What’s your ‘Heston’ experience?

      • all-knight-party@kbin.cafe
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        1 year ago

        Right, you get it. I know what honing is, but could you explain for like, all the other losers? Not me, though, I’m down with the kids.

        • LazaroFilm@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Ha! He doesn’t know what honing means! It’s so obvious, you should know what it means. Can anyone bother to explain it to him? I would, but honestly I don’t have time for that. Too busy right now.

        • SpeakinTelnet@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Haha no worries. Think of the edge of a knife as slowly folding on itself when you’re using it, honing is used to straitened the edge and make it “sharp” again. Sharpening is when you remove material to create a new edge on the knife, usually with something abrasive.

          After a while a knife is just dull and has no edge to be straitened anymore, at that point honing is useless.

          • all-knight-party@kbin.cafe
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            1 year ago

            Thank you, I always assumed those honing steels were actually removing material like a whetstone would, but that makes more sense with it being for just straightening the edge back out

            • SpeakinTelnet@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              My understanding is that It is really similar to honing with the additional purpose of polishing the blade by using a material that is just so slightly abrasive.

              I’m open to correction and addition on this as I’m no stropper.

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      the trick with sharpening knives is to do it wrong and wait for a flock of knive enthousiasts to swarm you and sharpen it for you

    • DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s your mistake. A steel is not for sharpening. It is for honing - i.e. straightening out a slightly rolled edge. You should do this periodically while or just after each use.

      If your knife is dull, a steel is useless. You need to sharpen it on a stone first.

      • Steve Anonymous@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes. The movement and blade placement is beyond me. I grew up in a tackle store and would watch my mom and dad sharpen filet knives super fast and i cannot replicate it

        • Candelestine@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The average kitchen knife is sharpened at a 15-20 degree angle. So, hold your knife perpendicular to the steel. You’re at 90 degrees. Go halfway down, you’re at 45. Go halfway down again, you’re roughly at 22.5 degrees.

          This is close enough in my opinion, but you can always angle down a tad more for those last few degrees if you want. You want to be a little bigger than the actual angle it is sharpened at though, since you’re focusing on the edge, not the whole bevel.

        • amio@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Not an expert, I use a whetstone with quite a bit of water and aim to “cut the water”: the edge pushes water along the stone if it’s properly (or at least usably) angled. Once I have the angle in, I adjust my grip, or support the backside of the knife with my thumb, or whatever else lets me keep that angle consistent.

          Bear in mind the angle might “change” on you as you sharpen a curved blade - or that’s my shitty technique. I try to keep thinking about “the normal” or what’s perpendicular to the edge where it’s touching the stone.

          Also, tip courtesy of Ethan Chlebowski on Youtube. You can use a permanent marker and color in the edge of the blade. Dye left on the edge means you’re off and its distance from the… uh… edge of the edge will tell you if you’re too shallow or too steep.

          I can usually get my knives sharp enough that I haven’t bothered with the marker trick. It’s clever, though.

        • Statlerwaldorf@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          When I bought my first fancy knife from a local kitchen supply store, they taped a folded post-it note to the box and showed me how to make one. Fold a piece of paper diagonally, one corner to the opposite corner, to make a 45 degree angle. Then fold it in half again by folding one long side of the triangle to the opposite long side. You’ll now have a 22.5° angle to use as a visual guide to get you close enough.