knife sharpening reality check

Hi everyone,

I have a set of three Global knives: a chef, santoku, and paring knife. When I first got them I spent a lot of time sharpening and maintaining them with a whetstone and honing steel and making a lot of mess in the process.

I liked to keep them sharp enough to shave my arm hair with. Of course, this level of sharpness doesn't last long and I felt compelled to sharpen again.

Over the last year, I have barely cooked and the knives have languished, loose, in the drawer. They are clearly less sharp, they won't shave, but they do cut a tomato quite nicely.

I broke out the stones today, spent quite a while un-dishing my 1000 grit stone with a flattening stone, and after about 45 minutes of sharpening, I still couldn't really feel a burr.

I'm beginning to cook again to feed myself, but I'm beginning to wonder if maintaining them at the level I did is really worth it? I don't enjoy sharpening the knives; it wrinkles up my fingers, makes a mess (unfortunately I can't do it over the sink); and is generally quite difficult and time consuming. Finally, I'm never satisfied with the sharpness.

I know that this is a hobby sharpening forum, so replies will be skewed, but is there an easier way to do this? Are pull through sharpeners really that bad? Or should I just gitgud and put up with it.

cheers

edit:

Thank you all so much for the replies. I've only skimmed them so far but I can tell there is a wealth of information there. I can't believe how wrong I was!! I have no idea where I got the advice I was working on all these years. I always though Globals were "the good ones"!
It looks like my main problems are:

  • too high grit
    • I didn't know 1000 grit was so high, no wonder it took me so long. I did always think "man I can't believe professional chefs spend so long doing this"
  • totally mismatched expectations and ideas about the care of my knife and how long it will hold an edge - I was so shocked to read the comments that say I only need to sharpen once a year!
  • Keeping them in a drawer, I knew you'd pick up on this one. I know I should protect them, but during this period I've not had my own place and simply not cared enough!. I should mention that they're not really in a drawer, they sit in a pile in a cupboard and are used once a week, but I thought that was too many words and that the distinction didn't matter. They don't get banged about and they don't have any chips, bends, other damage etc