The sharpening is a hobby/sideline that I enjoy, but I'm not sure if I'd enjoy it if I had to do it 40+ hours per week.
I agree. My thinking is to stay flexible, keep my overhead close to zero, and focus on putting a decent working edge on the cutting tools that people use all the time. That's where I get my kicks.
I would model it as a community service as much as a business. First small blade (paring knife or equivalent) is always free. Also free: ongoing mini-seminars to help people do it themselves and revive this "lost art."
And if someone shows up with a specialty blade (Japanese laminated) or professional scissors (hollow grind), I won't touch them. I don't have the gear or the experience to do a proper job, and I'll be up front about that. Leave the specialties to the specialists.
Mostly my sharpening is a community service. Most of the knives for my coworkers I'll sharpen for free, or for the odd bottle of wine or 12 pack of craft beer. I tell them there's no way they can afford my rates so I'll do it for free.
And certainly if I "went pro" I'd have to charge a healthy amount for sharpening on water stones. First there's the time involved- maybe 20 minutes if the knife has been previously profiled by me and not subsequently abused. A knife that's in worse shape will of course take longer. The process of "opening" a new Japanese knife (that is, the creating of the bevel and correction of any grind flaws and/or issues) can take an hour to an hour and a half depending on the amount of work. Very thin Japanese patterns like a nakiri are often not totally flat (they warp or bend a bit). Those must first be straightened. Occasionally I'll run into an over-grind, usually on the heel. The true nightmare is the under-grind, again usually at the heel, that requires that I knock it down and blend it with the radius of the knife. Not fun.
If presented with a Japanese single bevel such as a yanagi-ba I would also respectfully decline. I know how to sharpen them and would do my own but my methods may not be "traditional" or technically correct. Those knives are not a part of the cooking that I do; they're pretty much for sashimi.
I didn't really set out to get thousands of bucks worth of sharpening stuff...it sort of snuck up on me!
There are however, knives that just seem to not want to take an edge. There are many different steels and many different designs of blades and some are really tough to sharpen.
I have a SOG folder that a friend gave to me when I was deploying to Desert Storm. I like the knife, nice shape to the blade and it was sharp for a long time. When it first became dull I tried everything to get it sharp again. It is marginally sharp now, still nowhere near as sharp as I like a knife to be.
It has a stud on the blade, which can be unscrewed and removed for sharpening. Something about the steel makes it hard to sharpen. Very hard Japanese steel.
I have run into this a few times also. Frustrating.
I have found that some factory edges actually create a very thin but very hard layer -- harder and tougher than the core steel of the blade. This makes the initial edge last longer, but creates problems when resharpening. It takes a lot of work on a coarse stone to grind that extra-hard layer off. But you'll know when you get there: suddenly the steel responds to your sharpening tools like it's supposed to, and the edge "pops."
That's my 2c anyway. YMMV.
It's frustrating to find something that doesn't want to get sharp. I find these generally fall into two broad categories: First is junk steel. The second is stuff that holds a tenacious burr. Junk steel typically (although not always) comes from Asia. Pakistan is legendary for crappy steel and pot metal screws. Personally I think that Chinese 8CR13 MOV is also not great for taking an edge. At the other end you have stuff like VG-10, CM-154 and whatever it is that Global uses. They're good, high quality steels but deburring them can be a PITA. To be honest, even when hand sharpening on stones I'll often follow the 140 Atoma or 320 Shapton Professional stone with a couple passes on my Kalamazoo; I use a leather belt doped with 0.5 micron CrO paste. This peels the burr right off. Then I continue with whatever progression I think it appropriate for the knife.
Sometimes I find knives in VG-10 to be a little chippy until they've been sharpened a couple of times. There are lots of possible reasons for this but my pet theory is that the very edge of the edge is being either over-heated or work hardened. In any event, the problem usually goes away after a couple sharpenings.
Not that anyone asked (
) but I'm not crazy about VG-10. It's a good steel, but I think it's been surpassed. There are several tool steels that get a bit sharper and exhibit better "kiranega", or duration of sharpness. There are other pure stainless steels that are tougher. And many steels (at least the ones used in kitchen knives) are easier to sharpen. On the stones VG-10 is pretty abrasion resistant but that doesn't seem to translate into better edge retention. YMMV.
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