How to sharpen a knife at home. Proper sharpening of knives (how to sharpen knives) How and with what to sharpen a knife correctly

A knife is an indispensable tool for a housewife in the kitchen. Over time, the blade loses its sharpness, becomes dull, and using it becomes painful. There are many ways to properly sharpen a knife. The sharpness of the blade depends on the material, the right tool and the sharpening angle. The stores offer a range of manual and automatic devices that allow you to sharpen your blade yourself.

How to sharpen knives correctly

A sharp knife is the main condition for the effective and safe work of a professional cook and housewife. When cutting products, small particles of steel come off the edge surface. The blade becomes dull, forcing you to put more effort into cooking. The sharpening process is the restoration of the geometric outline of the cutting edge. The choice of device for this purpose depends on the material of the knife and the skill of the sharpener.

The arsenal of tools for restoring the sharpness of an edge includes a set of devices from a file to a universal automatic sharpener. The devices have varying effectiveness; if used incorrectly, they will lead to damage to the blade. If you have nothing on hand other than a file, use it with caution. The tool leaves scratches on hard steel, but removes a significant layer of metal from a soft surface.

At what angle should you sharpen a knife?

There is no universal value for the sharpening angle. Its value varies depending on the material and purpose of the knife. Special and homemade devices will help determine the angle of the blade:

• The edge is clamped with scissors, and the angle between the halves is measured with a protractor. The measurement error is 1.
• Professionals use a special laser device with a scale.
• In factories and repair shops, the indicator is measured with a mechanical inclinometer.

The optimal sharpening angle for knives differs depending on their purpose:

• household kitchen knife – 30-35;
• for fish processing – 25;
• cutting – 25-30;
• fruity – 15;
• for processing vegetables – 35;
• for chopping – 40-45;
• dining room – 55-60.

Knives are the most used tool in the household. Whether it's kitchen knives, folding knives, office 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 yourself, you need to know how to sharpen knives correctly and master this useful skill.

Cutting angle

As the sharpening angle decreases, the sharpness of the blade increases, but the risk of destruction of the cutting edge by lateral load increases. Typical section angles of a symmetrical tip 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 when deciding how to sharpen a knife. For example, a surgical scalpel is a sharp but fragile instrument that cannot be restored after losing its cutting properties. Straight razors are also unusually sharp, have a very shallow cutting edge angle, and require stropping once a day or more often. Another extreme case is an axe. It is used primarily for splitting wood or impact cutting, so it can have a blunt point angle that does not require frequent sharpening. Generally, the harder the blade material, the shallower the angle.

The composition and hardening of 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 an edge angle of 20-30 degrees and a hardness of 52-58 HRC, while tools for Eastern kitchens are traditionally made of hard steel with angles of 10-20. It is not uncommon for these products to have a hardness of 59-60 on the Rockwell scale and above.

Types of edge processing

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 tool, its condition, and the stage of restoration of 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 complete restoration of the tool or separately, depending on the tasks or purpose of the blade.

For example, straight razors are straightened before each use and even during the shaving process, but they are processed on stones only a few times a year, and the edges do not require restoration for years. A hard steel kitchen knife may need abrasive only once a year, while butchers using carbon steel tools can only get by with sanding every few cuts.

Types of wear

Typically, the technology of how to properly sharpen kitchen knives is a set of measures consisting of coarse and fine sharpening with possible subsequent polishing if the material of the tool allows the sharpness to be increased by the final procedure. For high-quality steels, before a noticeable loss of cutting properties, the tool is capable of making 200–500 cuts on food products and maintaining an acceptable sharpness for a long time after that.

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

Great forces on hard objects are no less destructive to the knife. Attempts to cut ice, bones, or accidentally hitting the side of the pan lead to chipped edges. The fabric can also be damaged as a result of severe corrosion, usually from exposure to food acids or from high temperatures and aggressive chemicals in the dishwasher. The corrosion pits that form on the edge require its complete restoration.

