Why Knife Sharpening Is More Than Just Keeping A Blade Sharp

Most people think sharpening is something you do when a knife gets dull. Chef Wayne Wong believes it’s something far more meaningful—a practice that teaches patience and respect.

The first thing Chef Wayne Wong wants to clear up is perhaps the biggest myth in the kitchen. Sharp knives aren’t dangerous but the dull ones are. “It surprises people every time,” he laughs. “A sharp knife requires less force. It cuts cleanly, it’s easier to control, and it’s actually much safer.”

It’s an idea that sounds backwards until you’ve tried slicing a tomato with a blunt knife, only to watch it skid across the board before crushing the fruit beneath it. A sharp blade simply goes where it’s supposed to. For Wayne, founder of Masaru Knives Malaysia, that’s only the beginning of the conversation. Knife sharpening isn’t merely about restoring an edge. It’s about understanding steel, respecting craftsmanship, and, perhaps most importantly, learning to slow down.

“When I first started cooking professionally in France, sharpening was simply part of the job,” he recalls. “There was so much prep every day. If my knife wasn’t sharp, I wasn’t ready. My whole day was basically screwed.”

Today, the whetstone serves a different purpose. “It’s become personal. It’s the time where I slow everything down. I reflect. I practise.” That shift—from necessity to ritual—is something Wayne believes every sharpener eventually discovers. Like cooking, sharpening rewards repetition more than talent.

“It takes time, patience, and practice. You’re building muscle memory,” he says. “When you finally turn a dull knife into a razor-sharp tool, it’s incredibly satisfying.” He compares it to rebuilding an engine. “You spend hours working on it, and suddenly it comes alive because of your own hands. That’s a magical feeling.”

Wayne describes sharpening as something that begins with science, matures through craftsmanship and eventually becomes art. Science explains why an edge works. Craft teaches consistency. Art decides what kind of edge a particular knife—and a particular cook—actually needs.

“There isn’t one perfect edge,” he says. “There’s only the right edge for the right person.” That’s why two equally sharp knives may perform completely differently. A professional chef notices things most home cooks never think about: bite, polish, edge retention, and how the blade behaves when it meets different ingredients. For everyone else, the difference is simpler. Cooking suddenly becomes easier.

“The knife glides instead of crushing food. People enjoy cooking more because they’re not fighting their knife anymore.” Ironically, Wayne says, many people spend hundreds—sometimes thousands—on beautiful Japanese knives before neglecting the very thing that allows them to perform.

“I always tell people that buying a quality knife is only half the journey. The other half is learning how to care for it,” he says. That philosophy became one of the reasons Masaru started hosting sharpening workshops five years ago.

Many customers arrive believing expensive knives somehow stay sharp forever. Wayne blames marketing. “Some brands say their knives never need sharpening,” he says with a wry smilegrin. “That’s simply not true.” Every knife becomes dull. It’s only a question of when.

The answer depends less on the calendar than on the person holding it. Different steels wear differently. Different cutting boards matter. So does technique. Someone using a VG10 knife daily might sharpen every few months. A harder powdered steel like SG2 could easily last a year.

“But there’s never a definitive answer,” Wayne says. “Every knife lives a different life.” If sharpening has taught him anything, it’s that tools reveal their owners. A well-maintained carbon steel knife develops a gentle patina instead of rust. The edge stays clean. Deep scratches are rare.

“You can tell someone has cared for it.” Professional chefs are particularly easy to read. “A dull knife often reflects a lack of preparation,” he says. “Great chefs take pride in their work, and that includes taking care of their tools.”

Then there are the knives that carry stories. Wayne has restored blades passed down from fathers, grandfathers and late family members. Many arrive chipped, rusted and worn from decades of use. Those are never ordinary sharpening jobs.

“I’m not trying to make them look brand new,” he says. “I’m trying to preserve their character.” Every scratch belongs there. Every stain tells part of the knife’s history. The blade simply deserves another chapter. His favourite steel remains Shirogami, or White Steel, one of Japan’s oldest traditional high-carbon steels.

“It’s honest steel,” he says. It responds beautifully on the stone, rewards good technique and produces an edge that consistently makes him smile. But even the finest steel has limits. Sharpen too aggressively and you slowly erase the knife itself.

“Every time you sharpen, you’re removing steel.” The goal, he explains, isn’t simply to make a knife sharper. It’s to remove as little material as possible while restoring as much performance as possible. The blacksmith already designed the knife. A sharpener’s job is to honour that intention.

In an age where almost everything is replaceable, Wayne believes knife sharpening offers something unexpectedly relevant. “We’ve become used to replacing things.”

It’s faster, usually cheaper, and certainly easier.

“But I think we’ve lost the appreciation for maintaining what we already have.” Japanese blacksmiths introduced him to the philosophy of ikigai—finding purpose through dedication and continual improvement—and he sees that same lesson every time he picks up a whetstone.

Sharpening, he says, isn’t simply restoring steel. It’s preserving someone’s work. Someone’s craft. Sometimes even someone’s memories. “A knife isn’t just a piece of steel,” Wayne says. “It reflects the habits and mindset of the person who uses it.”

Perhaps that’s why sharpening has survived centuries of technological change. Machines may become faster and more precise, but Wayne doesn’t believe they’ll ever replace the human hand. “It’s like cooking,” he says.

“You can automate parts of the process, but craftsmanship, experience and feel are still irreplaceable.” The whetstone may sharpen the blade. What it sharpens, too, is the person holding it.

All photos are courtesy of Masaru Knives Malaysia