Here are five keys to taking the mystery out of easy knife sharpening!

1) Don’t Wait Too Long
This is one of the most important things to keep in mind. Very dull tools are too hard to sharpen and you end up having to remove more metal, wearing down your blade. Whatever method you use to sharpen, use it early and often to maintain that razor-sharp edge!

2) Beware Of Coarse Abrasives
Very rarely should a coarse stone or belt be required for knife sharpening, especially if you work on the blade early and often. With many inexpensive sharpening systems, all your options are quite coarse but choose fine abrasives for the best results. A great rule of thumb is a grit of 600 or finer.

3) Use A Strop
Yes, you can sharpen your knife with a piece of leather! Get yourself some scrap leather pieces, add a small amount of abrasive paste (something like jeweler’s rouge) and you’re set up to do amazing edge work. The polishing of the just blade’s edge produces a knife that cuts very well. This is something that can be done quickly and often during heavy use.

4) Use a Butcher Steel
One former professional butcher used a Lucas Forge knife to dress 10 hogs and 5 deer over a two year period and never touched blade to stone. The secret? He used his butcher steel to keep the blade true. The steel slightly reshapes the steel of the blade, as opposed to grinding the metal away with a stone, to keep it in top condition.

5) Use Ceramic
An inexpensive ceramic stick used properly can produce a very effective edge. They tend to remove a little metal, but are not aggressive cutters. The edge produced by a ceramic rod contains small serrations, working well for meat cutting. Use of a ceramic rod, followed by polishing with leather and abrasive pastes, makes an effective sharpening system.

~Guest post by Al

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