To avoid such damage, you should 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 household needs, the approaches they use are hardly justified, since the equipment used for these purposes can be many times higher than the cost of the knives themselves, while there are many inexpensive ways to obtain razor sharpness.

On the other side of the spectrum are users who have no idea how to properly sharpen a knife with a whetstone or using scrap materials. For people who are not keen on the intricacies of this matter, 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

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

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

On abrasive stones

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

The technique itself looks like this: it is necessary to make smooth, repeated cutting movements along the plane of the stone, moving the entire surface of the edge along it. In this case, it is necessary to maintain a constant angle of inclination of the blade to the plane of the block. The issue of choosing the grain size of a stone or set of stones is very important. Grit is measured in grit. This unit of measure refers to the number of abrasive particles per square centimeter of stone surface.

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

1. 300-400 grit. For rough processing.
2. 600-800 grit. Sharpening after the previous stone.
3. 1000 - 1200 grit. Polishing.

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

Sharpening devices

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 involve mounting 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 replaceable abrasive rods in a vertical plane at an angle to each other, fixed in a wooden or plastic base. To sharpen a 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 kitchen use and have the same disadvantages as a 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 acquainted with sharpening simply and cheaply, without the risk of ruining expensive abrasives. There are many methods for conveniently securing a sheet of emery to a block or wrapping it tightly around a wooden block. Abrasive sheets are available in a wide range of grits at the appropriate stores. The home craftsman can only form them into a hard and smooth surface. Compared to stones, when sharpening with sandpaper it is better to use lighter and more frequent movements - strong pressure easily chips away the abrasive grain. Otherwise, the technologies for working with a knife are similar.

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

The useful skill of sharpening knives will be useful to you for the rest of your life, because the sharpness of the knives is used to judge their owner. In the old days, the owner of the house was judged by the sharpness of the knives. After all, sharpening a blade correctly without damaging kitchen utensils is a whole science. It has its own subtleties and tricks. And blades, as you know, tend to become dull again over time. Therefore, having once mastered such a useful skill as sharpening your kitchen and utility knives at home, be sure that it will be useful to you throughout your life.

• • Why do knives get dull?
  • Other methods of sharpening knives
  • Checking the quality of sharpening
  • Conclusion

Why do knives get dull?

This unpleasant phenomenon has two main reasons:

The more dull the knife blade, the more effort you have to put in during the cutting process.

You can check whether it’s time to start sharpening using paper. Take the sheet in one hand and run the knife over it with the other. If the paper does not cut and tears, the tool is dull.

You can take your cutting tools to a workshop. But it should be borne in mind that grinding on a sharpening machine greatly heats up the steel, and this accelerates the process of wear. If you do this yourself at home using a block or other gentle method, you will extend the life of the knife.

Knife sharpening tools

In order to sharpen a knife at home, you will need a whetstone or an ordinary sharpener. The main thing is that its surface is smooth, without chips or dents. In addition, you will need machine oil.

The whetstone for sharpening a knife should not be short

When sharpening knives, the main thing is not to overdo it.

To sharpen knives at home, whetstones with different grain sizes are used.

The bars differ not only in size, but also in characteristics:

• rough stones with coarse grains are used to sharpen the cutting edge and restore the correct angle;
• medium ones are used to restore the edge;
• Thin bars are used for finishing grinding and straightening of the knife.

For everyday sharpening, a medium-grain surface is most often used.

How to sharpen a knife with a whetstone yourself

Not every owner knows all the details of how to properly sharpen knives with a whetstone at home. It will help to understand this detailed instructions:

When sharpening a knife with a whetstone, it is important to maintain the correct sharpening angle recommended for the type of knife being sharpened

Other methods of sharpening knives

A whetstone is the classic and simplest way to process a blade. There are other, less traditional, but also effective techniques for restoring the sharpness of a knife.

Musat is a sharpening tool that is often included in the kit if you purchase knives in a set. It is a faceted or round metal rod with a handle.

