What I'm Sharpening Today - Victorinox Chef's Knife
Sharpening a Chef's Knife on A Wicked Edge Pro Pack 2
April 22, 2020
I brought the Wicked Edge Pro Pack 2 home to do some sharpening. Everybody needs to sharpen their chef’s knives and I thought that would be a good place to start. I decided to sharpen a 9” Victorinox Chef’s Knife. First, I wanted to test the knife I was using to see exactly how dull it was. I used the Edge On Up Industrial Tester and found the average sharpness of 1419 grams. The Edge On Up testers measure the force it takes to cut a piece of calibrated test media, the less force, the sharper the edge.
Testing Sharpness
We use the Edge-On-Up to test knife sharpness. It measures the force required to cut a piece of certified test media. The lower the number, the sharper the edge. A butter knife is roughly 2000, a new knife is often around 300, while a razor blade can be sharpened below 100. We use this in our shop to measure our results.
I decided to experiment with the edge angle and went with 16 degrees. The Wicked Edge systems makes selecting an angle very simple. Just use the thumbscrew to lock the collars at the selected angle.
I started with the 100 grit diamond stone to shape the edge because the knife was so dull. After sharpening the entire knife with the 100 grit stone, I decided to test the sharpness. At this point, the average sharpness at 483, a huge improvement.
Next I moved to my diamond grits (200, 400, 600, 800, 1000). I spent less than a minute with each grit. The next step is to use the very fine 1.4 micro and .6 micron ceramic stones. After using these stones, I measured the sharpness and it was down to an average of 181 grams. Already much sharper than most new knives!
Using a leather strop has always improved my edges, so I moved to the leather hone. I did it without the diamond compound, but I suggest you use it to save time. I spent a little extra time with the leather hone since I didn't apply the compound. After finishing on the strop I tested the sharpness again and got a score of 111.
This was a good exercise and confirmed that I could quickly sharpen a very dull knife quickly using the Wicked Edge Pro Pack 2. The system is very simple and I’m confident anyone could repeat these results. In fact, if you started with higher quality steel, there is no reason that you couldn’t end up with an even sharper edge.
While I'm working from home, I'm going to test out a few others knives on this great system. Please look for my updates.