A sharp knife is an indispensable tool, whether you’re an outdoor enthusiast, a home cook, or simply someone who appreciates a functional blade. Knowing How To Sharpen A Knife is not just a practical skill, it’s a gateway to safer, more efficient cutting and a deeper appreciation for your tools. Through years of experience honing edges, I’ve developed efficient techniques to achieve a razor-sharp blade, and I’m excited to share these methods with you. This guide will walk you through sharpening knives using two primary methods: the traditional sharpening stone and a surprisingly effective DIY method using sandpaper and a mousepad.
Method 1: Sharpening a Knife with a Stone
While there are many user-friendly and effective knife sharpeners available today, mastering the art of sharpening a knife with a stone is a fundamental skill every knife owner should possess. The market offers a wide range of sharpening stones, from budget-friendly synthetic options to premium Japanese water stones. For this tutorial on how to sharpen your knife, we will use an affordable yet reliable medium natural Arkansas stone, a durable tool that has served me well for years.
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Tools You’ll Need:
- Sharpening Stone (Arkansas, whetstone, or water stone)
- Water
- Permanent Marker
Step 1: Soaking the Stone
Before you begin, it’s crucial to lubricate your sharpening stone. I prefer using water for Arkansas stones. Submerge your stone in a container of water while you prepare your knife and workspace. Sharpening on a dry stone is not recommended as metal shavings can clog the stone’s pores, reducing its effectiveness. Keep the stone well-lubricated throughout the process, rinsing and re-soaking as needed. It’s better to have too much water than too little.
Step 2: Marking the Bevel
Use a permanent marker to color the knife’s sharpening bevel – the angled edge of the blade. This simple step is essential as it acts as a visual guide, showing you exactly where the stone is making contact. By observing the marker disappearing, you can ensure you’re sharpening the entire bevel evenly and reaching the very apex of the edge.
Step 3: Finding and Maintaining the Angle
This is arguably the most crucial step in sharpening a knife with a stone – establishing and maintaining the correct sharpening angle. Start by holding the knife with the blade’s edge facing you and lay it flat on the stone. Place your non-dominant hand’s fingers on the spine (the unsharpened back) of the blade, letting your fingertips slightly overhang and rest on the stone. These fingers will act as a guide to maintain a consistent angle as you sharpen.
Lift the spine of the knife off the stone to approximately a 20-degree angle. Only the very edge of the blade should be in contact with the stone. Begin your sharpening stroke at the knife’s tip, moving across the stone and away from your body until the heel of the blade also makes contact. Use light pressure for this initial pass.
Now, examine the marker on the bevel. If the marker is only removed from a thin line right at the cutting edge, your angle was too steep – you need to lower the spine slightly towards the stone. Conversely, if the marker is removed from the shoulder of the bevel (further away from the edge), your angle was too shallow – raise the spine a bit higher. Repeat a few passes, checking the marker after each, until you find the “sweet spot” where the stone is contacting the entire bevel evenly.
Tip: Maintaining a consistent angle can be challenging initially. An angle guide can be a valuable tool, especially for beginners. It attaches to the spine of your knife and helps maintain a consistent angle, acting as training wheels as you develop your freehand sharpening technique.
Step 4: Raising a Burr
Once you’ve established the correct angle, make consistent passes on the stone, maintaining that angle, until you develop a burr along the edge. A burr is a microscopic, folded-over piece of metal that forms on the opposite side of the edge you are sharpening. To feel for the burr, carefully and very lightly wipe your thumb or finger perpendicular to the blade’s edge, moving from the spine towards the edge. Do not run your finger along the edge, as this will likely result in a cut.
A burr will feel slightly rough or “toothy” when you run your finger from the spine towards the edge on the side opposite to the one you are sharpening, and smoother in the opposite direction. Sometimes, you can even see the burr as a faint, reflective line along the edge, catching the light.