To sharpen, follow the instructions:

Musat, as a rule, is included in a standard set of metal knives

The quality of the knife blade suffers from frequent use of a mechanical sharpener.

You can use the blade of another knife to sharpen a knife.

You can purchase a mechanical sharpener for your home. This is a universal mini-machine with metal circles in a plastic case. The knife is inserted into the slot hole and pulled forcefully towards you.

This method is used when you need to quickly sharpen a knife. But it is often not recommended to use it, since the quality of the knife suffers from this.

The following will also help you sharpen a knife at home:

• ceramic mugs and plates. To do this, use a knife to make sliding movements along the surface of the dish;
• Some people sand their instruments at home using sandpaper. This method is used to bring the sharpness to perfection or to slightly sharpen the knife;
• a file is a good option for small knives;
• You can sharpen a knife using a piece of genuine leather, which is previously treated with GOI paste;
• hard stone - this primitive method can help out if the knife is let down by its sharpness at the dacha, and there are no suitable tools at hand.

The knife can be sharpened using ceramic utensils

You can use emery to polish the sharpness of a knife.

Do ceramic knives need sharpening?

There is a common belief that ceramic knives cannot be sharpened. It is only partly true. This is a very fragile thing, so sharpening it at home using the usual method is problematic. It is easier to take such a tool to a workshop where there is special equipment for processing ceramic surfaces.

The blade of a ceramic knife can only be polished at home, since special equipment is used to sharpen it, which is equipped in workshops

If you use a sharpening machine, you can sharpen the blade at home. Unlike a steel knife, a ceramic knife will not be damaged by an increase in the temperature of the material. For these purposes, use a disc coated with diamond or corundum.

Checking the quality of sharpening

After the tool is sharpened, it must be rinsed with water and wiped. Gently run your finger along the blade of the knife. It should be slightly rough to the touch.

The quality of sharpening can be checked by holding the knife up to a bright light with the blade facing up. If there are no sharp glares from this, everything is done correctly.

Sharpening a knife at home (video)

Conclusion

Now that you know the basic methods and subtleties of sharpening, all that remains is to master the theory in practice. This process is quite easy and even pleasant. From now on, your knives will always remain in excellent condition, and the hostess in the kitchen will be in a good mood.

All people who have experienced cutting food with a dull knife understand that kitchen work becomes a difficult and dangerous task. Because of this, the cooking speed decreases, but with a well-sharpened tool such problems will never arise.

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

One of the most popular sharpening options is a whetstone. The accessory can be either fine-grained or coarse-grained. At home, the blade is processed until a burr is formed (a narrow strip of the blade), then a fine-grained stone is used and brought to perfection.

How to sharpen a knife at home using a whetstone:

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

• perfect blade smoothness;
• imparting durability to sharpening by eliminating burrs.

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

Types of knives

Throughout the history of mankind, a large number of types of blades have been invented, including some very specific ones. For each type, a manufacturing technology for a specific steel has been developed; 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 such a 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 knife

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

1. Knife saw. The blade is made of serrated teeth. This allows you to cut bread and rolls even into the smallest pieces. Then the product will not crumble. But sharpening a kitchen model with serrations is not easy to do.
2. Chef knife. Used for cutting vegetable and meat products. Its length is 20 cm.
3. Paring knife. Typically its length varies from 5 to 10 cm.

There are mainly 2 materials 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 can be used to cut even the hardest products.

The ceramic blade is quite fragile, but such knives can cut anything, while sharpening is less susceptible to loss of sharpness. You can also sharpen a ceramic blade at home, but you need a special diamond wheel.

For hunting

During a 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 you. For this reason, excessively increased requirements are placed on them:

1. The blade should not only be beautiful, but also practical.
2. A prerequisite is a wooden handle.
3. When cutting up prey, problems may arise, so the guard should be kept to a minimum.
4. When striking an animal with a knife, the metal may crack. Therefore, for hunting purposes, only those daggers that are made of Damascus steel are bought.
5. According to the standard, daggers have a length from 10 cm to 17 cm. The width is at least 3 cm. The butt must be 4 mm thick. Steel strength is at least 58 HRC.

