Kitchen Knives

[Rich Engelhardt]

Yes, generally speaking, carbon steel will take and hold and edge better & longer than a stainless blade, but really, equating a stainless blade with something like a dull stick is silly. I've got 2 or 3 stainless knives that are easily sharpened to a razor edge. When they dull, they get a quick touch up.

HOWEVER -- - the carbon steel knives just need a few swipes on the Spyderco Sharpmaker to restore the edge.
Stainless Steel doesn't respond so well to the ceramic & needs to have some sort of abrasive applied that will remove steel.

My carbon steel knives get the ceramic every time I go to use them. They see a stone, maybe once every 5 years - or more.
Stainless blades see a stone quite a bit. The Sharpmaker can only do so much, then it's just a waste of time.

What is the best sharpening device for serrated knives? Seem to have trouble sharpening some of these knives for my wife.

Spyderco Sharpmaker.

[Flamone LaChaud]

We had a set of Wustoff/Henkels back in the day, up until a house fire took away most of our kitchen. My wife replaced them with a set of Harris Teeter stainless steel knives (our local grocery store) knives that did ok at best. Eventually I learned how to freehand sharpen my woodworking cutting tools, and attempted to sharpen the kitchen knives as well. It was a huge improvement . . . but they were good for about a half dozen onions/carrots/celery stalks before needing attention again. Was browsing the auction site, and ran across a seller that specialized in older Japanese kitchen knives, and most of the makers didn't have any info that I could find via the googles. I picked up three on a lark - a Deba, Nikiri, and Sashimi . . . and it was unreal the difference. Now that the wife has discovered what sharp is, and how much easier it is to use a sharp knife - those other stainless steel knives just don't get used. Plus, I think the older knives are actually easier to sharpen.