Once you’ve raised a burr along the entire length of one side of the blade, repeat Step 3 and Step 4 on the other side of the knife. As you raise the burr on the second side, the burr from the first side may start to weaken or even detach, sometimes appearing as a very fine wire-like piece of metal. Many find switching hands to sharpen the opposite side challenging. Practice is key to training your non-dominant hand. If you struggle with switching hands, you can flip the knife over so the edge faces away from you and continue sharpening with your dominant hand, but this requires learning the sharpening motion in reverse. Both methods are equally effective, as long as you maintain a consistent angle.
Step 5: Refining the Edge
After raising a burr on both sides of the bevel, the next step is to refine the edge and remove the burr. Use alternating passes on the stone, with the blade’s edge trailing the spine (away from the direction of motion). I typically start with ten passes on one side, then ten on the other, followed by five, then three, then two, and finally one pass on each side, alternating each time.
After refining, test the sharpness by carefully slicing a piece of paper. A cleanly slicing edge indicates a successful sharpening. If the knife catches or tears the paper, or fails to slice cleanly, it may need further refining, or you may not have adequately raised the burr in the previous steps.
Sharpening with a stone takes practice, and mistakes are part of the learning process. However, it’s a valuable skill that is well worth the time and effort to learn. For those seeking an even finer edge, you can progress through a series of stones with increasingly finer grits. If using multiple stones, raise a burr on both sides on each stone, starting with the coarsest and moving to finer grits. Only refine the edge using your finest grit stone. Avoid refining on coarser stones.
Method 2: DIY Knife Sharpener: Sandpaper and Mousepad
Sharpening a knife using the sandpaper and mousepad method creates a convex edge. This method is more forgiving than using a stone because maintaining a perfectly consistent angle is less critical. For sandpaper, I recommend automotive wet/dry sandpaper, which is available in variety packs with a range of grits suitable for sharpening.
What You’ll Need:
- Wet/dry sandpaper (320 to 2000+ grit recommended)
- Permanent marker
- Mousepad (larger size preferred)
- Scrap wood and glue (saw for trimming wood)
Step 1: Preparing the Mousepad Block
Cut a piece of scrap wood to approximately 3-4 inches wide and the length of your mousepad. Trim the mousepad to match the width of the wood and glue the fabric side (the side your mouse normally glides on) to the wood. Gluing the rubber side of the mousepad to the wood block provides a non-slip base. I’ve had success using general-purpose spray adhesive for this.
Step 2: Marking the Bevel
Similar to the stone sharpening method, use a permanent marker to coat the knife’s edge bevel. Coloring the bevel allows you to clearly see where the sandpaper is removing material, helping you to establish and maintain the correct angle in the next step.
Step 3: Finding the Angle
The angle is slightly less critical when creating a convex edge due to the mousepad’s flexibility. The give in the mousepad base helps compensate for slight angle variations, making this method more forgiving. Place a sheet of 600-grit sandpaper on the mousepad block, holding it in place with your fingertips at the bottom edge. Position the knife with the edge facing you, at a 15 to 20-degree angle to the sandpaper. Starting with the tip near the bottom corner of the block, push the knife away from you while simultaneously sweeping it towards the opposite upper corner.
Examine the marker on the bevel to see where material is being removed. The angle adjustments are the same as described in the sharpening stone method.
Step 4: Raising a Burr
As with the stone method, once you’ve found the correct angle, make passes on one side until you raise a burr, then switch sides and repeat. Avoid starting with grits lower than 320 unless your blade has significant chips or rolled edges. Lower grits remove material very aggressively and can damage your blade if you are not careful. Light pressure is key for this method. Excessive pressure will deform the mousepad too much, creating an overly steep convex edge. A lighter touch yields better results. Be mindful of your fingers holding the sandpaper.
