have you ever had a knife sharpened professionally?

Yes, by the company that made it, free sharpen but had to pay shipping.

John, I'm not sure why but I always had the impression you live in the Philadelphia area. I you are anywhere near, or wish to take a drive, I've used Brandywine Sharpening in Honey Brook PA. It's an Amish owned company and the quality of the workmanship is great.

See https://www.brandywinesharpening.com/ for the contact details.

I'm planning to return my Buck 110 folder knife for a "SPA" treatment.

From watching some YouTube videos who received the spa treatment, it comes back almost new.

https://youtu.be/jRBdz6r08YQ

Here's their website info..

https://www.buckknives.com/about-knives/bucks-forever-warran...

Not too much $ to get an almost new looking, new edge knife.

Love Buck Knives. Cheers!

I sharpen my own with stones. Once sharp, it takes very little time, and effort to do maintenance. 5 minutes, maybe.

I used to sharpen blades by hand and thought I did a good job. Sharpening required concentration to do a good job. A few years ago I bought a Spyderco sharpener ( https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/details/204MF/Tri-Angle-Sha... ) and now I no longer need to concentrate and can sharpen while watching the TV news.

This isn't a comment about TV news!

See https://www.amazon.com/SHARPAL-101N-Knife-Sharpener-Survival...

I have several sharpening stones, sharpen my knives myself.

I have a set of Arkansas stones and the do a great job.
If you get the kit, it comes with honing oil
you can look up how to do it on you Tube

If you listen to enthusiasts those kind of devices take off too much steel. I don't know if they can handle serrations.

No.
For kitchen knives, use a sharpening steel like thousands of cooks do every day. Everytime I pick up the Chef knife or any of the others in the set, I give it a few swipes on the steel. Keeps them sharp. A dull knife is a sure way to cut yourself. This is not rocket science.

My Buck 110 (some 50+ years old) and the 119 get sharpened on the whetstone.

I don't know if you are replying to me. (I wish more people would use the "quote" function.)

The definition that I mean for burr is: "a protruding ragged edge raised on metal during drilling, shearing, punching, or engraving" from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/burr .

My understanding is that you use a steel (or a ceramic version) to raise the burr to complete the edge. You use a stone (or equivalent) to profile the edge to between 30° to 40°. You perform this before using the steel.

I hope I've been clear.

I finish the edge on a strop, with fine jeweler's rouge. You can shave arm hair with it.

Replying to the OP, since it seemed he was talking about kitchen knives.

do it myself, razor sharp every time.

Yes, we have had our knives professionally sharpened and our scissors, too. They put a good sharp edge at the correct angle for our knives. It was not expensive and with proper care, the sharpening should last over a year.

I do and thanks for the tip! I've always heard if in need of cabinets, to have them made by the Amish. Not cheaper, but same, and much better than a HD etc. Funny we've been using the main knife dull for a while now I guess...

Always use the steel.

I have to wonder, if the sharpener we have is the wrong angle? And I also thought I read that European and Japanese are slightly different? Both the knife and the sharpener are German, although I don't believe the sharpener was made in Germany as the knife was....because it seems worse after using it...

Tried a few different methods, then decided the Chef's Choice Trizor XV sharpener was for me.

They go for about $100 if you catch them on sale and leave knives hair-popping sharp.

After initial edging, just takes a couple seconds and a few swipes to keep the knives sharp before every use. Very little work involved, which is music to my ears.

Steels do not sharpen knives, they only straighten the edge. Asian knives have an angle of 15 degrees while German knives are set at 20 degrees.

Yes on the steel straightening the edge..

Why I think there is a skill to sharpening, is that I remember back in the day not having good luck with skis....I think of the sharpener as one size fits all, removing human's "feel" if you will. I know nothing! I'm just going by what I think I see, and I bet the pro will have it good as new...

This thread is heating up and has the makings of breaking out into a nasty street fight with shivs flashing, so I'm not going to weigh in on the merits of various ways to sharpen blades.

It reminds me, though, that back in the 1990s, a peddler with a pushcart came down our street calling out for knives to be sharpened. What he was doing on that quiet suburban cul de sac street in the 1990s, long after Fuller Brush and Avon had stopped cold calling, I can't say. But he sharpened knives to hair-splitting precision, for a negotiated price of a few dollars per blade. I miss him. So yeah, John, pro is a good way to go.

In the late 40s and early fifties I remember a horse drawn knife sharpener who had a white stone wheel I guess 18 or 20 inches in diameter. This was in Brooklyn. I kinda-sorta thimk [sic] that it was pedal powered but I really don't remember.

I bought a set of arkansas stones in Aus where they are expensive and rare, and practiced, and had to leave them when I came to canada. My brother loves them still 20 yers after I moved, and 30 years after I bought them
Now I have another set here, (they cost about 1/4 as much without air freight) and a diamond steel for touchup between slices
I think I'm ok at it, but occassionally my son in law uses my kitchen and when he's done, every knife is spectacular sharp
he's a butcher; the reducing a carcass to meat kind, not the that'll be $9 miss kind
at least he doesn't bring his own stones to my house, as he does everyone else

I remember that the cook in my living group in college used his steel many times a day--seemingly in spare moments. I think he believed he was sharpening his knives, not just deburring or straightening them.

For a little while Chef's Choice was pushing a power sharpener in their line in which the center station was a non-moving arrangement meant to give the result of steeling. They asserted that the benefit was not perfect uniformity, but rather a specific sort of non-uniformity helpful in such matters as getting through the skin of some vegetables. I find myself no longer using that slot.

Meanwhile, it is currently widely preached as known truth that steels don't sharpen knives at all. My personal opinion is that has to depend on whether the "sharpening steel" has higher hardness than the particular knife. Whichever is harder will wear a bit of material off the other, however slowly.

On looking around, I found a post by someone with access to testing equipment, a small assortment of sharpening steels, and several knives.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/187/Knife-and-Sha...

Behold, the sharpening steels were harder than the knives. In some pairings the difference was large. I think the common claim that sharpening steels can't/don't sharpen needs to be reeled back a little.