[bloopernova]

And either learn to sharpen your knives yourself, or take them to a sharpening service. Dull knives require more force, and slip/catch more, so are more dangerous.

[rhinoceraptor]

The trick I use for doing freehand sharpening is to color the bevel with a sharpie, that will show you if your angle is correct. You don't need a lot of stones, I just have one Sharpal double sided diamond stone, and then I move to a leather strop with 1 micron diamond emulsion compound.

Another very useful thing is an inexpensive jeweler's loupe so you can actually diagnose issues like not having removed the burr.

[tdeck]

I looked into sharpening services in my city a few years back and they're like dry cleaners - every one was a mix of satisfied reviews and detailed "this person completely ruined my $600 knife" reviews. It was very off putting.

[tptacek]

It's unlikely any sharpener is going to ruin your knife; at worst, they won't put the best possible edge on it. Your knife is probably just an inert hunk of steel. :)

[account42]

Grinding too much of the edge does ruin the knife. Usually not the entire blade is hard enough to hold a good edge.

[tptacek]

It's a fair point, but how likely do you think it is that any knife sharpening service is actually going to do that?

[therealdrag0]

Oft repeated, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this actually studied in practice. And personally I suspect it’s more a clever meme by knife sellers.