Lessons learnt from knife sharpening

[Royale]

Lessons learnt during the brief time of my new knife sharpening business... Let me share the hilarity.


If the knife shows any signs of customer sharpening, it'll 100% need to be reprofiled.

Customers buy knives based on how they feel, and decide how to use them later. (I get to see a lot of bizarre damage)

If anyone brings me multiple knives of the exact same design, from the same household, I know they'll destroy all the knives I've sharpened within a week.

Professional chefs often have no idea how to sharpen their own knives.

All my customers who spoke about high carbon steel, have no idea what it is.

There are customers who do years of damage to their knives, and want it remedied within an hour.

The most common remark about my business is "Why sharpen knives? Just buy cheap ones and throw them away"

Customers lie to me about their knife usage, like how people lie to their doctors.

Every whetstone a customer has shown me was shaped like a used bar of soap.

There are customers who bring dull knives to me (700+ BESS), I sharpen it to below 200 BESS, and they'll still sharpen it after I return it to them. (One customer actually said he did that to make it sharper. Yes, the same method that he dulled his knives with, he used to make my sharpening "sharper")



I often ponder how these things still happen in the year 2025.

[Sir Amwell]

Yep! All sounds very familiar. As I've got more experience I've realised that it's all about getting the right customers rather than loads of iffy ones. If they appreciate what you do they'll come back and won't question your prices or techniques, allowing you to do a good rewarding job.
These days, if someone questions my prices or techniques or doesn't take my advice then they get binned. Just not worth it.
The chef thing? Yep agree wholeheartedly. I have several and they are good customers and meet the above criteria.
But I do remember one that I offered my services to. He said his kitchens knives were sharp and got a sous chef to bring one out to show me. You can imagine! I guess over 500 Bess. I said I could get it sharper than new for him. He asked how much? I told him (explaining about re profiling and how subsequent sharpenings would be cheaper). He laughed and replied that his contacts could get the knives ( I think they were Victorinox) cheaper than the sharpening (which I doubt).
I walked away thinking I'd dodged a bullet.
I guess you've just got to hang on in there until you get the right repeat customers who will start recommending you to other good repeat customers.
Might take a little longer but it's worth it in the long run.

[Royale]

He laughed and replied that his contacts could get the knives ( I think they were Victorinox) cheaper than the sharpening (which I doubt).

The argument for getting something "cheaper" only makes sense if it's a like-for-like comparison. Like maybe getting the same model Zwilling chef knife at a lower price from another vendor.

If there's someone else using the Tormek and producing the exact same results as me, I'd openly tell the customer to go for whoever is cheaper.

But the most bizarre still has to be the customer who had been doing a hatchet job on his own knife and ground it out of shape with his own honing rod and rolling sharpener. (The knife belly was basically gone and became a straight line)

He handed it to me for sharpening and I re-ground the entire blade back to its original shape, reprofiled and sharpened it to below 200 BESS (from 700+) And still he felt compelled to sharpen it some more to "make it sharper" the very next day I returned it to him (after only one day of use).

[jamesrieger]

Wow! 

[John_B]

I only sharpen knives from a select group of customers. I don't want it to turn into a job. The knives I sharpen are mostly European, French and Japanese with a few Dalstrong or Chinese knives. None are super steels. Most of the knives have only been sharpened by me so I rarely have much to do. The worse I get are chips from careless use.

[Royale]

The worse I get are chips from careless use.

One knife from a chef had a crack between the handle and blade because he had been using it to "slap-flatten" meat. The handle points to one direction, and the blade in another.

One home cook was using a cheap meat cleaver to chop through beef and pork bones. The blade was not only chipped (>5mm chips), but also warped.

A professional Michelin star restaurant chef was "sharpening" his $200+ Japanese knife with a 3000 grit whetstone and a honing rod. His "skills" made the middle section of the blade significantly thinner.

Another home cook had been sharpening her Chinese cleaver on a soap bar shaped whetstone, creating a concave blade.

A butcher just kept thinning his blade on a rounded whetstone, so there was no secondary bevel at all, and the blade kept flexing during sharpening.

A home cook allowed his Japanese knife to corrode so badly, that after corrosion removal, the blade was slightly thicker than aluminium foil.



I should start charging more for my services (or start slapping people in the face)

[John_B]

Lucky for me my customers don't sharpen anything, some have actually said they try and use the steel after I gave them some training. I think many of the chips come from inattention or poor handling. They also forget and throw several together for hand washing. I'm making progress, none use dishwasher any more.