I’ve heard someone say that there is a difference between actually sharpening a knife and making it not dull with a rod or something. What is the difference?
In: Technology
Imagine zooming waaaaaay in on the edge of a knife. Not for real – keep those blades away from your eyes! – but in your imagination. Imagine looking at the front of the blade, and zooming in so close that the edge of the knife is a tall, skinny triangle.
Two things can happen when you use the knife:
* The tip of that triangle can get shoved over to the side, due to being pushed against the cutting board (or whatever you’re cutting). You fix this by **honing** it – using that rod you mentioned to just shove the tip back into alignment.
* You can easily hone a knife yourself, and there’s no harm in doing it often.
* The tip of that triangle can get worn down, so now it’s rounded instead of pointy. No amount of shoving that edge around will help – if it’s rounded, then it’s rounded no matter how you hone it. You fix this by **sharpening** it, which involves literally grinding away at the blade and removing the sides of the rounded-off edge to make it a sharp triangle-tip again.
* Yes, this means the knife technically gets a little smaller each time it’s sharpened. If you keep sharpening it often enough, eventually you’ll have no more knife left.
* You can *not* easily do this yourself; it requires training and experience. Luckily it doesn’t have to be done often at all (for the average home cook).
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