To easily remove the skin from a trophy, you should use those types whose butt is equipped with a hook.

Other types

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

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

Methods for checking the blade tip

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

On paper

Take a sharpened tool and an A4 paper sheet. The process is this: you should cut the paper, and if at the same time the blade begins to move to the side, then the sharpening is 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: take a fresh tomato and cut a slice. If the blade moves to the side, it means that the sharpening was poorly done, but if it is smooth and without difficulty, then the work was done at the highest level.

Testing on hand hair

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

What affects the reduction in 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 slower to reduce the sharpness of the blade.

There are a number of reasons for this:

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

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

Methods for sharpening blades

The most important task is not the choice of the knife itself, but the correct selection of the sharpening device. The consumer is lost amidst the variety of 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, you can bypass the difficulty of sharpening using a whetstone. 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 the grinder is intended for these models. But the sharpening tool cannot cope with the work of those blades that have become completely dull. In this case, only a sharpener will help.

Sharpening the blade with musat manually:

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

Important! Blunt tools cannot be sharpened by this device, so you should not try. In this case, other sharpening means are used.

Grindstone

This method is one of the most common. The sharpening stone will bring the knife blade to normal condition. Using a variety of stones, you can eliminate the most complex defects, for example: straightening nicks and grinding. This type of manual sharpener has been used since ancient times and does not pale in comparison to modern devices.

Processing principle:

This work can be done without a block using sandpaper.

Sharpening machine

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

The device is not equipped with special clamps for knives, so the blade angle is set independently. Equipped with a sharpening wheel, this machine will give your blade a perfect edge in no time. It can sharpen all types of knives.

Electric emery

This is an electric machine that can also sharpen a variety of knives. 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 you don’t have the skills, then you shouldn’t take on the job, otherwise it is likely that the tool being processed will become unusable.

This is how the first flint knife was sharpened. Or maybe not, but for some reason some women still try to sharpen knives by running one dull knife over another.

Since the discovery of iron, knives have been made from metal and sharpening stones have been used to sharpen them. They are still used today. Just recently, about 50-100 years ago, strange people walked around the courtyards with a clever whatnot behind their backs and shouted in loud voices: “I sharpen knives, scissors, straighten blades!” At this signal, housewives ran out of houses and apartments, carrying with them a bouquet of dull knives. Now these strange people have disappeared somewhere, you can’t even see them in the market, and therefore you have to sharpen your knives yourself. This can be done in different ways:

Electric sharpeners

Progress moves inexorably forward and electricity is increasingly being introduced into our lives. A huge number of electrical devices and tools designed to make human existence easier have been invented, there are even electric knives, but in this case we are interested in devices for the electric sharpening of ordinary steel knives, but even such devices are incredibly numerous. Households typically use one of the following:

1. Tabletop sharpening machine

Whatever they are called - grinding machines, sharpeners, straightening-sharpeners, sharpening machines, sharpening machines, etc. Sharpening machines are used mainly for sharpening various kinds of construction tools, but such machines are also quite suitable for ordinary kitchen knives. It is necessary to work on such a machine in compliance with all safety measures.

2. Joiner

The design of some carpentry machines allows you to replace the saw blade with a grinding wheel. However, no protective casings or screens are provided for such machines, and therefore sharpening knives on such machines must be done with the utmost care and always wearing safety glasses.

3. Bulgarian

(angle grinder). Initially, this power tool is not intended for sharpening knives in any way, however, it is quite possible to sharpen a knife on a grinding wheel of an angle grinder, but again it is necessary to observe all safety measures when working with an angle grinder.

4. Belt electrogrinding

This power tool is used primarily not for sharpening knives, but for finishing after sharpening on a machine or grinder.

