How to sharpen an electric knife. How to sharpen a knife on a grinder. How to sharpen Damascus steel knives

Knives are the most used tool in the household. Whether it's kitchen knives, folding knives, stationery knives or surgical scalpels, they should always have a sharp blade. During operation, the cutting edge of any, even the most advanced tool, becomes dull and the problem of sharpening knives is always relevant. In order to maintain sharpness on your own, you need to know how to sharpen knives properly and master this useful skill.

cutting angle

With a decrease in the angle of sharpening, the sharpness of the blade increases, but the risk of destruction of the cutting edge by side load increases. Typical cross-sectional angles of a symmetrical point are about 25-30 degrees. Very sharp knives can be 20 degrees or less. Different knives are sharpened differently depending on the purpose, the geometry of the blade and the material from which it is made.

These features are important in deciding how to sharpen a knife. For example, a surgical scalpel is a sharp but fragile instrument that, after losing its cutting properties, cannot be restored. Straight razors are also unusually sharp, have a very low cutting edge angle, and require sharpening once a day or more often. Another extreme case is the axe. It is mainly used for splitting wood or impact cutting, so it can have a sharp point that does not require frequent sharpening. Generally, the harder the blade material, the smaller the angle.

The composition and hardening of the steel affects the sharpness. The latter is limited by the grain size of the material from which the blade is made. For example, European kitchen knives are usually made of soft materials with a point angle of 20-30 degrees and a hardness of 52-58 HRC, while tools for the Eastern kitchen are traditionally made of hard steels with angles of 10-20. For these products, hardness of 59-60 on the Rockwell scale and above is not uncommon.

Edge processing types

There are several technological operations to restore the cutting properties of the blade. The need to use each of them depends on the type of instrument, its condition, and the stages of restoring properties. They are very important for understanding how to properly sharpen a knife at home. Here are some of the edge processing methods:

All these procedures can be applied in stages and simultaneously as stages of a complete restoration of the instrument or separately, depending on the tasks or purpose of the blade.

For example, straight razors are straightened before each use and even during shaving, but are stoned only a few times a year, and edge restoration is not required for years. A hard steel kitchen knife may need an abrasive only once a year, and butchers using carbon steel tools can get by with just a sharpening of musat literally every few cuts.

Types of wear

Usually, the technology of how to properly sharpen kitchen knives is a set of measures from coarse and fine sharpening with possible subsequent polishing, if the material of the tool allows you to increase the sharpness of the final procedure. For high-quality steels, before a noticeable loss of cutting properties, the tool is able to make 200-500 cuts on food products and maintain acceptable sharpness for a long time after that.

Intervention in the geometry of the edge may only be necessary for severe wear every few years, except in emergency cases. The main damage, leading to the need to remove large amounts of metal with abrasives, occurs mainly when using the blade as a lever. Such loads can even cause the blade to bend or break.

No less destructive for a knife are large efforts on solid objects. Attempts to cut through ice, bones or accidental contact with dishes on the side leads to chipping of the edge. It can also be damaged by severe corrosion, usually from food acids or high temperatures and harsh chemicals in a dishwasher. The formed corrosion shells on the edge require its complete restoration.

To avoid such damage, follow simple rules:

Sharpening methods

Knife connoisseurs often demonstrate a fanatical approach to the issue of sharpening. Possessing a large arsenal of devices, they achieve extreme sharpness from cutting tools, thereby turning sharpening into an art or a very expensive hobby. For domestic needs, the approaches they use are hardly justified, since the equipment used for this purpose can many times exceed the cost of the knives themselves, while there are many inexpensive ways to obtain razor sharpness.

On the other side of the range are users who have no idea how to properly sharpen a knife with a bar or with the help of improvised materials. For those who are not keen on the intricacies of this business, it will be a pleasant discovery that there are many inexpensive ways to obtain a razor-sharp blade that do not require complex devices or unattainable skills.

