How do you use a whetstone?

The sharpest results are achieved with whetstones. Which whetstone you need depends on the sharpness of the knife. The blunter the knife, the coarser the whetstone needs to be. How to find out which whetstone you need and how it all works is explained in this blog!

When using a whetstone, it is also important to keep the surface of the whetstone clean, because the structure of the stone must remain open. Grease, dust and steel particles have a negative effect on the stone, making it less efficient at removing material. So rinse the stone well after use to remove steel particles from the surface and allow the stone to dry well before storing it.

Which whetstone do I need?

As already mentioned, which whetstone you need depends on the sharpness of the knife. Is your knife still in good condition and you just want to sharpen it a bit to make it sharper? Then you only need a whetstone with a fine grain size. Is your knife really dull or damaged? Then you first need a coarser stone to get your knife back into shape. mouldback in. Then, in increasing grain size, you can make sure your knife is razor-sharp again!

To see what grain size you need, you can easily test this with a tomato. Because a tomato has a tough skin, but with a soft interior, this vegetable is how good indication of the sharpness of your knife. Slice the tomato without putting pressure on it and see how easy (or difficult?) it goes.

Grain size 400 - 1000 (coarse to medium).
Grain size 1000 - 3000 (medium to fine)
Grit size 3000 - 5000 (extra fine)

Then, to keep your knives in good condition for as long as possible, I recommend you maintain your knives daily with a sharpening steel.

Sharpening angle
If you sharpen the knife with the wrong angle, you can damage the knife. There is also the danger that the knife can become blunt if you sharpen the knife with too large or too small a cutting angle. You determine the right sharpening angle by looking at the angles of your knife. After all, the smaller the angle, the sharper the knife. For example, the angle of a Japanese knife is very small because of the hard steel, and so the knife can be sharpened very sharply. European knives are made of a softer type of steel and are therefore sharpened at a larger angle.

Double-sided sharpened knife: sharpening angle of 20 - 25°
Single-edged knife: sharpening angle of 15 - 17°.

How do you use a whetstone?

Now that you know which whetstone you need, it is also useful to know how to use it. With the step-by-step plan below you have a razor-sharp knife in no time.

Before use, first put the legs in a container with water for about 10 minutes. As soon as no more bubbles get off the stone, the whetstone is ready for use.
Then place it with the right side up in the supplied anti-slip holder, so the stone stays on during grinding. Always work in rising grain size.
Tilt the knife in such a way that a corner of 15 - 25 ° is created between blade and the whetstone.
Then pull the knife with long strokes along the stone. Exercise some pressure when the knife slides forward and pull it back in a smooth movement. Start the heel and make sure that the entire blade touches the whetstone, so that the knife is sharpened from head to toe. Repeat this a number of times until you feel a burr.
Then turn the knife and repeat steps 3 and 4 to get sharp both sides of the knife.
Turn the whetstone and repeat the process with a finer grain to remove the bramble and polish your knife razor -sharp.
And voilà, your knife is like new again!

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