Can You Sharpen A Knife with Another Knife?

Whenever I go to the butcher’s shop, there is an interesting movement that I see:

Before he cuts any part of the meat that I want for me, he grinds one knife against another.

He does this so absentmindedly that I know he must have been doing it for a long time. But does that mean that you can sharpen a knife with another knife?

A knife can only be sharpened by a material much harder than its blade. Sharpening a knife with another knife will nick the edges and ruin the blades of both knives. A better option would be to temporarily hone a knife using the back of another knife till it can be properly sharpened.

Honing a knife with another knife

I have discussed the differences between honing and sharpening sometimes ago in case you were wondering why you should care.

Now that we have that out of the way…

Honing your knife will make it sharp enough for use in the meantime, especially when it is very dull already. Make sure to sharpen that knife properly the next time you get the chance to do so.

Alright, let’s get to this:

• Step 1 – get a knife that is made of harder steel/ material than the one you want to hone.
• Step 2 – hold the second knife down, preferably held onto a surface where it doesn’t move around too much.
• Step 3 – angle the first (dull) knife like you would when honing/ sharpening and run the blade against the spine/ back of the second knife’s blade.
• Step 4 – apply enough pressure to get the job done, but not too much that you wear away the edge too much
• Step 5 – test the sharpness of the knife blade, or use it for what you needed the sharper blade for.

There is a limit to what honing this way can do, so don’t even try to get a razor-sharp blade from this approach.

What can you sharpen a knife with?

There are several options to go with when sharpening a knife.

For example, you could:

• Sharpen the knife on a whetstone – see a guide on how here.
• Get a pull-through sharpener to sharpen your knife with – check this Smith’s Sharpener on Amazon.
• Sharpen your knife with a small rock – here’s a guide to that.

There might be more ‘official’ ways to sharpen a knife right but those are the ones that I can swear by.

If you are hard-pressed for an alternative method of knife sharpening, though, look at these other options that I discussed on the blog.

Note that these alternatives should never become the main thing for you. They should just be there for days when you are away from normal sharpening methods.

Final Words

Everyone should learn how to sharpen their knives the right way. This becomes extremely important if you have invested some good money into a knife set.

You don’t want to have to buy new knives every few months, especially when they set you back some good money.

So, know when to sharpen the knife, how to sharpen it right, and store your knives properly lest your preferred storage method be dulling them too much.