Edge of Belgravia Ceramic Knives

She doesn't cut anything like bone, but has this habit of cutting and then pushing the food over by dragging the edge across the cutting board. On a plastic cutting board and with a sharp knife you can hear this quiet snapping noise when the blade is tipped a little, which is probably a bad sign. She also doesn't have the best technique. Whenever I sharpen her knifes I always notice a lot of chipping in the blades (this was the problem with the kyoceras as well). As for sharpening, I favor edge leading strokes. I used to use edge trailing to finish, but had trouble with wire edges. When I sharpen for others, I usually put the bevel on at 15dps and then microbevel at 20dps. To get the microbevel with edge-leading strokes, I pretty much have to use ceramic stones. My preference is for spyderco bench stones and a very light touch. That said, your practice doesn't seem that uncommon, based on what people say they do on forums.

I don't disagree with your kyocera experience, depending what she was actually cutting into, eg bone, hard surfaces, etc, that actually does dull & potentially 'destroy' the knife, not to mention depending which kyocera sharpener she used has been known to potentially 'wreck' a ceramic blade. I did mention this in my answer to musgrat. I would be interested to know more info. Just curious, what did you use to sharpen your mom's steel knives? In your own steel knife maintenance, do you ever use a strop? It's part of my own routine so I'm just curious how many others actually use one as well as I rarely sharpen my knives anymore as a result.

That was not my experience with my mom's kyocera knives. When she bought them, I told her ceramics weren't my thing because I can get steel knives very sharp (sharper than any factory edge I've seen, and I've seen a lot), so I won't buy something I can't sharpen myself. By the time I was able to visit her, maybe a year or so into ownership (they live 2500 miles away), the knives were what I would describe as dull. This would be after sharpening the ceramics with the kyocera-branded sharpener she bought. I sharpened her crap steel knives to show her what sharp was, and after that she switched to using shun more or less exclusively. Not that I am a fan of shun, but I would choose shun over kyocera every time.