Caring for your knives
Many of our clients from all over Australia, from Hobart to Darwin, describe the joy of receiving their newly sharpened knife as a gift and given how convenient it was, wonder why they didn’t do it sooner.
Now you have your trusted knives back, cutting and slicing better than ever before, it's important to give them the care they deserve. We have some basic tips that will ensure the timeline between sharpening is increased and so is the lifespan of your knives.
Here they are:
- Never put your knife in a dishwasher, rather hand wash them with the blade pointing away. Dry the knife immediately as air drying can cause blotches of rust to form on the surface of the steel.
- We recommend wooden or plastic cutting boards be used. Hard surfaces such as glass cutting boards, stone bench tops or even stainless-steel counter tops can quickly dull a knife. When scraping food off the board turn the knife over and use the spine, not the blade.
- Never store your valuable knives in kitchen draws where you keep all your other cutlery items. The process of opening and shutting the draw forces the cutlery in the draw to impact with each other, damaging the fine edge that has just been placed on the knife. Knife blocks are useful provided the knife is put in with the sharp edge facing upwards, so the knife is resting on its spine. The gold standard for storing knives are on magnetic strips.
- NEVER run your knife through a cheap knife sharpening system or device – we can’t empathise this enough. The action results in a poor edge and, more importantly, can cause concave hollows particularly in the middle of the blade.
- Don’t be tempted to take your knives down to your garage and sharpen them on a grinding wheel. A lot of care and attention goes into putting a temper on a knife to ensure its hardness. Using a grinding wheel will quickly heat up the steel, making the steel soft, resulting in the edge becoming blunt extremely fast.
- Use your knife only for its intended purpose. Using your newly sharpened knife as a cleaver will undoubtedly blunt the edge and potentially cause chips. We receive many knives for repair that have been used as screwdrivers or can openers and it breaks our heart.
- Hone regularly. Textured rods that come with most knife sets or that can be purchased from homeware stores are important in maintaining the edge in-between sharpening. A quick search on Youtube will have you mastering the simple technique in no time.
Knives are simple tools used on a regular basis and appreciated by many for their function and beauty. The days of sharpening as a skill and that skill being handed down are largely gone. This created an industry churning out poor quality, cheap knives many of us buy instead of sharpening our quality knives. Fortunately, companies like KnifeCare have invested tens of thousands of dollars in sharpening technology and combined that technology with the best knifesmiths in Australia. KnifeCare’s sharpening service is affordable and convenient enabling the joy of having a quality knife available to all.