On the grinding wheel

A highly undesirable method for processing. Due to the fact that it is difficult to competently limit the place of contact of the abrasive with the blade from heating, there is always a risk of steel tempering, and hence the loss of the initial hardness of the cutting edge. Therefore, for the usual sharpening of high-quality tools, rotating abrasives, without properly organized cooling, are unsuitable. In most situations, sharpening a knife properly means hand-finishing it.

But in the case of very large chips on a blade without a circle, removing such a large amount of metal can be unimaginably long. If the knife is inexpensive, and the damage suggests that this is the very exceptional case, then it makes sense to use an electric grinding wheel or grinder. The abrasive on the device must rotate without beats and at a low speed. Numerous videos about the details of restoring the edges in this way are easy to find on the Internet.

On abrasive stones

Sharpening metal tools with stone bars is a classic way. The stones intended for this differ in shape and abrasiveness. From the point of view of geometry, for domestic purposes it is enough to have flat rectangular bars. On such stones, the vast majority of knives can be processed, with the exception of those that have crescent-shaped (concave) sections of the cutting edge or serrated sharpening.

The very technique of carrying out the work looks like this: it is necessary to make smoothly repeated cutting movements along the plane of the stone, passing along it with the entire surface of the edge. In this case, it is necessary to observe a constant angle of inclination of the blade to the plane of the bar. The question of choosing the grain size of a stone or a set of stones is very important. Grit is measured in grits. This unit of measure refers to the number of abrasive particles per square centimeter of the surface of the stone.

If the knife is sharpened on a regular basis and just when it is still able to cut, then a single 600 grit stone will be enough to care for it. To restore a cutting edge or sharpen a very dull tool, you will need a 200-300 grit stone. The ideal would be sequential processing on a set of several stones with a gradual decrease in grain size. The optimal set of bars looks something like this:

300-400 grit. For rough handling.
600-800 grit. Sharpening after the previous stone.
1000 - 1200 grit. Polishing.

Processing on the last stone in the list allows you to cut loose hair and paper. Although many connoisseurs recommend mirror polishing on ultra-fine abrasives of 1000-1500 grit, for most household knives the use of stones with a value above 600 grit hardly makes sense. It must also be borne in mind that the price of stones increases with a decrease in grain size. In terms of the materials from which the bars are made, they can be divided into natural and artificial in origin, dry and wetted (with water or oil) according to the method of use.

Sharpeners

The greatest difficulty in manual sharpening is the need to maintain a constant angle of inclination to the plane of the stone. Various manufacturers offer devices that take over this operation. There are systems that provide fasteners on a metal rod passing through adjustable holes. Thus, with their help, it becomes possible to move the abrasive relative to a rigidly fixed knife blade at a strictly defined angle.

No less popular are the so-called V-shaped devices. They look like two interchangeable abrasive rods in a vertical plane at an angle to each other, fixed in a wooden or plastic base. To sharpen the knife, it is enough to make sliding movements with the blade along the stones perpendicular to the substrate.

Some manufacturers offer electric sharpeners with several stages of sharpening and even at different angles. These systems are generally designed for use in the kitchen and suffer from the same disadvantages as the grinding wheel. In addition, even the most expensive models do not provide more than two sharpening angles. Their main advantage is speed. Many models allow you to restore the knife within a few minutes.

Sandpaper or cloth

This is a great way to get familiar with sharpening simply and cheaply, without the risk of ruining expensive abrasives. There are many methods to conveniently fix a sheet of emery on a block or tightly wrap a wooden block with it. Abrasive sheets are available in a wide range of grits from their respective stores. The home master can only form a hard and smooth surface from them. Compared to stones, it is better to use lighter and more frequent movements on sandpaper during sharpening - strong pressure easily crumbles the abrasive grain. Otherwise, the technologies for working with a knife are similar.