Step 5: Refining the Edge
Once you’ve raised a burr on both sides, switch to the next finer grit sandpaper and begin refining the edge. Use the next grit sandpaper and perform ten passes per side (or until the scratches from the previous grit are removed). Continue progressing through the grits, repeating this process until you reach your desired final grit. For the final grit, perform ten strokes per side and then reduce the number of strokes as described in the stone sharpening method (ten, then five, three, two, one).
Using grits up to 2000 and beyond can achieve a mirror-polished finish on your blade. With diligent angle control and apexing, you can achieve an incredibly sharp knife, capable of easily whittling hair, by using grits of 2000 or higher.
Remember, with this sandpaper method, always sharpen with the edge trailing the spine. Never sharpen with the edge leading into the sandpaper, as this can damage the paper and the edge. While you can tape the sandpaper to the edges of the wood block to avoid holding it, I generally prefer holding the paper directly, which requires more awareness of blade and finger positions. While more forgiving than stone sharpening, maintaining a consistent angle with the sandpaper method still provides the best results.
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How to Use a Honing Rod for Knife Maintenance
A visual guide to using a honing rod to maintain a knife’s sharpness, demonstrating the correct hand and rod positions for effective honing.
This section should more accurately be titled “How to maintain and touch up a knife with a honing rod,” because a honing rod is primarily for honing, not sharpening, an edge. Honing rods, whether made of metal (like those found in butcher shops) or ceramic, are designed to maintain sharpness. They are best used frequently, ideally between each use of the knife, to keep the edge aligned. Honing rods are less effective for sharpening a truly dull knife with a damaged edge.
Step 1: Choosing a Honing Rod Style
Honing rods are available in handheld and tabletop-mounted versions. If you are new to honing or less confident in coordinating the knife and hone, a tabletop version is often easier to use as it provides more stability.
Step 2: Finding the Honing Angle
As you make a pass on the honing rod, begin with a very shallow angle and gradually increase it until you feel the edge just start to “bite” or grip the rod. This indicates you’ve reached the apex of the edge and are effectively refining it, rather than grinding away material behind it. Repeat this angle-finding process for the other side of the knife and memorize the angle. Maintaining a consistent angle throughout the honing process is critical.
Step 3: Honing Your Knife Edge
Once you’ve identified the correct angle, make alternating strokes on each side of the blade. Ensure each stroke begins at the heel of the blade and finishes at the tip. For a handheld hone, start your stroke at the far end of the hone with the heel of the blade, and as you move towards the handle of the hone, pull the blade back to bring the tip across the rod. The motion will be down and away from your body. Then, lift the blade, cant it to the opposite side, and repeat the stroke for the other side. Take your time and move slowly. Speed will come with experience. For a horizontal tabletop hone, the motion is similar: move away from you and outwards, heel to tip, then flip the knife so the edge faces you, and stroke towards you, heel to tip.
Step 4: Evaluating Honing Results
If your knife’s sharpness hasn’t improved after honing, you may be using too steep of an angle, or you might be “rolling” your wrist during the motion, which alters the angle. If your angle is too shallow, you won’t see any improvement in sharpness because you aren’t reaching the apex of the edge. If you’re unsure about your angle, use a marker to color the edge, make a few honing strokes, and observe where the marker is removed. This will indicate whether you need to adjust your angle. If your knife edge has chips or significant damage, honing alone may not suffice, and you will need to use a sharpening stone or another sharpening method first.
How to Sharpen a Knife with a Work Sharp Knife Sharpener
Demonstrates the use of a Work Sharp knife sharpener, showcasing its belt system and angle guide for efficient blade sharpening.
Work Sharp offers a diverse range of knife sharpeners, but this section will focus on how to sharpen a knife using one of their belt-style sharpeners. Work Sharp sharpeners create a convex edge. When used correctly, they are an excellent way to achieve a very sharp edge, often with a near mirror finish.
