hihi
any gurus here know anywhere for professional knife sharpening service?
and..
i have a sharpening stone at home but i don't know what grit is it.. anyway to tell?
depends on the knife you're sharpening. let us know what knife you want sharpened, a pic would help (and a detailed close up of the condition of the edge).
as for the stone, there's no way of telling exactly what grit, but the grit no is just a point of reference. if you removed the numbering reference, it will just range from coarsest to finest. a pic of the stone would help. If you don't know, you'll know when you sharpen your knife as the marks would tell you which side of the spectrum you're closer to. Unless you're using some special natural waterstone which gives a cloudy finish even though it very very fine, the higher the grit, the finer the finish, the finer the finish the more reflective the steel is going to be.
if your knife is not in bad shape, a very good stone to consider for medium finish-final honing would be a 1000-3000 grit stone. It won't reprofile very well, but it will allow you to have a finely hone edge that will shave. you can find stones at supermarkets (tangs has a 1000-3000 grit for under $100, razor edge has a naniwa combo 1000-3000 for $40, and a better naniwa superstone combo 1000-3000 for $80?, black tactical has one for under $50 IIRC worcer's post). If you like your knives to be sharp, you NEED to be able to sharpen them and unless you want to buy sharpeners like lansky, sharpmaker, edgepro, wicked edge, knife sharp etc, you'll need a stone at some point in time. The $5 carborundum stone you see in supermarkets can give you a working edge too, but not those fine edges that you see in videos, the grit is probably 100/800. The China ones from those el-cheapo $2 stores run mostly near markets are the worst, they're warped - absolutely zero QC. Be prepared to put some effort into sharpening your edge - good edges take effort too, especially the first time. Jigs help a lot to hold the angle constant. Sharpmaker is probably easiest to use, but it does not reprofile well and if you don't adjust the angle of the blade to match your original, you may just end up sharpening the shoulder bevel of the actual edge or putting just a micro bevel at the very edge.
as for sharpeners, razoredge at tan boon liat building does a good job. they wont destroy your edge. The sharpener may use a mini harbour freight belt sander to reprofile if your knife is really really in bad shape, but he mostly uses waterstones which do not affect the temper of the knife.
however, if your knife is cheap, you may not want to invest so much time and money. So let's start with a pic or detailed description.