When I was first starting out learning how to sharpen a knife I spent hours sharpening on a whetstone knife sharpener but my knives were only marginally sharper. What was going on? Why wasn’t I able to get my knives sharp even after spending all this time sharpening? The people on Youtube made it look so easy! And it turns out that Knife Sharpening is really easy, as long as you know the Number 1 Secret to sharpening knives! As soon as I learned this secret I was able to sharpen my knives to be incredibly sharp without a lot of time or effort. I wish I would have known this secret when I was very first starting out learning how to sharpen a knife. So everyone knows the basics of sharpening a knife; find and maintain a the correct angle, use slow steady strokes, and sharpen each side with the same amount of strokes and pressure. But even after doing all these things I didn’t find that my knives were much sharper. So what is the number 1 secret to sharpening knives? It all comes down to understanding the 2 magic words of knife sharpening; apex and burr. The number 1 secret to sharpening knives is understanding what apex and burr mean. First, apex means that both edges of your knife are flat and meet at a crisp sharp point in the middle. That’s it. Simple enough, right? But how do you know if have sharpened to an apex? That is where the second magic word comes in; burr. A burr is a very thin piece of steel that forms at the apex of a knife. This burr easily folds and bends on the opposite side of the side you are sharpening. If you rub your thumb from the spine of the blade toward the edge of the blade, the edge of the blade will feel rough and tug at your skin. This is the burr, or the very thin piece of steel that has bent over that you are feeling. So the number 1 secret on how to sharpen a knife to be super sharp is by making sure you apex by sharpening each side until you have felt a burr form. That’s it! Once you have formed a burr on both sides you start counting down even number of strokes on each side of the blade until you do one stroke on each side, and do that 10 times. The point of this is to remove the excess burr and make the remaining burr point straight out from the blade so you have a super sharp edge. If you follow these simple and easy steps you will get a super sharpe knife every time! Don’t take my word for it! Try it out yourself!

Whetstone-Sharpener