In such a business as sharpening knives, it is important to remember that a sharp blade can bring a lot of trouble and therefore requires careful handling. But, paradoxically, blunt knives are cut in the kitchen more often. This is because an unsharpened tool requires more force and energy to work, thereby increasing the likelihood of incorrect and unintended movements.

Sharpen knives correctly is a very valuable ability. Any hostess will confirm that a poorly sharpened knife can significantly complicate any cooking process. In fact, sharpening knives is not difficult, the main thing is to choose the right method with which you can sharpen them. Our article will help you choose this method, as well as tell you how to properly sharpen kitchen, Japanese, ceramic, hunting and any other knives at home.

Block or whetstone

In order to properly sharpen knives with a bar or grindstone, you need to stock up on two copies at once, one of which must be coarse-grained structure, and second - fine-grained. Immediately before sharpening, you should thoroughly moisten the knife blade with clean water, tilt it 20 degrees, after which you need to fix a coarse-grained bar or whetstone on a table or any other flat surface. A bar or whetstone should also be moistened with water, and only after that you can start sharpening the knife. This should be done until burrs form on the blade, which can then be easily smoothed out with a bar of fine-grained structure. It is necessary to sharpen knives with a bar or whetstone on both sides, after which they should be washed in clean water.

On the machine

To properly sharpen a knife on a special grinder or, as it is also called, on an electric grinder, you should have some knowledge and skills. Sharpening knives on an electric grinder is not at all an easy task, because if you do it wrong, you can completely ruin the knife, after which no sharpening will help. It should also be remembered that when the disks are rubbed against the blade, they tend to heat up. Not every material is able to withstand high sharpening temperatures.

To properly sharpen the knife on the machine, you should do it on the side surface of the grinding wheel. The blade of the knife should be rotated 25-30 degrees, and it should be sharpened until burrs appear on the blade. They will need to be carefully removed and slightly straighten the knife blade with a fine-grained whetstone.

Electric knife sharpener

An electric knife sharpener is the most convenient way to properly sharpen a knife at home. Most often, she has two modes: directly sharpening, as well as polishing. All you have to do to sharpen a knife is insert it into a special hole and wait a while while the electric knife sharpener does everything for you.

Musatom

Sharpening knives with musat is quite difficult. Often musat is used to grind a knife sharpened in some other way. To properly sharpen a knife, it is necessary to choose ceramic musat or with the addition of diamond chips. Next, you just need to run the blade over the musat several times, achieving the desired result, then wash both devices and put them on the table.

sandpaper

To properly sharpen a knife with sandpaper, you need to put it on a flat surface, and holding the edge of the sandpaper with one free hand, take the knife in your other hand and start sharpening it with sliding movements. Do not wet the sandpaper or blade with water. But you will need double-sided tape if you want to fix the sandpaper on a flat surface.

How to sharpen different types of knives

Any sharpening method will work for kitchen knives, as long as the knives are not ceramic. The main thing at the same time is to sharpen correctly, following all the recommendations from our article.

Knives ice drill should only be sharpened with a whetstone. It can be of any shape, however, it should be understood that its surfaces must be flat. You need to sharpen ice drill knives as follows:: Place the whetstone on a level surface so that it does not wobble or slide in different directions. After that, pick up a drill knife, attach it to the grindstone and make a few circular motions. So you remove the burrs and prepare the knife for sharpening. Next, grab the blunt part of the drill knife and start sharpening it, rotating it in different directions. You only need to sharpen the outer part of the ice drill knife, otherwise there is a possibility to completely ruin the device.

Knives for meat grinders can be sharpened with a whetstone. To do this, it must be installed on a flat surface, moisten the upper part a little, and then put a knife on it, which should be sharpened. Now begin to gently rotate the meat grinder knife in different directions, sharpening only the outer side of the knife. During sharpening, the bar should be moistened regularly, which will ensure more efficient sharpening.

