough and got to the finer coarsness too soon thank you!

Thanks again Alex. Hope you’re feeling better.

Yup, most of the job of sharpening is done on the arato. For decades I've tried to tell folks that it's a lot easier to maintain a perfect angle for ten strokes vs one hundred, it seems pretty obvious to me! Thanks for another great video. ⚔🔥👏

Genius my friend, you're getting better all the time. Simply honest. 👏🏼

You are a very good teacher Sir. Keep at this type of videos!

Great video as always! Glad that you are feeling better and able to do videos again!! With your advice here I’m learning to sharpen free hand. Just got a DMT extra coarse stone yesterday! Can’t wait to try it out. Stay healthy Alex.

You never disappoint me with the facts. Simple and true.

Great video. Been following you for several years and have learned a lot from your teaching. Praying for you and your family.

Thank you for the best knife sharpening content KZread. I have been practicing sharpening for about 5 years. I have gone through so many mistakes and tried so many different methods of sharpening. Only after I started watching you did I start actually doing it right. But I still seem to be hitting these brick walls at times and it does get very frustrating. But I am not going to give up, I really want to perfect this craft

@OUTDOORS55

Ай бұрын

Well its good to hear you are making progress! Remember no one ever perfects it. Im always learning and practicing too👍

I think another mistake a beginner could easily make is not using enough pressure and then wondering why their knives aren't getting that sharp. I did that for years and just thought my sharpener was bad or I was bad at using it. Eventually I got another sharpener and the same thing was happening so I finally realized I was doing something wrong and went to learn from your videos. I found where you mentioned 3-5lbs of pressure and I immediately knew that was my issue. I was probably only using 1lb before at most.

Awesome! Thank you for that emphasis and encouragement.

great video as always. looks like you are doing better, glad to see it

All of your sharpening videos are very good! Watched them all many times and I have been sharpening for over 40 years. Your advice is always spot on.

This is how the best teachers & master teach. Straight to the point / clear and well demonstrate

The Sharpal diamond stone you recommended in your other video makes getting a sharp edge easy. Especially for a beginner like me.

Great video, even better advice

Looks like your health is better! Keep at it bruh!

More than happy for all new videos. Man, you're really creative and, the same time, simple. And it's not easy to make things look simple and understandable, although we are not necessarily simple minded.

I want to say thank you for all the information and experience you share! I practiced a lot since I saw your vids and they helped me a lot to improve my skills. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and stay safe! Bless! 👍😊

Good stuff Dude. Well done. Thanks.

Definitely helps. Thanks

Your videos have helped me for years on all my sharpening. I’ve finally got into free hand sharpening solely because of your videos. Thank you so much

Very solid explanation & perfectly comprehensible! As always! Love from Germany💚🤘

Glad to see you're doing okay, hoping for your quickest recovery. I love the thing about practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. I first heard this idea for driving on a racing circuit, if you continue to drive the same but just push harder you may see faster lap times but that doesn't mean you are getting the most out of it. You have to try different things and you have to stick with the new thing for a bit to understand it. If you aren't doing something correctly and you do it repeatedly you are forming the muscle memory for the wrong way. It can seem counterintuitive at times, you may do worse when you try a new way but you just need to get a feel for it initially and then with time the improvement comes. I love these teaching videos for sharpening, I only recently stopped using my fixed angle system to start getting better at free hand and your videos have been incredibly helpful. Thanks for everything you've done and the effort you're still putting in through what I'm sure is a tough time, that perseverance will reward you no matter what, you'll come out stronger and more resilient.

Absolutely great advice thanks for sharing brother!!

haha, my old football coach used to say that. "Practice makes Permanent, only Perfect Practice makes Perfect!"

Great video and I hope you are felling much better

Great video!! This advice holds true with my Worksharp as well, and saves you so much frustration. I remember trying to sharpen knives as a kid, and using too fine a stone, and a Gerber steel, and having miserable results. In the last several years, I've refurbished a bunch of knives, and finally realized that a coarser belt, or coarser rouge, etc., is the vital first step that gets you to the point where the finer stuff works well.

Excellent information and great presentation. Be well.

Great video, Alex! I learned on a set of Norton oil stones. I tried to progress up through the grits way too quickly. Thankfully, I figured that out before giving up. I love your channel and content! Keep it coming.

Great video. Love the contrast of juggling vs sharpening. You had me cracking up when you were speed sharpening the knife for the comparison. Thanks for the great videos and god bless.

Now I need to learn how to juggle to sharpen my knives?!!!! Awesome video! My knife sharpening skills have increased tremendously since I started watching your channel.

Helpful advice. I need to watch some of your tutorials again.

Thank you so much. You are the channel that I finally get hold of what sharpening is about. Those microscopic pic. from different stages really help me to know what result that i should aim for. So many videos from other channel never make the connecting between best practices and actual. It is like how people teach math that only teach the algorithms. Just do these steps and never teaches understanding of what is really going on with each steps. A light bulb moment for me is when you showed that in general using or not using polishing compound will not affect the shape of the edge from previous stage. It just refine the scratches and made the edge smoother.