The disadvantage of the above methods is that these tools are construction tools, take up a lot of space, and therefore it makes no sense to buy them specifically for sharpening knives. And if any of the above is already on the farm, then no one forbids using it. For example, at the dacha you have to sharpen knives, hoes, scythes with a grinder and an electric belt grinder.

5. Electric sharpener for kitchen knives

More and more such sharpeners have been appearing lately. They are made specifically for sharpening kitchen knives, they are relatively small in size, and it is safest to sharpen knives on such sharpeners. There are a lot of models of electric sharpeners for kitchen knives, from simple and cheap ones costing $10-15 (A), to semi-professional ones costing $100-150 (B), allowing sharpening to be carried out in several stages. Electric kitchen knife sharpeners look something like this:

Photo 1. Electric sharpeners for kitchen knives, scissors

To sharpen a knife with such an electric sharpener, you need to insert the knife with the cutting part into the appropriate slot and move the knife back and forth several times.

Manually

Despite the fact that man has long conquered the highest mountains and the deepest depressions, and has been flying into space for many years, sharpening knives by hand, which involves long and necessary grinding of the cutting part of the knife, is still in force. For sharpening knives the following are used:

1. Whetstone(bar)

A great variety of such stones are produced; they are parallelepiped in shape or in the shape of an elongated oval. Rectangular bars can be two-layer, i.e. consist of two stones of different grain sizes. However, the whetstone can be of any shape. Previously, when you could easily buy a sharpening stone only in a dream, fragments of sharpening wheels from factories were used to sharpen knives. Moreover, there were so many of these fragments that it can be assumed that people deliberately broke sharpening wheels in production in order to be able to sharpen knives at home, although perhaps I’m wrong.

Be that as it may, the basic principles of sharpening knives on a whetstone have remained virtually unchanged over the past few thousand years. The main thing you need to know when sharpening knives:

1. As a rule, knives have one of the following cross-sectional shapes:

Picture 1. Basic cross-sectional shapes of a knife.

Form (A) is the easiest to manufacture and the most reliable from the point of view of strength, since it provides almost the same rigidity and flexibility of the knife along almost the entire length of the blade. However, sharpening knives of this shape takes the longest time since the length of the cutting edges, indicated in Figure 1 by the red line, is maximum for such knives. Recently, knives with cross-sectional shapes (B) and (C) are becoming more common. Knives with this shape sharpen faster. The angle formed by the cutting edges is usually in the range of 20-30 degrees. As the angle decreases, the length of the cutting edges increases; as the angle decreases, the cutting qualities of the knife deteriorate.

2. When we want to cut something, we press the cutting edge of the knife, formed by the cutting edges, onto the object being cut. Moreover, the smaller the area of ​​the cutting edge, the less force must be applied to perform the same action. In other words, cutting, for example, carrots or potatoes, is much easier with a sharp knife than with a dull one, and the duller the knife, the more effort you need to put into it.

3. If people only cut vegetables and fruits and only on special boards, then the knives would remain sharp for a very long time after sharpening. However, knives used for cutting meat with bones become dull on these very bones very quickly and they have to be sharpened often, in a good way, after each major cut of meat. When a knife becomes dull, the cutting edges do not form the letter " V", but rather the letter " U"Therefore, the sharpening process comes down to returning the edges to the shape of a letter." V".

4. When we run a knife over a whetstone or a whetstone over a knife, some of the metal is abraded or scraped off by the grains of the whetstone, leaving characteristic scratches. The coarser the grain, the more metal can be scraped off at once, but the deeper the scratches will be and the rougher the shape of the cutting edge. Therefore, stones of different grain sizes are often used to sharpen knives. Sharpening stones with larger grains are used for primary sharpening - straightening. Sharpening stones with finer grains are used for finishing sharpening.

5. When sharpening, the knife blade must be held at an angle of 10-15 degrees to the block, and the direction of movement is chosen as follows:

Figure 2. Knife sharpening direction.