Hunting the knife is usually sharpened by hand using a whetstone. In this case, it is desirable to immediately determine the degree of inclination of the blade during sharpening, as this will affect the final result. The optimal slope for sharpening a hunting knife is about 15-20 degrees. In this case, the grindstone must be installed on a flat surface and pre-moistened with any oil. Then you need to take a hunting knife in both hands and attach it to the surface of the emery stone, then forcefully draw the blade cross-to-cross. For each side, you need to make about ten movements to perfectly sharpen a hunting knife at home.

Japanese knives are of special quality and durability, so they need to be sharpened in the right way. In order to sharpen a Japanese knife by hand, a Japanese knife designed for this purpose is ideal. water stone. It looks like a grindstone and has a double coloring: on the one hand, the water stone is white, and on the other, it is dark brown or orange. Before sharpening a Japanese knife with a water stone, it (the stone) should be lowered into the water for a few minutes. When the stone does not emit bubbles, you can start sharpening. First you need to sharpen a Japanese knife on a coarse brown surface, and then polish it with a white one.

Ceramic knives can only be sharpened with a sharpening machine, and then provided that there is diamond-coated nozzle. At the same time, it is desirable to have minimal skills in working with this tool, otherwise it is possible to permanently damage the ceramic knife. To properly sharpen a ceramic knife using a sharpening machine, you need to lean the blade against a diamond-coated abrasive wheel, tilt the blade 25 degrees and turn on the machine. Be careful: the smaller the angle of inclination, the sharper the sharpening will be.

Grafting The knife should only be sharpened on one side. This is done as follows: turn the knife so that its blade is directed in your direction, and then begin to sharpen the upper section of the knife, gradually going down. Adjust the blade angle so that the blade is about most at the end. It is necessary to sharpen the grafting knife with a bar and a whetstone, the surface of which should be regularly moistened with water.

Disk skinning knives, like hand planer knives, can only be sharpened with a grinder. It is best to give such knives to professionals who will sharpen circular knives or hand planer knives as they should. It is better not to sharpen such knives on your own, especially if you do not have any skills when working with a grinding machine.

If our tips did not help you sharpen your knife correctly and efficiently at home, then we advise you to watch a video guide for sharpening knives, as well as read a book or any other educational literature on this topic. Sharpening knives is not an easy task, therefore it requires at least minimal knowledge.

There are many ways to restore the sharpness of a blade. You can sharpen knives by hand or using special tools. Blade processing tools are divided into automatic and semi-automatic. With their help, damaged blades are restored, or cutting edges are simply corrected.

IMPORTANT! We should not forget that with each sharpening, the amount of metal on the blade decreases.

We will help owners of cutting tools figure out how to properly sharpen knives in any of the proposed ways.

Processing a blunt tool on a machine

The industry produces various electric sharpeners for.

The whole mechanism is in the case, which makes the work on the machine completely safe. No effort or special skills are required, so any housewife can easily cope with this task.

The electric motor rotates the axis, on which there are several circles for various purposes. From rough for giving the primary shape or restoring the geometry of the blade, to polishing, which is used for final finishing.

All people who have encountered cutting food with a dull knife understood that kitchen work becomes a difficult and dangerous business. Because of this, the cooking speed drops, but with a perfectly sharpened tool, such problems will never arise.

The danger when cutting food is that a dull-bladed knife can kick back and cut your finger. It is for this reason that it is very important to maintain the blade in good condition by sharpening your kitchen blade regularly. This article is about how to sharpen knives properly.

One of the most popular sharpening options is a bar. Accessory can be either fine-grained or coarse-grained. At home, the blade is processed until a burr forms (a narrow strip of the blade), then a fine-grained bar is used and brought to the ideal.

How to sharpen a knife at home with a whetstone:

After repeated repeated movements, the kitchen knife will be sharpened, but after this, you should start grinding the blade. This stage of work is intended for:

impeccable formation of blade smoothness;
giving durability of sharpening by eliminating burrs.

For these purposes, the same grindstone is used, but with a finer grain.