Step 1: Selecting the Sharpening Angle
Depending on your specific Work Sharp model, you’ll be able to choose from several preset angle guides. For thinner blades, such as kitchen knives or fillet knives, select a lower angle in the 15- to 18-degree range. For pocket knives and general-purpose blades, 20 degrees is generally a good all-around angle. If you use larger blades for heavy-duty tasks like chopping, or prefer a particularly robust edge, angles of 22 to 25 degrees are suitable. Choose the angle guide that best suits your knife and intended use, and attach or rotate it into position according to your model’s instructions.
Step 2: Choosing the Belt Grit
Assess your blade’s current sharpness. If it’s still reasonably sharp and just needs a touch-up, a fine grit belt is the right choice. If you have minor nicks or a slightly blunted tip, start with a medium grit belt. For heavily damaged edges that resemble “chopping rocks,” begin with a coarse grit belt to expedite the repair process. Regardless of where you start, you will progress through the belts from coarser to finer grits to refine the edge.
Step 3: Making a Sharpening Pass
Turn on your Work Sharp sharpener. If your model has variable speed settings, select the lowest speed, especially while learning. Using too high a speed, particularly with a coarse belt, can remove material too quickly and potentially damage your knife. Choose one side of the belt, place your blade against the angle guide, and lower the knife until it contacts the belt. Starting at the heel of the blade, pull the knife towards you. As you approach the tip, slightly raise the handle of the knife to keep the belly of the blade parallel to the belt. Be cautious not to raise the handle too high, as this can round the tip of the knife. Apply light pressure, letting the belt do the work. Avoid applying more pressure near the tip than at the heel.
Step 4: Checking for a Burr
It may take several passes on the same side to raise a burr. You can detect the burr by feeling for it with a fingernail or by visually inspecting the edge. Once you feel or see a burr along the entire length of the edge on one side, you’re ready to raise a burr on the other side. Repeat Step 3 on the opposite side of the edge until a burr is formed.
Step 5: Alternating Sides and Progressing Through Belts
Once you’ve raised a burr on both sides of the edge, switch to the next finer grit belt. Begin alternating sharpening strokes, one stroke per side. Make several passes on each side until the scratch pattern from the previous, coarser grit belt begins to disappear and is replaced by the finer scratch pattern of the current belt. When only the finer scratches are visible, move to the next finer grit belt and repeat the alternating passes. By the time you’ve worked through the progression of grits, you should have a very sharp knife with a durable convex edge.
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How to Strop a Knife for Ultimate Sharpness
A demonstration of stropping a knife on a leather strop, illustrating the correct blade direction and hand motion for achieving an ultra-sharp edge.
Stropping is the final step to achieve truly exceptional sharpness, and it’s also an excellent method for maintaining your knife edge between sharpenings. Most strops are made of leather, though cotton and even paper strops are also available. A wood block mounted leather strop is the most common and, in my experience, the most effective type. Here’s how to use one to maximize your blade’s sharpness.
Step 1: Applying Strop Compound
Various compounds are available for stropping, graded by grit like sandpaper. Leather strops are typically sold bare, without any compound applied. You need to “load” the strop with compound before use. Compounds come in various forms, including pastes, bars, and diamond emulsion sprays. I generally use bar compounds, applying different compounds (from coarsest to finest) to separate strops. While multiple strops are not essential, many strops are double-sided, allowing for coarse and fine compounds on a single strop. Load your strop by rubbing the compound bar onto the leather or spraying on an emulsion.
Step 2: Mastering Stropping Technique
While sharpening stones can be used with the edge “biting” into the stone, strops must only be used with the edge trailing in your stroke. Stropping with the edge leading will damage the leather and dull your knife. Start with the edge facing you and the heel of the blade fully on the strop. Push the knife away from you and outwards, so you finish the stroke with only the last inch or so of the knife on the strop. Be careful not to roll your wrist during the stroke, as this will increase the angle and dull the blade’s tip. Maintain the same angle you used during sharpening. After the first pass, lay the blade flat on the strop, roll it over the spine, so the other side of the edge is now on the strop. Then, make a pass moving the knife towards you, with the edge trailing behind. Ensure you move from heel to tip during each pass to prevent the tip from digging into and damaging the strop.
