Sharpening Dad’s Knives

hello everyone Nate here with SimplySharp and uh today I thought I would just walk you through sharpening my dad’s knives um so dad makes uh dinner for the whole family every Sunday and he makes lunch for me on Wednesday so he runs through uh his knives fairly quickly uh he likes to cook a lot and he has a lot of knives uh what I’m going to show you today is probably I don’t know 10 to 15% of the knives that he has um he has a collection of uh of knives um so yeah just thought I’d run that run through that and uh hopefully you enjoy it thank you all right well I wanted to uh just go ahead and show you the knife sharpening process and you know as we do that with dad’s knives here I thought I’d introduce you to a little bit about the equipment that we’ve got and how we use it um now if you’re are familiar with us uh awesome if you are new to us uh let me introduce myself I’m Nate and my company is SimplySharp and SimplySharp is a mobile knife Sharp company in Atlanta Georgia uh basically it was founded with the idea that um getting your knives sharpened can be a real pain in the butt typically you have to take them to a store um leave them for several days come back and get them uh or there are some mail order services but those can be pricey and you’re still without your knives for a while um so the whole idea is ultra convenience we come to you we sharpen in your driveway um or somewhere else outside and usually takes less than a half hour to get it all done um we have kind of a um uh a network of sharpeners around the Atlanta area and most of us do this part-time which is why we use the equipment that we use um we don’t have uh we keep cost Low by not having a store and by not having expensive work trucks so um that’s kind of uh led us to what we have here obviously in this case I’m uh I’m sharpening in my garage uh so these are my dad’s knives he just dropped them off for us all right so let’s talk about the machines that are making all that racket and we’ll start with the sharpener itself so this is the Ken Onion Mark I it is made by a company called Work Sharp and it is a belt sander specifically made for knife sharpening um it’s a very versatile tool uh what I really really like about is you can control the speed of the belt uh you can control the angle of the belt so we can do lots of different angle knives and you can put a lot of different uh grit belts on it so this really gives you a lot of flexibility and control over the sharpening process um and it’s just a really great tool the uh other machine making all the noise that red box there that’s my dust collector and one of the things about SimplySharp is uh it is kind of a um uh what I call the unfranchise so this is not a franchise relationship um it’s more of like a licensing relationship where the sharpeners don’t need to worry about any of the aspects of setting up a business so they don’t have to worry about technology and marketing and um you know booking appointments and all that kind of stuff uh we do all of that and all the sharpeners have to do is show up and sharpen um but that is built that way because uh the vision is that hey this is a great way for people to make some extra money so whether they already have a day job but just need a little bit of extra income or whether they uh maybe are recently retired and need something to do or maybe need extra money in retirement uh that means that most of my sharpeners are part-time and we do this out of our car uh to keep cost low and keep everything cost efficient uh we don’t we don’t really invest in uh certainly not in real estate um but also the work bands and trucks uh those are not cheap that’s quite a bit of expense especially if you’re going to be doing something part-time and you’re just trying to make extra money um so because of that uh you know people like me I’ve got this set up in the back of my car I’ve got a cool little setup that you can kind of see going on there but I don’t want all the dust to wind up in my car uh this dust is not good for you to breathe um you typically want to be wearing a mask or for sure being outdoors when you’re doing this got some good ventilation going on um if you’re inside you definitely want to have some sort of dust collection and be wearing a mask um but you know you also don’t want that dust dis to blow into your car and get everywhere CU it will blow up again and get in your lungs and not to mention make a mess out of your car so this is a cool little dust collector uh I found it on Amazon uh pretty cheap and uh I’ll post a link in the description to where you can get it but I’m very very happy with it all right what you’re watching me do here is uh putting an edge back onto the knife we call this establishing The Edge and what I’m using here is uh the most coarse belt in the progression that I use so um all sharpening is the removal of hopefully a small amount of knife material in order to put a nice sharp pointy Edge back on the knife so if you uh imagine like a a flat squared off edge uh the only way to get that sharper is to kind of remove those Corners so that you have like one very nice sharp point and that’s what we’re doing here when we say we’re establishing The Edge uh the belt that I’m using is a cubitron p120 I get this from a company called Curry custom Cutlery but uh Work Sharp sells belts uh you can get belts all over um Amazon um you can get them from suppliers like Maverick there’s a lot of suppliers out there of these belts um in my opinion I really like these cubitron I also really like uh some of the ceramic belts that you can get from uh some of the vendors as well that’s what we’re doing here with this first belt um is we’re establishing that edge and uh the next belt that you’ll see a little bit later after I go through all of the knives is going to be uh our refining step so what’s happening with this course belt is it’s removing material um in our world it’s aggressive it’s not really all that aggressive of a process but for knife sharpening I would call this um you know the most aggressive thing that that we do um short of reshaping a knife um but uh it leaves some pretty uh big scratch marks in the edge of the knife and the downside of those scratch marks is that it is going to cause drag as you’re as you’re doing some sort of slicing and it’s also going to present a lot of additional surface area to the knife and it’s have a little bit more Jagged of an edge that is going to prevent it from really being able to do something like a push cut like when you’re actually just like pushing down to