Good knife to practice bench stones?

[hobbyist]

What would people recommend to get good at hand sharpening on a bench stone? Something that can teach me the right form but also not break the bank when I f it up?

My first instinct is vg10 police because it’s such a long blade and vg10 is fairly sharpenable?

[sal]

Hi Hobbyist,

I would suggest an inexpensive, 4" blade fixed blade knife with a relatively soft steel. Maybe a kitchen knife?
There is a learning curve and it's easier to begin with something easier to sharpen than a Police model. It's a worthwhile skill t develop.

sal

[hobbyist]

Great suggestion Sal. I’m thinking something bubble wrapped from the local grocery store?

[weeping minora]

First off, what size range of blades are you using enough that actually need sharpening? It wouldn't make much sense to recommend an 8" "stainless steel" kitchen knife to learn to freehand sharpen, if you're almost strictly using ~3" S30V class steels in your life.

Next, what type of stones are you utilizing for your sharpening? If you are indeed using steels with moderate, to high volumes of hard carbides (Vanadium Carbide, Tungsten Carbide, etc.), it would be of greatest importance in investing in diamond (or cbn) stones to properly cut, and reshape those carbides into an acute apex.

When it comes to recommending a knife to learn freehand sharpening on, you want to look for a knife that has a steel with a good heat treatment, and Spyderco as a company offers that amongst their whole range. To that point, I wouldn't mind recommending Spyderco's 8Cr Chinese models, though I'd be hesitant to recommend 8Cr as a steel, if that makes sense. That goes for any steel that I can continue to list. The Mule Teams might be of interest for another more economical recommendation.

Overall, your best bet is to sharpen and become comfortable with the knives you already own, in steels that you most often use; one, because not all knives follow the same blade profile, and you'll need to build different levels of muscle memory and dexterity as such, and two, not all steel will behave as you've come to understand, or expect, especially when going from simple, to complex alloyed steels. Over time this will become less of a consideration (IMO), but initially this can be a setback, and a confidence killer, if you're under-prepared and over-expecting based off of limited experience.

[vivi]

spyderco z cut.

medium sized blade is easy to manage.

steel is easy to grind but heat treated harder than most kitchen knives, so you can make progress easily but not deal with persistant burrs.

flexible blade. this will teach you not to use too much pressure.

$$. very cheap, no worries if you mess up.

useful knife. you won't be buying something you'll have trouble finding use for.

[Flash]

Anything cheap that you already own, something you won’t mind scratching up and which allows you to easily remove steel.
Any variety of kitchen knife will do so long as it’s a flat grind blade - I’d personally leave anything with a chisel, scandi or convex grind alone for the time being.

I wouldn’t overthink the knife or a particular steel at first, more important to adopt a technique which works for you and keep on practicing and practicing with it.

[Manifestgtr]

I learned to sharpen on an opinel #6 (although, the #8 is more recommendable for that particular task)…

You can pick up a carbone AND an inox #8 (carbon steel and stainless steel respectively) for less than the price of an average “budget knife”. The thing that makes Opinels so good for learning to sharpen is that they come with legitimately good steel. Kitchen knives can be a bit frustrating because they’re large and honestly, you never know what you’re gonna get. I’ve sharpened A LOT of everyday kitchen knives over the years and some of them were just baffling in terms of burr reduction, etc. An opinel is cheap and if you sharpen it correctly, you’ll get a hair whittling edge, no questions asked.

[GarageBoy]

Something with a decent belly will force you to have good habits

[standy99]

Best knife I could recommend is a Dexter Russel butchers boning knife. (White handled one)

Soft steel, cheap at about $20-30 and is easy to sharpen and test.

Keep away from cheap kitchen knives as they are usually 440 stainless and a hard steel to sharpen for a novice.