Varieties of knives

Throughout the history of mankind, a large number of types of blades have been invented, among them there are quite specific ones. For each type, a manufacturing technology was developed for a specific steel; the most popular material is considered to be 45-60 HRC. The angle of the knife during processing also depends on the choice of steel.

Important! The most popular types of knives are hunting and kitchen.

Kitchen

Not a single housewife can do without it, so this tool is in every kitchen. It performs the functions of cutting bread, vegetables, meat and many other products, which is why it is important to know how to properly sharpen kitchen knives. But kitchen blades have many purposes, for example:

bread;
cheese;
for cutting pizza;
chef's knife

But many do not use highly specialized models, but work mainly with several types:

Saw knife. The blade is made of serrated teeth. This allows you to cut bread and rolls even into the smallest slices. Then the product will not crumble. But sharpening a serrated kitchen model is not easy.
chef knife. It is used for cutting vegetable and meat products. Its length is 20 cm.
vegetable peeler. Usually its length varies from 5 to 10 cm.

Basically, 2 materials are used for kitchen knives: ceramics and steel.

Important! The best models are made of stainless steel with a high percentage of carbon. Their blade grinds down more slowly, does not oxidize, and they can cut even the hardest products.

The ceramic blade is quite fragile, but such knives are able to cut through anything, while sharpening is less prone to loss of sharpness. At home, you can also sharpen a ceramic blade, but you need a special diamond wheel.

For hunting

During the hunt, there are different situations, sometimes a firearm misfires, and at the most necessary moment, which is even life-threatening, only a well-sharpened hunting dagger can save. For this reason, excessively increased requirements are imposed on them:

The blade should be not only beautiful, but also practical.
A prerequisite is a wooden handle.
Butchering the prey can be a problem, so the guard should be kept to a minimum.
During a stab at an animal, metal cracking may occur. Therefore, for hunting purposes, only those daggers that are made of Damascus steel are bought.
According to the standard, daggers have a length of 10 cm to 17 cm. The width is at least 3 cm. The butt must be 4 mm thick. Steel strength not less than 58 HRC.

In order to skin a trophy without any problems, you should use those species whose butt is equipped with a hook.

Other types

But, in addition to daggers and kitchen knives, there are many options that are used in a specialized area:

Important! Not so long ago, models for survivalists began to be produced. The blade is similar to a multi-tool, but equipped with more necessary elements, for example: a lighter and a compass.

Methods for checking the edge of the blade

Blade sharpness is the most basic requirement for any kind. The tool must be safe and reliable for a wide variety of jobs. There are several methods for checking if a blade has been sharpened well.

On the paper

A sharpened tool and an A4 paper sheet are taken. The process is as follows: you should cut the paper, and if at the same time the blade began to move to the side, then the sharpening was done at a low level, and if the cut is even, then the blade is quite sharp.

On a tomato

In addition to kitchen options, you can also test all types of blades. The meaning of the test is this: a fresh tomato is taken and a slice is cut. If the blade went to the side, then the sharpening was poorly done, and if smoothly and without difficulty, then the work was done at the highest level.

Hand hair testing

The knife is passed against the direction of hair growth without touching the skin. In this case, the blade should cut the hairs.

What affects blade sharpness?

After a certain time, any knife, even the most expensive one, can become dull. Expensive models differ from budget ones in that they are more slowly subject to a decrease in the sharpness of the blade.

There are a number of reasons for this:

The most common problem is the blade edge bending to the side. This is affected by excessive load on the blade during the cutting process.
The knife was sharpened at the wrong angle.
Do not strike against metal objects, otherwise the cutting edge may become dull.
Sometimes there are grains of sand and other abrasive elements on fruits and vegetables, on which the cutting part becomes dull.

Important! In the process of washing with hot water, an increased decrease in the sharpness of the cutting part occurs. This happens due to the fact that the edge at this moment is exposed to aggressive salts.