Step 3: Stropping to Razor Sharpness
Once you become comfortable with the stropping motion and experience how it refines your edge, you may find it quite addictive. I often listen to podcasts while stropping my knives. Take your time and make alternating passes, back and forth, repeating the motion. You’ll see the edge become increasingly polished, and with a good compound and some effort, you can achieve a near-perfect mirror polish. Avoid using excessive pressure; slightly more pressure than you use when writing is sufficient. Let the compound do the work and enjoy the results. Remember that stropping is also an excellent way to maintain sharpness. After each use, a minute or two on the strop can keep your blades sharp for extended periods between actual sharpenings, provided you don’t severely damage the edge during use. Stropping can often straighten out minor edge rolls and restore sharpness without removing blade material through sharpening.
Six Essential Knife Sharpening Tips
Now that you understand the fundamentals of how to sharpen a knife, here are six essential tips to help you master this skill.
1: Prevent Your Knife from Becoming Excessively Dull
Allowing your knife to become extremely dull significantly increases the effort required to sharpen it. Taking a minute each week (or even daily, depending on usage) to hone your knife edge will minimize the need for full sharpenings. I use a leather strop once or twice a week to maintain my knives, and they rarely require a full sharpening using the methods described above. Use a strop in the same trailing-edge motion as the sandpaper method.
2: Angle Guides Are Invaluable for Beginners
Several companies include small angle guides with their sharpening stones, often resembling small wedges. These wedges are designed to help you develop a feel for the correct sharpening angle, typically available in 17, 20, or 25 degrees. Angle guides are particularly helpful for beginners, accelerating the learning process. While you’ll likely outgrow them as you gain experience, they are excellent training aids.
3: Don’t Neglect the Belly of the Blade
Maintaining a consistent angle on the belly (the curved section near the tip) can be challenging. To overcome this, keep the edge parallel to the bottom edge of your sharpening stone throughout the stroke. At the beginning of the pass, the knife handle should point away from you, with the tip parallel to the bottom edge of the stone (the side closest to you). As you progress through the stroke, the handle will gradually become parallel to the bottom edge of the stone as you reach the straighter section of the blade.
4: Take Your Time and Practice Mindfully
Avoid rushing the learning process. Set aside dedicated time to practice knife sharpening when you can focus without distractions and fully absorb the technique. Rushing will likely lead to frustration, poor results, or even injury.
5: Practice on an Inexpensive Knife First
Most people have a cheap, readily available knife that’s perfect for practice. These knives often come with poor edges anyway. If you accidentally scratch the blade surface or damage the edge during practice, it’s not a significant loss. Once you’ve gained confidence and consistency, you can move on to sharpening your higher-quality knives.
6: Avoid “Rolling” Your Knife During Strokes
A common mistake is rolling the knife at the end of a sharpening stroke on a stone or sandpaper. This changes the sharpening angle and prevents you from achieving a sharp edge. At the end of each pass, maintain the angle and lift the knife straight up to prepare for the next stroke. Your wrist should remain still, avoiding any twisting motion, like rotating a motorcycle throttle, at the end of the pass. Lift your arm to reposition the knife, but avoid twisting or rolling your wrist.
Final Thoughts on Mastering Knife Sharpening
While this guide primarily used Arkansas stones and sandpaper as examples, the fundamental steps and principles apply to almost all knife sharpening techniques, including guided systems like the Work Sharp Knife and Tool Sharpener or even a ceramic rod. The core concepts remain the same: establishing the correct angle, raising a burr, and refining the edge. Learning how to sharpen a pocket knife or kitchen knife shouldn’t be shrouded in mystery; while there is an element of artistry, it’s fundamentally a learnable skill. Remember, perfect practice leads to perfect results. Take your time, focus on mastering the angle and technique, and you’ll soon be enjoying the benefits of a consistently sharp knife.
