Carbon steel knives are a joy to sharpen
There are fewer carbon knives in our neck of the woods
We're in the midwest. We got started sharpening kitchen knives here. There are a ton of German stainless steel knives (great for corrosion resistance) in this part of the country. Maybe it goes back to the original settler farmers and their descendants having an affinity to items from their home country? That's what we think.
We service the whole country by mail
In our pursuit of building connections between home kitchens and school kitchens to raise money to pay down school lunch debt and better lunch services we built our model to be able to service all knives from entry level to high end. We do so across every address in America. Afterall, the entire country has knives in need of service and there are only so many sharpeners.
We see all kinds of knives in our mail in service
On a typical day, we'll sharpen a forged chef knife next to a traditional japanese knife in the next package. Then we'll find a damascus steel knife in the package after that. It's a truly wonderful array of knives and knife types that flow across our bench. We have Stainless steel knives next to white steel, blue steel, and other generally high carbon Japanese steel knives.
Our favorite knives to sharpen
Oh, our favorite to sharpen are the harder carbon content steel kitchen knives. Can someone say VG10? Thank you. What a wonderful steel.
While high carbon content Japanese knives may be prone to chipping from lateral twisting motions they are absolutely wonderful for wear resistance under normal kitchen knife motions and tasks. Their higher rockwell hardness scale (hrc) ratings are often well over 60. This brings a high hardness to their edge and edge retention properties. It also makes them a pleasure to work with in our opinion. They take a great edge and stay sharp longer.
As the months pass we're finding ourselves building a deeper affection for Japanese knives. Come along for the ride, if you like. Well just dry them often and keep the rust off, together.