Murray Carters knife sharpening DVD's (I bought)

[jackknifeh]

Ok, I finally broke down and bought a digital version of Murray Carter's advanced sharpening DVD. Lots of good information on it but most of it I don't need (right now) and a lot of it I already knew. There were things I didn't know as well of course. A lot of the 1:35 minutes is taken up watching him shave with a knife he just sharpened. So it's not like there is 1:35 of time full of knife sharpening knowledge. I watched it twice so far and just fast forward through the shaving part. The second time you can fast forward through the time he is stroking the knife on the stone. You need to watch it start to finish at least once to know when he is or isn't talking. Knife sharpening is an art to really do it well. However, most people don't really want to become a master, they just want to be able to do a very good job on their own knives. I'm think the first DVD is all that is needed for that.

Therefore

I HIGHLY recommend anyone wanting to learn free hand sharpening get the first DVD. Get the advanced on if you want now or later. But I think these DVD's will be more benificial to the brand new or slightly experienced person learning to free hand sharpen knives. On the advanced one he went into detail on how to sharpen a type of Japanese kitchen knife that was VERY cool. This model knife has a chisel edge bevel and the back of the blade is concave. It has a hollow type grind on the back to reduce friction on that side of the knife when cutting food. However, while very interesting I have no need for that info right now. If someone ever asks me to sharpen a knife like that I'm glad I saw the demonstration of how to sharpen it though. But I doubt that will happen. :) But, for a sharpening newbie or the slightly advanced I bet there is a lot of good info on the basic DVD. I might get that one as well. I know how to sharpen a knife pretty good now but sometimes (or a lot of times) people of Murray's experience and knowledge can reveal things that are learned after many years. Learning those things early on could speed up better performance or at least understanding the bigger picture.

FYI here's the way Murray refers to a knife blade. There are 3 parts of the blade. 1. The spine thickness. 2. The secondary grind. And third is the primary grind (cutting edge). Just info about how different people from different backgrounds talk about different parts of the knife blade. Murray's "secondary edge" is actually what we refer to as the grind. Hollow, full flat, saber, etc. This is good to know when watching Murray's youtube videos and he refers to these blade sections so we know what he means. I've heard others call the cutting edge the secondary bevel and the lower angle (back bevel) they call the primary edge. Just terminology we hear, assume is universal then repeat. So if I say "edge-bevel" everyone reading this will now know that I'm referring to the same part of the edge (cutting edge apex) as Murray when he says "primary edge". Or, I might just change my terminology to the same as Murray's since he's a master. OTOH, his terminology seems to leave out the existence of the different "grinds" we deal with every day. Spyderco knives have hollow grinds, full flat grinds, etc. as do other companies. We can't just leave that out because it IS important. But I think for a better cutting knife Murray might just take every hollow grind knife he sees and re-grind it so the sides are a single "secondary" grind. This is based on the little I know of Murray's thinking so please note I'm not trying to quote Mr. Carter.

So, if you want to learn to free hand sharpen and would like advice, personally, I'd get Murray's first DVD. It's $25 for the digital version and $35 (I think) for the actual DVD. If you buy the digital version all you get though is a link to the video on his site. If you don't have a device with internet connection you can't watch it. But every device I touch these days has connection unless it's broken. I'm betting new people will learn FAR more, FAR more quickly by watching it than they will by getting advice on forums and such. Forum info is GREAT and invaluable to get more info but to begin with, keep it simple and from one proven good source. Get a good handle on that and then add to it with info from other places. Just my opinion.

Jack