chop say an onion um it’s not going to really be all that great of an experience with just this sort of an edge on the knife so the next thing that we do we call it refining The Edge and we use another belt in this case it’s that gray belt sitting up there on top of my dust collector now what you see me doing here is I’m feeling for the development of a burr that means I’ve got that edge on the knife we need all right so i’ had actually already sharpened these two knives um for an earlier video and then the serrated one we’ll uh we’ll do at the end um so not skipping them they’re just already sharpened okay so what you’re going to see me do here is this is using a cleaning stick to clean the belt off um you know dust particles um particle from from the knife uh particles from the belt themselves they’ll settle down into the belt so if you think about it as just a piece of sandpaper imagine the Sandpaper as you’re sanding the wood getting a little bit clogged up um what that little stick does is just cleans all that debris out of there and it really helps the knives cut and and last quite a bit longer and you know if you are a sharpener and you’re finding that man my belt still feels okay but um it’s not going as fast or I have to take more passes than I normally do uh try using something like that uh you can pick those things up anywhere you can get them at hardware stores they’re called um sanding cleaning sticks or something like that um you can get them online from a bunch of different knife sharpening stores you could also just use the old school kind of pink eraser that you had when you were in elementary school like all of that will work all right so as mentioned this refinement is really just uh making the deep scratches left by the 120 grit belt uh a lot finer uh but surprisingly this is only a 600 grit belt which might certainly sound a little bit low especially given that the uh grits can go all the way up into the tens of thousands uh many sharpeners that sharpen on stones will be using much higher grits uh in their in their final steps um but the reason we do this is number one sharpening on a belt just the speed with which the belt is moving even at low speeds is quite a bit more than what you would be getting from something like a stone um and we don’t want to over sharpen the knives believe it or not that is a thing uh knives can be oversharpened and what I mean by that is uh there is a supremely fine polished Edge in there um that is actually a disadvantage for most of what you’re going to be doing in a kitchen having a toothier edge that will kind of help help you um uh uh tear a little bit at the food particles is going to make for a more effective tool than a really really fine Edge that’s just going to be sliding across things so if you’re thinking of like a slicing motion um you know you you kind of want a little bit more of let’s say like a saw blade type effect um versus just something that’s super smooth that isn’t going to grab any of the the um food that you’re cutting and help get through it so that toothiness is actually advantageous um personally I wouldn’t recommend refining a knife anywhere past a th000 um I like 600 uh to 800 range I think that um is the most uh desirable and best working Edge on the knife all right I guess we get talk about another piece of equipment which is the camera so as you saw it kind of um stopped filming there for a while and what actually happened is it got full um so I actually just shoot off of an iPhone I find that uh it’s super easy I always have it on me camera quality I think is pretty fantastic and you know I use just a bunch of you know free Apple tools like iMovie to go ahead and and make videos like this and I make little tiny videos of me slicing up paper if you’ve seen me on Instagram or Facebook or even follow me on YouTube you see me just making a bunch of silly little videos um of of things I encounter out in the wild and I just do that right off my phone edit them with iMovie um imov is free it’s functional and again you know it it’s letting me do the job without investing tons and tons of money all right you’re going to see me put there in there is compound so that blue stick is Polishing Compound and I’m just applying it to the Belt um the compound is what’s actually doing this last step here that we call stropping uh you can think about it is it’s just polishing metal and um it is going to remove any additional roughness is going to put an even finer Edge on the knife uh we’re still going to have that underlying toothiness that we get out of the 600 grip belt we were using previously um but uh it it goes um uh this belt will go ahead and and the the Polish in particular will go ahead and just really kind of refine that polish it make it a lot smoother so um that is one of the reasons why you can stop at 600 because you have this whole additional step which is going to uh refine that edge even further um and get it to where we want it to be uh the belt itself is felt and actually what I’m doing here is I’m testing for a burr that’s just a piece of microfiber cloth if I had any Burr left on the knife uh I would have felt it drag and get pulled and and start pulling at the the microf fiber um you can usually see the the Burr which is um if you have good lighting you can see the Burr just come off and whether or not it’s there uh you could also just kind of feel for it um it is also something that when you see sharpeners cutting paper uh yeah it kind of looks fun and cool it makes for a great demo um but you can also feel and listen for anything in that knife that you may have missed so maybe you didn’t get all of the bur off which is what I did there cuz I had to go redo it um or you missed maybe a Nick in the knife that’s still there and that will catch um it will catch that that microfiber but when you’re cutting a piece of paper it’ll kind of Pop the paper so you know like uhoh there’s something I missed in there and you you’re going to have to go back and address um or you know if you still got some bur on there it’s just going to kind of like more tear than cut through it and again you can absolutely feel it you can hear it uh use your other senses if you’re sure sharpener um you have sight but you also have hearing and touch uh interestingly enough sometimes sense of smell comes into play um now the uh stopping is typically done with a leather or denim medium and in all cases what the stopping is doing is holding some sort of compound um so it’s usually some sort of a of a solution or or a or a stick um there are many things you