Blade sharpening methods

It is not the choice of the knife itself that is considered a responsible task, but the correct selection of the grinding tool. The consumer is lost against the background of various sharpening options. In this case, it is necessary to understand this situation in detail, and in order to sharpen the knife, you should choose the best option.

Musat

The device is equipped with a plastic handle. The tool itself looks like a simple file. If you use musat, then you can get around the difficulty of sharpening with a bar. The device does an excellent job of sharpening the cutting part. As a rule, kitchen knives are used more often than other types, which is why musat is designed for these models. But the sharpening tool does not cope with the work of those blades that have become completely blunt. In this case, only a sharpener will help.

Sharpening the blade with musat manually:

The processed kitchen knife is taken by the handle, then set on the surface with emphasis on the tip, while the knife itself must be in a vertical position.
is 25 degrees.
The blade should move in an arc, starting from the handle and ending with the edge.
Then the second side of the knife is processed according to the same principle.
Do not press too hard while working.

Important! Blunt tools are not sharpened with this tool, so don't try. In this case, other means of sharpening are used.

Grindstone

This method is one of the most common. The whetstone will bring the knife blade back to normal. With the help of a variety of stones, you can eliminate the most complex defects, for example: editing notches and grinding. Such a manual sharpener has been used since ancient times and does not fade against the background of modern devices.

Processing principle:

This work can be done without a bar, using sandpaper.

Sharpening machine

Sharpening of knives can also be performed on a grinder, which is more convenient and better than all manual methods. But to work with the device you will need at least a minimum experience. If these skills are absent, then in the process of work it is possible to heat up the cutting part in a few seconds and ruin the knife. It will become unusable for further use.

The device is not equipped with special clamps for knives, so the angle of the blade is set independently. This machine, equipped with a grinding wheel, will give the blade a perfect edge in an instant. It can sharpen all types of knives.

Electric emery

This is an electric machine that can also sharpen a variety of knives. It has several types of circles:

abrasive;
felt;
grinding.

Each type is intended for specific purposes. To work with this professional device, you will need high qualifications and extensive experience. If there are no skills, then you should not take up the job, otherwise it is likely that the tool being processed will become unusable.

Hello again!

Approaches me somehow, my friend:

- Tyomych, - he says, - clambered all over the Internet and did not find information on how to sharpen a knife. Will you write an article?

- Yes, no problem, Lech! - I tell him, - I just can’t believe that you, a well-known “hacker” in narrow circles, could not find the necessary information.

To which Lech replies:

- Yes, I found it, of course, but everything is somehow abstruse there, and you will explain “on your fingers” ...

Well, I guess why not. So an article about sharpening knives was born.

introductory

Sharpening was carried out on a simple kitchen knife, produced by unknown comrades from China. The knife was cleaned of dirt, slightly polished and, of course, sharpened. You can see what happened below.

It is unlikely that everyone uses Japanese kitchen utensils from Damascus, although the principle of sharpening is the same. Still, it doesn’t matter what to sharpen: a Chinese knife for 100 rubles or a Japanese (German) knife made of VG10 thousand steel for 15 rubles, or even more.

The only question is how long the knife will keep sharpening. And this just depends on the quality of the steel and the geometry of the blade.

Theory

A bit of theory. As in any business, we cannot do without theoretical knowledge.

Knife geometry

If you still do not know the anatomy of a knife, that is, what a knife is, I advise you to read. The article is encyclopedic, but the basic terms, I hope, will be clear.

Take any knife and look at it from the point of view.

What do you see? Well, except for the tip. Can't you see anything? Weird! Must see WEDGE. Now have you seen? Here is something similar:

The knife in cross section is a wedge formed by slopes. What allows the knife to cut or chop (it all depends on the purpose of the knife).

And since the slopes form a too sharp angle, somewhere around 10 degrees, this will not allow the knife to remain sharp for a long time (the cutting edge will definitely curl or crumble, depending on the steel). To prevent this from happening, do carts, which form the cutting edge (RK).

