Hello

First of all, thank you for visiting our website.

This read me first is for people who have never used these types of products before and from comments on social sites or marketplaces we see that many people think that strops and compound make a knife sharp without going through the sharpening process before using a strop as a final step.If you are confuse on what to buy leave a message on our contact@sharpandcut.com

On this website you will find some items built by us and some just bought in from other sellers.Every item we build is made by hand without the use of industrial machinery.So understand the workmanship is not as perfect as the ones build by factory.Every item we build is an original piece sometimes fews milimeter longer or shorter but we try to keep the sizes as closer to the description.The quality of the materials is of first choice and we have tested our production for over 24 months before we decided to have a go.

We do not explain or tell you how to use our products, that is up to you, but we do give you some suggestions as we have found the best way to get results with our products.For the novice it is important to understand how the world of sharpening is done, with an explanation of what you need to get the best results.

It is very important to understand the difference in sharpening a knife or tool in terms of hygiene and safety. With some tools it is not necessary to always keep the hands or tool super clean as these tools may never come into contact with food, but with knives we recommend cleaning the hands and knives after each use of sharpening rods, stones, compounds and sharpeners of any material, including our production or factory made products.It is very important to clean the hands for safety reasons once they have come into contact with anything, but it is also very important to clean the knives because in most cases they come into contact with food and can contaminate your production.

Another thing we want to mention is the use of compounds of different micron sizes, which are essential to clean before using another micron size.We see that happening often, many YouTubers do not explain this point, and that is a contamination of 2 different micron sizes and is just a waste of money and time.

Many people don't know many things about knives because many youtubers are not qualified enough on this subject Lee explain this better some of them are just sharpeners and can tell you a lot on sharpening results, Apex explanation and different brands and models of whetstones or rods but never in the field with knives 8 hours a day in a kitchen or in the woods so they don't explain anything about what knives should be better for your use, they just cut you a paper sheet and make you think you sorted out.

We are 3 friends with almost 100 years of experience with knives in restaurants and butcher shops so we can share some experiences with you.First of all, when you use knives in the kitchen, you should use knives for every job at least one knife for bread one knife for vegetables including tomatoes one knife for cheese and for the rest is up to you how many but these 3 are very important to use for certain tasks.The acidity of tomatoes or other fruits makes the blade lose its sharpness very quickly, with cheese you need less blade contact and a thinner profile and with bread you always need to be very sharp so as not to destroy the cutting.

The sharpening time of a knife depends on how often you use your blades, but above all on the quality of the steel used, e.g. a European cheap knife can be very sharp.For example, a cheap European knife of £2.00 may be very sharp but will need to be sharpened or honed more often than a more expensive knife with a higher hardness, a Japanese knife usually has a hardness between 60 and 68, so the sharpness lasts longer and less time is needed for sharpening.

We explain the steps of the process to have a sharp blade First of all we explain the difference in terms, everyone uses the word sharpening even if it is honing or stropping, so here are the basic

1) The first term is grinding/sharpening. This can be done with lower grits with stone, diamond or CBN wheel on a bench sharpener, with sharpening steel, Japanese or natural whetstone, diamond plate stones, or manually without an electric machine. For very dull blades, we recommend using grits around #200 on one of the above options. After the first stage at lower grit you can increase up to #1000 or more grits whith whells wethstones or diamond plates you have the # Grit number so simply with sharpening steel or manual machine is an experience knowledge diferent from making and personal use.

2) The second term is honing and is done with higher #grit with wheels whetstone, diamond plates or ceramic rods.Once you forget at this stage diamond or steel rods of unknown grit but choose only higher grits.In the market there are wheel of #3000 grit or steel and ceramic road with similar grit, whetstone are even higher with #grit above 10,000 in some brands.Depending on the use of your knives sometimes you don't need the first step but just the oning will be sufficient to keep sharp for long time before you go to step 1.The main thing to remember with honing is the blade is already sharpened so you don't need too many passes as the sharpening step, just check your blade more often with honing to avoid over honing and start again from step 1.

3) The third term or final step is Polishing.This is achieved with leater composte or cloth wheel on bench machine or with stropping action on leather, wood, lapping sheets or nano cloth.The strops we make are made of cowhide leather and some of Kangaroo leather.We make some with balsa or basswood top all of them on a base of hardwood.We use Oak,Beech and Walnut as main choice but we can have in stock some with cherry, maple or olive wood. We don't sell lapping sheets because of the cost, these lapping sheets are very good but they don't last long and you have to buy again and again whereas a strop if used proply can last for many years.All the strops we make need a compound of any type.This is a personal preference between diamond suspension or other type based compound solid or liquid.We make different types of compound with great results.Having been using top European and American products for a long time we can guarantee our own production is no less than any top brand out there and in some cases we are above well known brand from overseas.Our Diamond Compound are high in content of mono diamond particles the paste in 10 ml syringe is softer than what you normally find in the market, the suspension you need to shake very well especially if you don't use very often because of its high amount of diamond particle need to diluite all togheter.Both compound have some chimicals same of the other compound of no diamond based pastes so as said before wash your hands and your knives very well after every use. In case of an accident follow the normal procedure of First aid

We are always trying to add more information to this READ FIRST page based on suggestions from you.

For any help on what product to buy just leave a message and we find the best solution for your needs.