can spray on that are um actually what’s really going on in these compounds is they’re extremely high abrasive so there’s a little bit of abrasive in there but the grit levels would be through the roof um so they’re very very very very fine particles um that are really just kind of polishing away there um but yeah you usually put them on leather or denim uh felt is one that you can also use and um I like the felt belt in this case because it does a really good job of quickly removing the Burr uh and also leaves a nice nice polish on it all right so what I’m doing here is I’m getting set up for uh sharpening this serrated knife and what you see here is just a uh a bench grinder this is just a um inexpensive bench grinder from Buck tool um if you’re going to do this the important thing that you want to know is you need a lowp speeed grinder um so I think this tops out at about maybe 1,700 RPM something like that um but if you just go search for buck tool low speeded grinder you’ll find this model uh it works great it’s what a bunch of uh bunch of a sharpeners to use for this application um what’s actually happening here is uh the wheel on this thing is a uh diamond wheel so it’s a metal wheel impregnated and um the outside layer there with some diamond dust um and so it cuts very quickly uh it will also build up a lot of heat so you just want kind of quick little um uh contact with with the wheel and that size wheel that’s a quar of an inch and it is going through and just res serrating that knife cuz all of the serrations had kind of gotten um dulled and they were no longer all nice and pointy um sometimes it takes a couple passes I’ll be honest with you I’m still really getting proficient with this particular process um you know I could certainly be better at it uh finding the right angle uh to hold the knife at and approach the wheel at that’s something that I’m still kind of working on also just making sure I’m using the right type of wheel so you know this guy he’s got a qu in and a 1in wheel over there I also have a halfin wheel um these again came from Curry custom Cutlery uh you can get those from his shop over there but but uh yeah we’re just going to put these serration in there and then um we’ll move on and we’re going to have to take the Burr off all right so we’re going to do the deburring with the can onion um and I’ve got that leather belt going and going there and yeah as you’re going to see I need a better deburring technique um if you are a sharpener and you’re watching this and you want to drop me a comment of a better way to debur this thing I would love to hear it um I do know that a lot of people use a wire wheel or a scotchbrite or something like that um but I’m not going to be carrying any of that stuff with me in my car um you know really kind of the uh air filter the Work Sharp itself and I will bring along my um my bench grinder that has the diamond wheels that did this I’ll bring those along with me um but man I really don’t have the inclination or desire to bring a lot more um so I would love if somebody had an idea of a nice uh compact way to do this deur U Compact and low power if you’re going to recommend a power tool I would love to hear from you on how to do it but yeah as you can see here it’s going to take a million passes and then I’m going to get out my wire brush and see what happens I really enjoy making these videos I think they’re a lot of fun and I hope that they’re useful to people um I’m you know trying to be helpful I’ve learned a lot from uh others on YouTube and Facebook and other places about knife sharpening and this is maybe just my little way of uh helping to contribute and help other sharpeners and you know hopefully maybe it’s a little bit entertaining too maybe seeing different tools gear techniques uh maybe you’re not even interested in sharpening but you just like watching some weirdo in Atlanta sharpen his knives but you know maybe not maybe you guys hate the these things um but I would love your feedback I would love to know um what you think about this particular format I’m trying out here and uh if you have any ideas of something that you think might make a good video if you want to see me try something or do something or uh demonstrate some piece of equipment drop me a line in the comments I would be happy to investigate it and it helps me learn and grow and like I said it’s a lot of fun I enjoy making these things all right well that’s it uh dad’s knives are all nice and sharp so uh the obligatory paper test here so really sharp uh it’s going to cut through all the food that he’s going to make me and my family every Sunday and the yummy delicious sandwiches that he makes me on Wednesday uh if you’re in the Atlanta area we would love to sharpen your knives we offer a home service so we come straight to your house uh the the whole principle of the business was started that getting your knife Sharp can be a pain in the butt so we will come to you sharpen them right in your driveway typically takes about a half hour or so uh and I’ve got a wonderful team behind me I’ve got Mark uh who serves uh Brook Haven and shamble area I’ve got Danielle who’s also helping out in Brookhaven shambly she’ll do Dunwoody she does events around town as well I’ve got David Who’s down in uh Midtown and Buckhead and a little bit of Sandy Springs I’ve got Chris who’s kind of also done withy Roswell Alpharetta Milton that kind of area and then there’s me I cover everything else and I fill in for those guys when uh when need be so anywhere in kind of if you draw a a pie shape wedge of Atlanta that kind of north side of it all the way from Marietta over to duth up to about as far as Milton that’s where we’ll go but you can find all of that information and book us online at simplysharpatl.com uh so hopefully you enjoyed that and we would love to sharpen your knives if you’re interested in sharpening knives but maybe you’re a little bit intimidated about starting a business and maybe all of the uh backend infrastructure like websites and and marketing plans and and booking systems and accounting systems and all that kind of stuff you don’t want to deal with it uh that is the vision of SimplySharp so I call it the unfranchise we do all of that for you but it’s none of the fuss and mus you get with a franchise there’s no franchise fees there’s no ongoing royalties you pay one low licensing fee uh it’s designed to be very low risk for everyone involved but if you just want to show up and sharpen and I will deal with all the rest please give me a call I can be reached at 404 969-5411