[WilliamMunny]

If you are looking for something to practice on and develop good muscle memory, then I would get a knife similar to I what you will be sharpening in the future. A kitchen knife is fine but if you mainly carry a 3"-3.5" in folding pocketknife with a factory bevel of 17dps, then get a cheap knife that is similar. IMO the hardest part of free hand sharpening is keeping a consistent angle, so if you practice at 17dps then your muscle memory will develop and hopefully make you more successful when you move to more expensive knifes that come from the factor at 17dps. Most kitchen knives are around 12dps or less.

I would recommend getting something like this:

Spyderco Byrd Meadowlark 2 - its on sale on Spyderco.com for $25, and it's a nice enough knife to throw in a fishing box, car, etc. when you are done learning on it.
https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/details/BY04BN2/2579

Good luck.

[Wandering_About]

spyderco z cut.

medium sized blade is easy to manage.

steel is easy to grind but heat treated harder than most kitchen knives, so you can make progress easily but not deal with persistant burrs.

flexible blade. this will teach you not to use too much pressure.

$$. very cheap, no worries if you mess up.

useful knife. you won't be buying something you'll have trouble finding use for.

This is good advice. I suggest avoiding extra cheap knives with very soft steel. While they will grind more quickly, fighting persistent burrs is not good for anybody, especially a beginner.

[Evil D]

Thrift store chef's knife.

I would actually try to get something relatively decent because some really cheap steels get so soft they might be a PITA to remove a burr on.

[Flash]

I think frequent practicing good technique is more important than the exact steel, But I do understand supercheap baby poo soft steel which won’t hold an edge and has a flexible, gummy burr will only serve to frustrate and discourage a novice sharpener. A more experienced sharpener will recognise these kind of knives very fast and condemn them to landfill.

Some knives with simply “stainless” written on them may not be great but others are OK, not all cheapo knives are made equal in my experience.

I have a couple of Kitchen Devils (part of Fiskars group I believe). They are dirt cheap yet will provide a good base to learn off. They hold an adequate edge and will lose their burr very easy. Low geometry too so getting good edges shouldn’t be a problem.

[jwbnyc]

The only caveat I’d mention is steel quality.

Crappy steel is not going to be a good medium for learning on. It’s been mentioned already, but I thought it worth mentioning again.

It doesn’t need to be super high quality, just something reasonable.

Something like one of the old Geneva Tempered knives would be good:



Nothing fancy, but good enough to keep you from flipping the burr back and forth forever.

Cheap as chips used.

[sal]

Another thing I would highly recommend is a magnifying loupe of 10X - 12X and look at the edge often as you are sharpening so you can actually see what's happening on the ede.

sal

[JFR1]

All of my kitchen knives are cheap knives that I pick up at Candian Tire or Walmart. They're great fun to resharpen compared to my S90V and S110V EDC blades, plus I'm not as worried about getting them 'perfect' as they'll just get resharpened again in a couple of weeks. And if they get trashed I'm not afraid to get more. I'd start with those, if it were me.

And Sal is 100% correct about a loupe. I got a 10x Belomo years ago and what a revelation it was to actually see what the stones were doing.

[Scandi Grind]

I wouldn't recommend something from your grocery store because the steel isn't always very fun to deal with when you are starting out. Something on the thin side would be good so that you don't have to deal with maintaining your angle on wide edge bevels, so a paring knife is my first thought. I would like to recommend a Dexter paring knife because they are only $10, have good steel, and are thin, but not super flexible, however they often don't come from the factory with the most even bevels, which could be a bother starting out. Victorinox paring knives are good, but they are a bit bendy. If you are OK with a bendy blade and want something affordable from Spyderco, the Z-cut seems nice.

So any good quality paring knife is really what I would recommend. And deffinitely buy some kind of magnification, it's a huge help.

[Evil D]

Another thing I would highly recommend is a magnifying loupe of 10X - 12X and look at the edge often as you are sharpening so you can actually see what's happening on the ede.

sal

A loupe is invaluable when you feel like you've been working at it forever and can't get an edge, only to look closer and find you haven't even reached the apex yet. They really help to show you how accurate your angle holding is and that's going to be a big learning curve with freehanding.