Exact Blade -Knife sharpening in Northbrook

I usually get my knives sharpened once a year, before Thanksgiving. For the many years now, I've gone to Northwest Cutlery, which is a pain for me as I live in Glencoe. This year, an internet search led me to Exact Blade, which is on Waukegan Road, just south of the intersection with Dundee. I got my knives sharpened there and had an overall very pleasant experience.

I can't judge the quality of sharpening, but the proprietor told me that sharpening and selling knives is a primary focus of their business, not a sideline. He also said if the blades won't easily slice a tomato by Christmas, just bring them back for a free touch up.

All in all, this will be my new place for getting my knives sharpened.

Exact Blade
813 Waukegan Rd
Northbrook, IL 60062
(847) 920-7349

This is a great shop! Dan, the proprietor, is knowledgeable and passionate about knives. Not only does he sharpen them expertly, but he also sells them. No pots, no pans, no other kitchenware. Just knives. And he even takes trade-ins.

I stopped by this morning with 9 knives and before I left the shop, we chatted in detail about each one of them. He knew the age and provenance of each of them, and was even able to correctly identify where I'd had them sharpened in the past. $64 later, my knives are as sharp as they've ever been - probably even sharper than when they were new.

Highly recommended!

=R=

Ronnie- that comes to $7.11 each by my calculations.....
Northwestern Cutlery- last time I was there-
is $3.00 a blade, also- while you wait...

Jus' sayin.......

Hombre de Acero wrote:Ronnie- that comes to $7.11 each by my calculations.....
Northwestern Cutlery- last time I was there-
is $3.00 a blade, also- while you wait...

Jus' sayin.......

Similar to the OP, the convenience of having Exact Blade so near home is awesome for me. And for me, it also mitigates the higher price. Having to bring the blades to NWC also requires some advance planning, a long drive and traffic. Being able to bring knives 5 minutes from home definitely has its advantages, and is worth a premium.

But beyond that and more importantly, at NWC, the quality of the job they do really depends on who's doing the sharpening. On a few occasions there I've had my knives ground down far more than necessary. In some cases, they've even managed to change the shape of my blades, altered the angles of the tips, etc. Based on this one experience at Exact Blade, I'd say a very high level of care is applied there. In my experience, that level of care is not consistently applied at NWC.

Also, I could have waited at EB, but who wants to wait for 9 knives to be sharpened? It was much more convenient to leave them and go back later to pick them up. Dan also told me that he'd be happy to deliver them to my house, which is pretty darned nice.

=R=

Was in the Northern burbs a couple of days ago and, based on the recommendations in this thread, thought I'd test drive Exact Blade's knife sharpening service. As mentioned Dan is a friendly fellow who is passionate about knives and sharpening, puts a keen edge on your knives while you wait, if you so choose, and keeps up a running interesting knife centric dialog while doing so.

I've been a satisfied customer of Northwestern Cutlery for decades, and that is not going to change, but I foresee the occasional dalliance with Exact Blade and, for anyone in the Northern burbs who does not relish the thought of driving down to Lake and Halsted, Exact Blade more than fits the quality sharpening bill.





Exact Blade, count me a Fan!

To this point, I have always sharpened my own blades on multiple grit wet stones. It is not ideal, because there is no guide that works well for knives as there is for chisels, but I have always enjoyed doing it.

However, in recent years, I have not enjoyed the process as much and go longer and longer between sharpening and so my knives have gotten pretty sorry looking. Until this thread I was unaware of Exact Blade. I brought 3 knives there today and he did a great job and talked me into a new knife also. Glad to be no longer doing my own knife sharpening.