17th Generation Yoshimoto Bladesmith/ABS Master Bladesmith Murray Carter discusses Japanese cutlery, hand forged neck knives, sharpening, and all things knife related.
This information was so helpful. Ive been nervous about trying to learn to sharpen my knives with whetstones. After watching this and trying to follow along, i attenpted to bring my pocket knife back to life. Failed, but tried again with one of my kitchen chopping knifes. I dont remember the last time it was that sharp! Now I have confidence that over time and practice, this is a skill I will master. Thanks for this! Some people might complain about the length of this video, but I think it was alot of knowledge and examples of how to do it properly
I've been sharpening as a hobby for a decade or so. I started charging a little less than a year ago. I mostly work on belts these days simply because I can get more knives sharpened in less time(sometimes over 100 a day) but there's no way I'd be as good as I am without first learning to sharpen on stones. I still do the stones for my own knive and when a customer is willing to pay extra for my time, and I love when they do. Murray Carter is the man!
As an enthusiastc beginner to the art of knife sharpening, this was the most satisfying and rewarding 2 hours and 45 minutes of teaching. Education like this, free of charge, is a rare gem to find on the net. Thanks for this.
for the three finger test of edge sharpness, would you recommend reversing hands where the person's non-dominant hand has callouses on their finger tips, owing to playing stringed musical instruments?
If you want a safe way to test a blade's sharpness, gently push at a shallow angle the blade's edge against the flat of your thumbnail (ideally for safety, thumb pointing forward, fingers in a fist, and blade moving away from your body). The amount of grab the edge has on your nail will tell you how sharp it is. A dull edge will skate across your nail. A razor sharp edge will stop itself instantly the moment it touches your nail. A little tip from my high school shop teacher who taught us how to sharpen woodworking chiesels.
Just wondering🤔 Re: when you started grinding on the 1000 grit stone. Moving backwards and forwards and side to side……..aren’t you grinding more of the centre part of the blade? You seem to be grinding one left, one right and roughly twice the middle section if that makes sense?
Great video I've just started. I've just got some quality stones in. I'm struggling with sharpening the curved ends! Otherwise It's pretty good if it's straight!
Its a little bit confusing that you guys use the terms primary and secondary bevel opposite of everyone else, but apart from that this is a joy to watch
Thank you so so much for your advice! The two recommendations to take care of the secondary bevel and to use a narrower primary bevel have drastically improved my results.
Expert wood plane sharpener (and scrapers) have to know how to remove a bur and how to use a bur. Luthiers use those tools to thin the bodies with different finishes.
I have never stopped with newspaper. I have always used leather on a nice strip of wood with the green oxide. Does newspaper do something more that leather would not. I can get a pretty good edge on my knife but it never seems like it gets the really nice fine edge. It’s a custom made knife high carbon steel . Good quality steel. Thank you.
funniest thing. i cut my fingertips off about 6 weeks ago sharpening my chefs knife while drunk. I feel like this video called me out directly without naming me haha. Such a wonderful educational video about the technical details of the sharpening process. you have personally upped my game when it comes to blade maintenance
I've seen people get shaving sharp from 400 grit stones, pretty sure Carter can achieve shaving sharp with 1000 and 6000. The only thing I wonder is how my straight razor's stopping mechanism when closed is the spine thickness, so will I eventually have a freely spinning knife from removing material from the spine thickness as well? But if you are really bothered by scratch marks on the spine, just go up the grits on stones to 12k or higher and get it back to shiny mirror.
All you ignorant dummies talking about this man's Robe Obviously skipped the part in the video where he mentioned all the years he spent in JAPAN making and sharpening knives. He is representing the Culture of the people who taught him. If you ain't got anything INTELLIGENT to say...don't speak at all..
Sounds like part of the difficulty in giving Forged In Fire credibility is the lack of transparency in what you're getting into. It seems really hard to try to have an ultimate test since there are so many applications and decisions based on the use and desired features, that you can't just match any kind of blade against each other and test them in a certain way without them being comparable in purpose. Like you wouldn't match claymore and katana against each other, it just doesn't make too much sense. If you're trying to draw conclusions from the bladesmith's skill and put them in order like that, it's somewhat apples to oranges and doing a disservice to all if it's reviewed too one-dimensionally. Essentially it sounds like a nightmare job, making design choices blindly trying to guess what the customer is using it for. Turns out when you guess wrong for what you're judged for, it's not your skill that is reviewed but your luck. If you get to know the test before hand, you can actually make educated decisions and perfect your choices towards that. Also pretty fascinating that a lot of the decisions also just come down to what you have at hand in the timeframe given. Cool that the experience still managed to teach something useful. To me it seems like better than the shows is when the professionals explain their choices, what they did and why.
Under which circumstances would you recommend attempting a re-heattreat versus abandoning the blade? So if grain size is the issue, then abandon? If quench/tempering suspected, attempt a retreat?
Two hours of a white guy in a bathrobe pretending to be a Japanese Samurai, sharpening knives, I was always told is the wrong way (⚠️🚫↔️...✅️👍➡️) Right or wrong , this has git to fully watched , memorized and recreated into a spoof version. 📢 HONEY! Quick, wake up! Grab the bag, the pipe,the lighter, and the video camera! Where making another "RU-vid production" spoof video. Ohhhh this is good stuff. Ohhhh and bring your robe.
Hello Murray, i am an absolute fan of yours..i was wondering if you would be so inclined as to exchange one of your custom kitchen knife against one of my custom razors.
