YoshiYes, you really need to flatten your whetstone.
Because…
You need to have a flat whetstone in order to sharpen a keen knife.
Are you thinking…
“I am using a whetstone to sharpen my knife but it has never been keen.”
Or
“The shape of my knife has changed a bit and it doesn’t look right.”
1. Why does this happen?
These problems happen because your whetstone is distorted.
It is not flat.
If your whetstone has a paddle in the center of the stone,
You can’t make your kitchen knife razor sharp,
And your knife will have an ugly shape.
You need to take care of a whetstone as well as your kitchen knife.
It sounds weird because a knife is already a tool, and a whetstone is a tool that takes care of the knife.
And there is a tool taking care of a whetstone that I will explain later.
A tool of a tool of a tool.
So intricate…
2. What you need to know is…
Ideally, you should use all the parts of the whetstone to sharpen your knife.
However:
In reality, there are some parts that you use a lot of and there are some parts that you don’t really touch.
If the edge of your knife touches a specific part of the whetstone frequently, that part will sink.
And the whetstone will be uneven.
That will cause difficulty in using the stone.
This is the reason why you need to keep your whetstone flat.
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3. What happens if you use an non-flat whetstone?
If there is a dent in the whetstone, the spot that you want to sharpen cannot be sharp.
This is because the spot can’t touch the whetstone
And you end up shaving off the part that you don’t intend.
It will cause an unpleasant blade shape.
And the knife is really difficult to use.
Again, it is like using a curved ruler to draw a line
4. How often should you flatten the whetstone then?
Every 10 minutes you use the whetstone.
It is quite frequent right?
You will be able to tell when your stone is not flat if you become experienced.
5. What tools do you need to flatten a whetstone?
1. Diamond sharpening stone
electroplated diamond sharpening stone
On the surface diamond is attached by electroplating.
Good thing about this diamond sharpening stone is it will never be bent. It is always flat and straight.
Imagine:
If the ruler is not straight, you can’t draw a straight line. Right?
So this sharpening tool for whetstone is important.
2. Whetstone that you want to flatten
3. Water
6. How to do it?
The basic idea is getting rid of the dark color on the whetstone.
These dark spots on the whetstone are the areas you use to shave your knife.
That means these spots are thinner than other parts
Here is the process…
1. Set the whetstone in the bottom and place the diamond stone to the top
2. Start running water on the whetstone.
This will prevent sticking a whetstone and a diamond sharpening stone together
3. Push the diamond sharpening stone straight back and forth
4. Push the diamond sharpening stone diagonally. Imagine the stone is a clock and face it towards 10 oclock and push it back and forth
5. Now push the diamond sharpening stone to 2 oclock back and forth
6. Repeat 4 to 5 until the dark spots are gone
7. Done
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*If your stone doesn’t have dark spots, then you should draw lines using a pencil like the picture on your whetstone. And keep shaving your whetstone until the lines are gone.
*Do not do this.
This will make your stone uneven.
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You should keep in mind that you should move inside this range.
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