Excellent advice! I hope everything is well and you found out good news health wise.

Yes! Very nice juggling!

This was a very good video and I am so glad that I got to see it. Thanks

Guys that worry about scratching a knife are the same guys that drive mall crawlers

Thank for your channel. I bought the Sharpal stone and their strop. Looking forward to actually learning how to do it right. God bless you.

Hi Alex, as usual, a message that's right on the money. I couldn't agree more. Thanks

When I first learned to sharpen knives by hand years and years ago, I was lucky that I started practicing on a cheap, beat up, really coarse oil stone that was left in the kitchen cupboard and rarely used until I got a hold of it. I did learn how to bring an edge back to a knife much quicker than if I had first started learning with medium and fine water stones or such (I never knew those existed until after like a couple of months of practice on the good oil stone).

Outstanding advice.

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

Very good video!

You have explained this well.

Excellent! You nail'd it I did the same mistakes Great content short and simple

Excellent advice!

You're Great teacher!

Alex great content. Hope you’re recovering well.

I got the Sharpal 116N pocket stone three pack, so far I'm loving it; sharpens better than any other stone set I've used. They're somewhat smaller than the full stone you recommend, but they're a whole lot cheaper at about $25. Starting at the 325 stone and moving up to the 1200 for polishing passes, and cramming the blade through a thick folded paper towel to try to rip the remaining burr out since I don't have a strop yet, I was able to make my knife the sharpest it's ever been, and I feel like I can go even sharper with, to use your words, some perfect practice to make it perfect. Thank you for your videos, they have taught me, and almost certainly innumerable others, how to care for the cutlery in our lives. Ever since I started using stones, I've been anle to keep my knives and even my scissors sharp enough to do everything I need of them, and with how sharp I've been able to make my carry knife with the Sharpal pocket stones, soon I'll be able to do even more than I need.

Thanks to your channel, my knives are sharper than ever before.

Great advice. Wish I had known this when I first learned 👍

Well spoken.

Hahaha, Great comparison! I love the humor! Perfect to jump from work to week-end mode!! Cheers!!

You back again Yeeesss 💪💪💪💪

Wise words again. He gives good stone info too!

You are right, not using a low grit stone is one of the biggest fallacies around.

You are right about the juggling. I have been practising juggling for years and I know how difficult five is - very slick. I liked the sharpening advice as well.

@OUTDOORS55

Ай бұрын

Hello fellow juggler! Yes five took me about a year to get sold. Was working on 7 but never made it past 9 catches. Havnt juggled in years so im a touch rusty 🙂Thanks for watching really appreciate it👊

Hope all is well outdoors awesome video 🙌

Two very helpful things I have found when sharpening are a magic marker and a magnifying glass, jeweler's loupe (in the 10× range), or ideally a low power (~30×) binocular microscope. It gives such a better idea of where the contact area is and how close to forming an apex you are if you makr the bevel area and inspect it regularly while sharpening. It even helps to determine proper angle when using guided systems.

Fully agree with you. I am optimistic on my capacity to sharpen a knife since I use a rought Sharpal stone. Before that I spent hours of frustration with high grit and $ stones

Another solid video

3:06 That juggling analogy is so spot on it's beyond genius! And I'm bookmarking this video because I'm sure I can learn how to juggle if I play that section often enough on slow speed...

I agree 100%! Great content!

I'm a knife sharpening kind of guy and I agree wholeheartedly. Bottom line is get a burr baby, get a burr. My favorite burr getter is a Worksharp. You just have to follow the directions so you don't round the tip. Then I use a Dimond steel to touch it up until it is not effective any more. Then it's back to the Worksharp for me.

Thanks for the video. Nope, never thought I'd see some juggling and never expected a few chuckles either. Thanks again.

Great video, hope you are doing better. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks again

Thanks man, so true!

been watching lots of your videos and learning . I put my stone sharpener in the bin , its never done anything. i bought a cheap diamond sharpener and I finally made one of my old knifes sharper . thanks

Another great vid !

Good advice!

Good job

We are great fans of your videos from India. No long intros, no ads, no crazy talking for long, just the content, clear and crisp - your channel is how we want youtube to be.Thanks for all your hard work in making these videos. Unfortunately, it's hard for us to source the diamond stones you always recommend, they are very expensive to import for us, and the whetstones we get here are not of great quality as well. It would be nice if you can research and make a video for us on sharpening knives using only sandpapers and strop.

@alfdom51

2 ай бұрын

The stones in the usa are cheaper than using sandpaper because you can use a stone many times. I can sharpen my cheap kitchen knives with the cheapest stone made. Diamond stones are nice. Unless you have a very hard steel, whetstones will do the job.

Awesome advice! I love my Shapton 120 grit ceramic stone (the white one). It was inexpensive and removes steel quickly but doesn’t leave deep scratches like coarse diamonds do. I use it to repair chisels and plane irons when they get chips.

Awesome content 👏

Thank you

Makes a lot of sense.