You are reading a single comment by @Tenderloin and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
The Reddit part is what put me off the Horl - be good to hear how you get one bc if it works well then it’s a great solution.
Tenderloin-
I assume the Reddit knife sharpening threads are populated by the equivalent to the people obsessing on weight weenies about their bike’s weight. But when pictured next to the bike probably exceed the maximum rider weight for half the components because they don’t actually ride their bike but spend all day on a computer chatting shit about bikes. I imagine there are a bunch of knife enthusiasts who never actually use their knives to prepare food because they are online talking about sharp knives and ordering takeout so they don’t make their knives blunt.
dancing james
I already use a bench grinder with mdf discs one with silicon carbide grit, the other with a polishing compound for sharpening bog standard knives (eg sebatier). It is great and super quick and easy and gives me shaving sharp blades in seconds. But it is not so good on harder steels (eg a couple of pocket knives) and I wouldn’t want to use it on hard steel Japanese blades. It means I don’t give a fuck about dishwashing the standard kitchen knives as it takes 15 minutes 3 times a year to keep them all super bastard sharp.
I have a couple of whetstones but it appears to take ages and technique is not dialled. So I wouldn’t use it on fancy knives. The Horl system appears to be good but on Reddit sharpening threads the utter knife geeks claim they can all do better with a whetstone. I have too many areas of nerdy specialism (food, coffee, cycling, yoga etc) and spending time learning a skill when it appears there is a tool that can achieve a very good but not perfect result seems more than acceptable to me. I have yet to see anyone say they made their knives worse using the Horl system, but know lots of people who have rounded blades by using whetstones badly.
I can now justify the Horl purchase as a research project for the benefit of my fixeh friends.