In this case, as a rule, after each movement, the knife blade is rotated 150-160 degrees and, accordingly, the blade is moved in the opposite direction. In this way, both edges are sharpened and if the knife was not very dull, then sharpening it will take no more than 1 minute (the time for washing the knife after sharpening or wiping it with a clean rag is not included here).

Note: Below, in the comments, a certain expert, who had read a lot of clever forums, tried for a long time to explain that there were many mistakes in my description and that in general it would not be possible to sharpen a knife well in this way. I tried for a long time to explain that for ordinary purposes such sharpening of a knife is quite enough. And then I even tried to show it on video. It didn't work out very well for a number of reasons. In particular, because I'm a lousy director. Perhaps over time I will make a new video, but for now, if you want, you can watch this video. True, the only thing that is visible about it is that it takes no more than 20 seconds to edit the knife. So this video is nothing more than an answer to a question for doubting experts.

2. Sanding paper or paper

By and large, you won’t be able to sharpen a very dull knife using sandpaper or sandpaper; more precisely, you probably won’t have enough patience; this method is more used for fine-tuning already sharpened knives. For example, after sharpening a knife on a sharpening machine or on a large whetstone.

3. Sharpening kits

Since maintaining an angle of inclination when working with a conventional sharpening stone is not easy, for lovers of simplicity and accuracy, special sharpening sets, such as Lansky or Spydeco, are sold that allow you to sharpen knives at a given angle. Lansky's set is especially good in this regard. Sharpening a knife using a Lansky jig looks something like this:

Figure 3. Sharpening a knife using a Lansky jig.

1 - Clamp for clamping the knife blade.

2 - Clamp clamp screw.

3 - Holes for the guide, allowing you to sharpen the blade at a certain angle.

5 - Handle.

6 - Sharpening stone attached to the handle. Usually the set includes several bars of different grain sizes.

7 - Stand with handle and holes for attaching to the base.

Such sets are not cheap: from $50 to $100. The kit may include, among other things, paper instructions and even DVDs.

3b. Special file

By special file, I do not mean the usual metal files sold in hardware stores, but the cylindrical files with a parallel cut that are included in some knife sets. Typically, a set of such knives also includes a stand, and the stand has a special compartment for a file. While the knives are relatively new and relatively sharp, the use of such a file still gives some result, but in cheap sets of knives the file becomes dull over time just like the knives. This also includes ordinary metal files and needle files. To be honest, theoretically it is possible to sharpen a knife with a file or needle file, but I have never tried it myself - there were always enough other available means.

4. Sharpeners with whetstone

Recently, more and more mechanical knife sharpeners have been produced that resemble electric ones in appearance: the same slots for inserting a knife blade, a handle for easy sharpening. The main difference is that the sharpening stones do not spin, which means you have to drive the stone yourself.

5. Sharpeners with cutters

Now there is a relatively new type of knife sharpener. Outwardly, they may resemble sharpeners with a whetstone, only instead of a whetstone, 2 metal cutters are used. When you sharpen knives on such a sharpener, the cutters remove chips from the cutting edges. In this way, the process of sharpening knives is accelerated as much as possible; it is enough to forcefully pull the knife through the cutters once or twice. The main disadvantage of such sharpeners is that with frequent sharpening, the knife blade literally melts before your eyes and the knife lasts for no more than 3-5 years, then you will have to buy a new one.

6. Any stone

including cement. If you don’t have any of the above at hand, but you still need to sharpen the knife a little, then you can use the knife to hit any stone that comes to hand. Once upon a time we had to sharpen knives this way.

But no matter how the knife is sharpened, you must remember the main rule: the knife blade must be absolutely clean before sharpening, in the sense that there should be no grease on the blade. Fat is a natural lubricant, and since in the vast majority of cases friction is used when sharpening knives, there is no need for lubricant.

And yet, progress does not stand still; now ceramic knives are increasingly used in households instead of steel (now stone is replacing metal). Over time, ceramic knives also become dull and require