For some steels, such a “feint with ears” as micro-leads is still used. Micro-feeds allow on some steels to increase the service life of the RC, but this feint does not always work.

Thus, the task of sharpening is to create the correct angle of convergence of the supplies. This angle may vary. Different tasks require different sharpening angles.

For example, a fillet knife (designed for thin cutting of meat and fish) is sharpened at an angle of 30-40 degrees,

Machete or survival knife, which most often cut something - 50-60 degrees. But most often, knives are sharpened at an angle of 40-45 degrees, which is recognized as optimal for solving most household tasks.

Let's move on to physics.

Physics of the sharpening process

Did everyone study physics at school? How do hard and soft interact with each other if a softer material is rubbed against a harder one?

Most often, soft, under the influence of friction force, wears out. Same with sharpening. Soft, in our case, is a knife, and hard is an abrasive bar.

Under the influence of hard inclusions of a grindstone, abrasion of metal particles occurs. Which, in turn, leads to the emergence of a kind of microsaw on the cutting edge of the knife.

This microsaw can be seen on the cutting edge of any knife if you look closely. It is especially visible on new knives. Here I tried to photograph it.

Do you see vertical transverse stripes on the cutting edge? These are the traces of the grindstone. The picture below can be seen in more detail.

Thus, it turns out that the smaller the size of the hard inclusions of the whetstone, the smaller the microsaw will be on the cutting edge. Accordingly, the smaller the microsaw, the longer the knife will remain sharp. Which is what we need.

That's all physics ... And now it's time to move on to practice.

Practice

Theory is good, but you need to practice as much as possible, then the hands themselves will remember and the whole process will settle down in the head.

The most important thing in sharpening is the correct retention of the angle. And this requires practice. The more you practice, the better you get. Well, as in any business that requires skill and patience. I dare to assure you that the first time you will not be able to sharpen the knife. But with due diligence… well, you get the idea.

Tool

So, for sharpening, you need a whetstone, a little of any machine oil and a knife, which we will sharpen.

Grindstone

At any hardware store, buy a simple bar. It happens in the shape of a boat, but it is better to buy double-sided and more authentic. When you start to succeed, you will get something more solid. Diamond bars, for example…

The bar should not be shorter than 150 millimeters. Why so, you can make sure just by trying to sharpen on bars of different lengths. The longer the bar, the easier it is to sharpen.

Butter

We need machine or weapon oil. Oil is needed to lubricate the bar during the sharpening process, so that the bar does not become clogged with metal particles.

In no case should you use organic oil, such as sunflower. The bar will instantly become greasy and can be thrown away.

For the first time, do not take a new knife or the knife that you use constantly. Find some knife that you don't mind ruining. This is how you practice. My experiment knife was this old, old kitchen worker.

Well, there is a tool, let's start sharpening.

Sharpening process

We sit down more comfortably. We put the bar on the table in front of us, with the short side towards us. You can put something like a rubber mat or newspaper under the bar so that it does not crawl on the table when sharpening.

We take a knife and start sharpening it.

The sharpening process takes place on whetstones of different grain sizes. From large to small. The coarser the grain, the faster the metal is removed from the blade. And the smaller the grain, the smaller the microsaw on the cutting edge, and the smaller the microsaw on the RC, the longer the knife will remain sharp.

Since we are sharpening a kitchen knife, we do not need razor sharpness, it is enough that the knife cuts food well. I will talk about checking the result of sharpening below. And now I repeat.

The bar lies on the table, with the short side towards you and the large grain up. Easily and naturally, without much pressure, we begin to form the cutting edge. Pre-dropping a few drops of oil on the bar.

Moving away from you, shown in the picture below.

Please note that the movement of the knife on the stone should be clear and continuous. From mouth to tip.

Brought to the tip, torn off and in a new way. Repeating this movement many times, we achieve the formation of a burr on the reverse side of the blade, along the entire length of the cutting edge.

