Thread: work sharp knife sharpener

Originally Posted by Moa Hunter

By far the greatest number of total knife hours would be spent at Meatworks and Butcheries. Knives used in those businesses are tough modern steels that can take a good edge and can be maintained with a few quick strokes on a steel. Most 'Works' have a knife man who hollow grinds all the knives and sets them up. As an example of how good those knives are, with an ex Freezing works boner I recently gutted, skinned, broke down and cut up an entire deer without touching a steel. The knife is still sharp. What more do we want. Perhaps going to over-hard blades that then require specialist sharpening gear is just a fools folly ?

Yeah, interestingly most of the professional steels are comparitively pretty soft.
The flip side of a tough steel keeping an edge for a long time is it will also take a long time to rrsharpen that edge.

The meat worker edges are kept pretty toothy and course, hollow gind helps too.

I think much of being able to work an entire animal without touching up a knife comes down to technique, not scraping the egde along bone or cutting hairs etc will keep a knife sharp for ages.

Smae as having a decent cutting board at home and hand cleaning your knives. It's often not the actual cutting that dulls the knife but the hitting of hard things on the other side of what you are cutting.