There are various tools that you can use to sharpen your knife, such as a sharpener, steel stick and whetstone, but sharpening with a whetstone is the best in terms of retainment of the sharpness and durability. It takes a bit of courage for a beginner to use a whetstone, but it's quite easy once you get used to it. For a good maintenance, please use this page as reference.
Little tip before you get started: please use a sharpener only when your knife is a bit blunt; it's not effective enough for fixing the chipped edge. A steel stick is also not recommended for a beginner since it involves the risk of making a dent in the edge.
Once it gets a dent, it looses its sharpness and it can't be fixed easily. Please remember to use different types of whetstone depending on the types of knife you use.
Types of whetstone
The whetstone can be distinguished by the particle size
| Types | Particle size |
|---|---|
| The rough whetstone | No.100~No.600 |
| The moderate whetstone | No.800~No.1000 |
| The smooth whetstone | No.1500~No.3000 |
The rough whetstone is suitable for sharpening many knives at once or sharpening stainless knives, but the surface of the blade after sharpening is till rough. The moderate whetstone removes the rest of burrs, then the smooth whetstone makes the blade more smoother, sharper and tolerant to rust.
The middle part of stone can get dented as you use it for many times. In that case, please rub the stones together (we have a special whetstone for this), or rub the stone with the surface of flat concrete.
1Preparation
Soak the stone in the water for 5 minutes and wait until bubbles are gone.Take it out from the water and put it on the wet towel (we also have whetstones with a rubber stand).
Sharpening method for right-handed customers
Place the edge on the front, hold the handle with your right hand and press the edge with your left hand. Remember to put your right thumb on the flat of knife to keep it stable, and place the knife at a slant so that you can sharpen it easier. Make sure that the line of the edge is vertical to the direction you sharpen.
If you want to cut soft things, the recommended sharpening angle is 10°. Change it to 12°-15° for cutting harder things. In general, it is the best to sharpen at the angle where 2mm from the edge of the blade touches the whetstone.
2Sharpening
Starting from the front, sharpen the knife back and forth at the same angle. For beginners: slide the knife from front to back only until you get used to it. Make sure to keep the same angle and sharpen the blade until its surface gets rough.
Do not sharpen the entire blade at once, but divide the blade into 4 parts (as shown in the figure on the right) and sharpen one by one. Pour a small amount of water over the whetstone when it gets dry. If the water drops from the whetstone turns black, stop sharpening and wash it once more.
3Sharpening the other side of the blade
Turn over the blade and sharpen it from back to front as you can see in the figure on the right; make sure that the edge of the blade is on the whetstone when you slide it back to the front. Also, as you slide it back, lift the blade from the whetstone, and press the surface less harder with your left hand so you can remove the burrs easier.
After sharpening with the rough whetstone, repeat the process above with the moderate whetstone. Once you finished sharpening with the moderate whetstone, repeat it again with the smooth whetstone.
4Finishing
Finally, remove all the burrs by rubbing against soft wood or cutting wet newspapers for several times. If you use the whetstone of particle size 3000, burrs on the blade would be very small that you can remove it by rubbing with a cloth.
*For left-handed customers: please refer to the "sharpening method for right-handed customers" and reverse right and left.
