Daily Archives: February 1, 2012

Where to get your knives hand sharpened

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Where to get your knives hand sharpened

Best knife sharpening in Santa Monica hand sharpening a slicer

Me doing the final sharpening of a slicing knife

Well I have talked a lot about why you should have your knives hand sharpened on whetstones, but a few things are worth repeating.

  1. It doesn’t soften the steel as and ruin the knife as machine sharpening, wish means that they will stay sharper longer.
  2. It also doesn’t grid away excessive material, so it will give your knife much longer life
  3. Also the extreme edge finish means that it will stay sharper much longer.
  4. More environmentally friendly, as in that your knives will have much longer life time, no electricity will be use for sharpening and no weird chemical compounds from sharpening abrasives will be released. Ever wondered why your sharpening guy use a mask while sharpening?

If you still are not convinced why hand sharpening is better, check out this link till Global knives testing of knives for sharpness and performance. Their testing shows that knives sharpened on whetstones always are sharper and last longer than the factory edge no matter what brand of knife you use. Check out the table at the bottom of the page “CATRA Cutting Test to ISO 8442.5”

Or check out my post “Why you should spend a little more and have your good knife hand sharpened”

Ok I guess we could agree on that you need to have your knives hand sharpened now, if you actually plan to use them. So where should you have you knives hand sharpened. I would say that the best thing would be if you get some stones and learn how to sharpen them yourself, but I understand if that isn’t an option for you. So if you live on the Westside of Los Angeles, you could either have me sharpening your knives or let the only other guy that I know that does hand sharpening locally “Japanese Knife Import” do it for you.

I don’t know of any other one that provide freehand sharpening in Los Angeles, but if you know of someone else that does hand sharpening in LA, let me know and I will add them here. For other places I don’t know, but I know that http://www.japaneseknifesharpening.com/ offers mail order service for sharpening.

Magnus Pettersson hand sharpener, now serving the whole Westside with free pickup and delivery: Santa Monica, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Culver City and West LA.

For free pickup and delivery on the Westside, call/txt 310-486-6068 or email.




Where to buy knives and sharpening supplies

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Where to buy knives and sharpening supplies

Customers always ask me if their knives are good and where to buy them and sharpening supplies. I covered the basic about buying knives in this post, in this Santa Monica Knife Sharpening post I will talk about where to buy your knives and sharpening supplies.

First buy your knives online, it will save you a lot of money. Second never buy your knife from someone that machine sharpens knives, they will definitely have a conflict interest, and they will not be able to give you a good advice. Because their business is to ruin knives, making a fast buck machine sharpening your knives, so I would say they are not qualified to give you a good advice. They will have arguments like, all knives are made on machines and are machine sharpened in the factory wish is a fact. The difference is that in the factories, all knives are grind and beveled with tons of cooling, and the final sharpening is done on machines that use even more cooling too so the heat treatment stays intact or they actually do the final sharpening by hand on water stones. If your local knife store or sharpening service uses a belt grinder and sparks fly when they sharpen, go somewhere else for sharpening and knife purchases. Here is a YouTube video that shows how knives are made in the factory.

For buying a knife I would recommend you to go to a place like “Sur La Table” or other place that actually let you test chop and dice with the knife, and not just holding it, to make sure if it works for you. When you find the knife that works for you, buy it there if you feel that you want to support them or buy something else to be fair, and buy the knives online when you get home. If it is common knife brand, Bed Bath & Beyond might be a good option they often have sales and they always honor their monthly 20% coupons, if not you might find it cheaper at Amazon or Ebay. I usually buy my knives from www.chefknivestogo.com that have a great selection of knives and have fair prices. If you are looking after amazing Japanese knives, I would recommend www.japaneseknifeimports.com or http://japanesechefsknife.com, and for rare Sabatier nogent carbon knives check out http://thebestthings.com/knives/sabatier.htm they selling some new nogent carbon knives that are made from 60year old forgings.

Personally I love Japanese knives and they are the best of knives, but old French chef’s knives like old carbon steel Sabatier is a true pleasure to work with too and much more affordable.

For sharpening supplies I would recommend the following places:

www.chefknivestogo.com

www.leevalley.com/US

www.toolsforworkingwood.com

www.bestsharpeningstones.com

Magnus Pettersson hand sharpener, now serving the whole Westside with free pickup and delivery: Santa Monica, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Venice, Marina Del Rey, Culver City and West LA.

For free pickup and delivery on the Westside, call/txt 310-486-6068 or email.

Feel free to visit my site at santa monica knife sharpening for more about knives and sharpening