Disclaimer: Stop reading if you grew up with a parent or mentor who demonstrated the value of razor-sharp kitchen knives. Nothing I will share will be new to you.
I grew up with parents and grandparents who threw kitchen knives in a drawer. We had a butcher knife, serrated bread knife, various knives used for steak, and butter knives. The butcher knife was dull and gray with what I now know was a patina. (What I wouldn't give to have that knife now). Nothing was sharp. The only knife sharpener I can remember was an electric can opener with a pull-through electric sharpener on the backside. It wasn't worth the electricity it used for sharpening a knife.
Cutting tomatoes was always a mess. Steak? Saw the meat until you could pull it apart. It was easier as a kid to stab it and bite off a piece. Onions created tear fountains on the first cut. While growing up, I didn't see the difference between the butcher knife and the butter knives, and no one explained it to me. I grabbed any knife in the drawer if I wanted to butter toast.
Flash forward to Navy pilot survival training and learning to sharpen a KaBar knife with a 3"x3/4" spit-stone. The blade wasn't very sharp as issued, but I remember improving the edge with practice. The sheath and stone are long gone, but I still have that knife.
Flash forward a few more years into marriage to a woman whose father sharpened knives with a bench grinder. We didn't live anywhere I could put a bench grinder, but a sporting goods store nearby had 5" oil stones. I bought one and sharpened our inexpensive kitchen knives. It took me quite a while to relearn the skill, but we could soon cut tomatoes without making a sauce. Unfortunately, working 15+ hours a day with lots of travel left me in no frame of mind to spend my free time stone sharpening knives. Consequently, I moved on to pull-through (a waste of money) and electric sharpeners. A diamond-plated electric sharpener did a fine job of sharpening my knives. Unfortunately, it also scratched them. I could live with that while I was so busy working.
With retirement comes time; time to watch YouTube and stumble upon videos about the different types of knives, knife steels, and sharpening techniques. I wanted to see if whetstone sharpening actually produced a better edge than the diamond-plated electric sharpener. A cheap set of stones on Amazon gave me the answer I needed after three weeks, and probably ten total hours, of relearning effort. Whetstone sharpening was superior to the electric sharpener.
However, what amazed me was how my old, familiar knives seemed to get a new life. Knives I never used, like a 6" western boning knife, became scalpel-like in my hands. YouTube videos trained me now to bone chickens and butts. Parting poultry became fun. Butchering a butt into pieces to make sausage with one knife swipe for each piece became an addictive experience.
I also learned that the serrated bread knives are best for crunchy, crusted bread; razor-sharp straight-edged blades worked best on soft, crusted bread without tearing the crumb. Tearless onion chopping became an everyday experience. Carpel-tunnel pain from thin-slicing half-frozen chuck roasts disappeared. Just prior to whetstones, I received a 7" 15-degree edge cleaver as a gift to solve that CT problem. The 7", 8", 9", and 10" chef's knives I already owned, once stone-sharpened, performed as good or better than the cleaver.
So, I'm still in the honeymoon phase of razor-sharp knives. Their current performance, after decades of meh, still amazes me. Yeah, I've cut myself several times from dull knife bad habits, but I don't mind. Plus, I use my cut-resistant gloves more often.
There are a LOT of sharpening systems on the market. With whetstones, I can now restore an edge in less than 5-10 minutes per knife, but I've got the time. If you don't have the time or patience to freehand on whetstones (cheap to expensive) and don't want to spend a fortune, check out Work Sharp (belt sharpening) and Lansky. Once sharpened to razors, your old knife friends might surprise you. Mine do every day.
Happy sharpening!
Ray
I grew up with parents and grandparents who threw kitchen knives in a drawer. We had a butcher knife, serrated bread knife, various knives used for steak, and butter knives. The butcher knife was dull and gray with what I now know was a patina. (What I wouldn't give to have that knife now). Nothing was sharp. The only knife sharpener I can remember was an electric can opener with a pull-through electric sharpener on the backside. It wasn't worth the electricity it used for sharpening a knife.
Cutting tomatoes was always a mess. Steak? Saw the meat until you could pull it apart. It was easier as a kid to stab it and bite off a piece. Onions created tear fountains on the first cut. While growing up, I didn't see the difference between the butcher knife and the butter knives, and no one explained it to me. I grabbed any knife in the drawer if I wanted to butter toast.
Flash forward to Navy pilot survival training and learning to sharpen a KaBar knife with a 3"x3/4" spit-stone. The blade wasn't very sharp as issued, but I remember improving the edge with practice. The sheath and stone are long gone, but I still have that knife.
Flash forward a few more years into marriage to a woman whose father sharpened knives with a bench grinder. We didn't live anywhere I could put a bench grinder, but a sporting goods store nearby had 5" oil stones. I bought one and sharpened our inexpensive kitchen knives. It took me quite a while to relearn the skill, but we could soon cut tomatoes without making a sauce. Unfortunately, working 15+ hours a day with lots of travel left me in no frame of mind to spend my free time stone sharpening knives. Consequently, I moved on to pull-through (a waste of money) and electric sharpeners. A diamond-plated electric sharpener did a fine job of sharpening my knives. Unfortunately, it also scratched them. I could live with that while I was so busy working.
With retirement comes time; time to watch YouTube and stumble upon videos about the different types of knives, knife steels, and sharpening techniques. I wanted to see if whetstone sharpening actually produced a better edge than the diamond-plated electric sharpener. A cheap set of stones on Amazon gave me the answer I needed after three weeks, and probably ten total hours, of relearning effort. Whetstone sharpening was superior to the electric sharpener.
However, what amazed me was how my old, familiar knives seemed to get a new life. Knives I never used, like a 6" western boning knife, became scalpel-like in my hands. YouTube videos trained me now to bone chickens and butts. Parting poultry became fun. Butchering a butt into pieces to make sausage with one knife swipe for each piece became an addictive experience.
I also learned that the serrated bread knives are best for crunchy, crusted bread; razor-sharp straight-edged blades worked best on soft, crusted bread without tearing the crumb. Tearless onion chopping became an everyday experience. Carpel-tunnel pain from thin-slicing half-frozen chuck roasts disappeared. Just prior to whetstones, I received a 7" 15-degree edge cleaver as a gift to solve that CT problem. The 7", 8", 9", and 10" chef's knives I already owned, once stone-sharpened, performed as good or better than the cleaver.
So, I'm still in the honeymoon phase of razor-sharp knives. Their current performance, after decades of meh, still amazes me. Yeah, I've cut myself several times from dull knife bad habits, but I don't mind. Plus, I use my cut-resistant gloves more often.
There are a LOT of sharpening systems on the market. With whetstones, I can now restore an edge in less than 5-10 minutes per knife, but I've got the time. If you don't have the time or patience to freehand on whetstones (cheap to expensive) and don't want to spend a fortune, check out Work Sharp (belt sharpening) and Lansky. Once sharpened to razors, your old knife friends might surprise you. Mine do every day.
Happy sharpening!
Ray
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you’re right! I pay for it in other ways! He’s my Tri Tip dealer and he has the market cornered here! 