Many times - I “turned down” this a little, of course. Kitchen knives, if they are not "Japanese", are made of fairly soft steel, it will be enough to make 40-50 movements to get the desired result. Do not forget to add a few drops of oil as the bar becomes dirty.

The burr can be seen or felt. Slide your finger across the cutting edge, feel that the finger seems to cling to something. There is some roughness. This is the burr, which should be uniform along the entire length of the cutting edge.

Okay, one side is done. Now you need to do the same on the other side.

You can sharpen the other side by holding the knife by the handle with your left hand, but for example, it’s not convenient for me, because I hold the knife in my right hand, but I sharpen not from myself, but towards myself.

We perform the procedure for obtaining a burr along the entire length of the cutting edge on the other side of the knife.

Now you can move to the shallower side of the grindstone. On the shallow side of the bar, you need to repeat all of the above.

That's the whole sharpening process. It seems to be not difficult, but it requires certain skills and a lot of patience.

Sharpening angle control

It is very difficult to keep the knife in the right position. After all, the most important thing is to hold it at a certain angle during the entire sharpening process. And if on the one hand it is even more or less convenient, then on the opposite side it is quite difficult to get into the right corner.

You can use the "crutch method". That is, some improvised devices or techniques.

Crutch first

A simple clerical clip is used. We put it on the blade and get an approximate angle of 20-25 degrees (meaning half of the total sharpening angle).

Instead of a clamp, you can make small templates at the desired angles, for example, from wood.

Crutch second

It's not a tool, it's a technique. Take a simple permanent marker and paint over the leads. When sharpening, the paint will be erased at the points of contact between the supplies and the grindstone, which will allow you to see what needs to be done - raise or lower the butt.

Crutch third

A technique for experienced grinders, but the most effective.

The correctness of the angle is determined by the glare on the leads. When the side to be sharpened is illuminated at a certain angle, glare appears on the leads. These highlights clearly show where the corner is littered.

I can’t show a photo, it’s quite difficult to photograph it, and you can’t explain it in words too much. This is a must see...

There are several other devices and techniques, but I will talk about them in another article. After all, you still need to check what happened. How well, after all the efforts, we sharpened the knife.

Sharpness test

A well-sharpened knife should easily shave off the hair on the forearm.

After sharpening the next knife, from the wrist to the elbow, I do not have a single hair left, and only on my left hand. It looks cool - one arm is hairy, and the other is carefully shaved)))

Poems taken in an excellent public brutalica.ru

The knife should shave off the hair, and, as they say, “with a rebound”. That is, without pressure and at the slightest touch.

But in fact, such sharpness is not needed.

Especially women will swear. After all, they cook delicious dinners with the help of a knife. And with such sharpness, you can cut yourself, like hello. And you will not feel anything, you will only notice when the blood flows. Checked on myself.

Therefore, a well-sharpened kitchen knife should easily cut a soft fresh loaf of bread, shred tomatoes for salad (only not store balls from abroad, but good such juicy thin-skinned tomatoes, you can find such ones on the market at grannies) and easily cope with cling film, stretch film is also called (if the knife is blunt, then it is easier to tear this stretch film with your hands than to cut it).

Does the knife pass all three tests or at least one of them? Congratulations! You have managed to sharpen the knife properly. If not, then you have to work harder...

Conclusion

What can I say. When sharpening, you need to develop certain skills. This is not a bike where you learned once and remembered for a lifetime. It requires constant training so that the hands remember the position of the knife and the angle of its inclination.

In general, sharpening a knife is a good method of relaxation and distraction. Hands are busy, and the head turns off. You sit ... shirk ... shirk ... shirk ..., turned over ... and again - shirk ... shirk ... shirk ... The most important thing is that the wife does not need to sharpen the knife at this very moment ... chop the salad :-)

So, I advise you to sharpen (namely, to sharpen, there is also such a thing as “cutting a knife”, this is a little different) to approach thoroughly, and not from a running start.

On this cheerful picture, let me bow to the next article ...