A sharp knife in the kitchen is necessary, because without it it is difficult to imagine cooking. Over time, the blade ceases to cope with the task, and then you have to resort to sharpening. There are many ways to sharpen a knife at home. With a competent approach and the choice of a tool for turning, a beginner can cope with the task without special skills.

Knife sharpening angle

Before using a sharpening tool, it is important to determine the angle of sharpening. This is the angle of the blade relative to the work surface. It depends on the purpose of the knife and on its material. Separation by degrees:

• 10-15 - scalpels, razors;
• 15−20 - knife for meat, bread and vegetables;
• 20−25 - chef's knives;
• 25-30 - hunting knives.

To choose a sharpening method, it is worth finding out what material the blade is made of. The main blade materials are shown below:

Types of sharpening tools

Manufacturers offer a large selection of different tools to sharpen the blade. However, the choice is not easy, since even the usual grinding stones are presented in many versions. In addition to bars, there are machine tools, sharpeners, musats, special stones. Each tool requires a separate approach. Before dwelling on one of them, it is worth learning how to sharpen knives correctly.

Musat (or simply steel) is often found both in restaurants and in private kitchens. Consists of a handle and a round bar. Use the appliance either immediately before cooking or immediately after. Suitable for maintaining sharpness, it will not cope with advanced cases.

It is easy to explain and understand how to sharpen a knife with musat: the device is placed vertically on a hard surface, held by the handle, and the blade is drawn along the steel part. Each side is sharpened 4-5 times with the blade tilted 20-25 degrees. No special effort is needed.

Using a grindstone

The grindstone is the most common tool, it can be made from artificial and natural materials. Most often found in the form of a boat. Grindstones vary in grit size. A tool with a high degree is used to straighten the shape of the cutting edge. A device with an average degree is used to restore the blade. Stones with a low degree are suitable for sharpening. Whole sets are sold for the correct sharpening of blades.

Grinding stone technology:

1. Hold the knife in cold water - cold metal is more susceptible to processing.
2. Drive the blade from the point to the handle, maintaining the required angle. Perform the same number of movements on each side, as a rule, 30-50 is enough.
3. Take a fine-grained stone and make 10-15 similar movements.
4. Instead of a fine-grained surface, you can use a leather stone with an abrasive paste applied or a well-sharpened object.

Use a sharpening block

The bar is similar to a grindstone in terms of properties and sharpening technology. The best option is a diamond-coated bar. There are also tools with silicon carbide and electrocorundum coating. Information about abrasiveness in foreign-made bars is encrypted in the marking. Bars of domestic production are selected "by eye", you can assess the degree of abrasiveness to the touch or by running your fingernail over them.

Watch the video on how to properly sharpen a knife with a bar:

Grinder

The grinder is a fast and efficient tool. It is less common in apartments, it can often be found in private sector residents or in workshops. The blades during sharpening on the machine heat up to high temperatures, so it is better to set the minimum speed of the machine.

Sharpening takes place using an emery wheel. The blade is pressed against the emery at a certain angle, keeping it constant. The smaller the angle, the thinner the blade will be. With careless work, you can break the knife, so beginners need to learn from inexpensive models.

Mechanical sharpeners

Used in everyday life. Convenient due to the presence of a handle and the absence of requirements for the special skills of a grinder. However, the quality of sharpening is poor, suitable for sharpening kitchen knives, it is not recommended to sharpen sports and hunting specimens on them - the risk of damage is high.

Electric sharpeners

Electric sharpeners used to be found only in restaurants, but now they are more available for private use. They themselves set the sharpening program, they are suitable not only for knives, but also for screwdrivers, scissors, etc. Cope with neglected cases.

The principle of operation is simple: select the mode, bring the blade to the opening of the device, place it inside and lightly press during processing. The electric sharpener will quickly process the blade with diamond discs.

The advantage of the device is that it can sharpen knives with ceramic blades - it copes well with fragile material.

Knives requiring special sharpening

There are types that you should not even think about how to sharpen a knife at home. Incorrect processing has a high risk of damaging the tool

• Serrators- knives with a serrated blade, resembling a saw in appearance. The factory sharpening of serrated and semi-serrated is not symmetrical, so processing at home will ruin them. It is worth contacting a professional.
• Knives with a unique coating. For example, the TwinStar Plus Zwilling J. A. Henckels knife. The manufacturer coated the blade with a unique composition that increases the wear resistance of the knife.
• Opinions on the need to sharpen ceramics vary.. Someone says that ceramics do not require sharpening, someone claims that ceramic blades become dull over time. Manufacturers claim that the material is second only to diamond and corundum in hardness.

If the knife is under warranty, then you should contact the company workshop and sharpen it for free. You can use circles with diamond coating. For roughing, circles with a characteristic of 80 microns are used, for finishing - 40 microns. The machine speed is set to the minimum, it is enough to process each side 2-3 times. The direction of movement is traditional - from the handle to the tip.

After sharpening in any way, be sure to wash the knife with soap and water under running water, as small particles of chips, grease, and oil remain on the blade.

After processing, the sharpness of the blade should be checked. If the result is unsatisfactory, it is worth repeating the procedure or choosing another method:

The cost of basic tools

All sharpening tools are sold in hardware stores. You can purchase them online. German, Japanese and Russian devices are considered to be of the highest quality. The cost depends on the characteristics and manufacturer. What price can you expect:

• Stones - 80-200 rubles.
• Diamond-coated bars - 450-10,000 rubles.
• Musat - 500-3000 rubles.
• Electric sharpeners - 700-10,000 rubles.
• Grinding machines - 2000-20000 rubles.

Well, if there is a planned sharpening, when the tools are at hand. But there are force majeure circumstances when there are no professional instruments at hand. Simple items will help out:

• Cobblestone. An ordinary stone will help to slightly sharpen the knife in field conditions. Ideal sharpness cannot be achieved, but the blade will come into working condition. The technology is similar to the technology of sharpening with a bar.
• Second knife. Two objects can be sharpened at the same time by picking them up and running the blade of one of them over the blade of the other. Processing time 5−10 minutes.
• Glass and ceramics. You can sharpen the blade on the bottom of the plate or the edge of the tile. The main condition is surface roughness.
• Leather belt. Suitable for finishing sharpness. You should pull the belt and actively draw both sides over the skin several times.

Attention, only TODAY!

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? Strange! 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 slicing 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.

Oil

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-bought balls from abroad, but good such juicy thin-skinned tomatoes, such can be found 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 ...

Any housewife, and even more so a cook, knows that without a well-sharpened knife, cooking turns into a rather tedious task. Well, a sharp, well-sharpened knife in the kitchen is like the first mate on a ship; it is much more convenient, faster and safer to work with a sharp knife. Yes, yes, it is safer, because even the bluntest knife is sharp enough to harm a person if the blade breaks (and this often happens when working with a blunt blade). However, the correct sharpening of knives is not so simple, good sharpening requires: firstly, a good knife, secondly, a high-quality grinding tool, and thirdly, a fair amount of patience. In this article we will tell you about how to sharpen knives and what tools and devices are used today for this.

1. Knife

Well, let's go in order - first about the knife itself. No matter how branded and high-quality it is, sooner or later it will become dull anyway, and as practice shows, only very few of the owners know how to sharpen a knife correctly. How to check the sharpness of a blade? And can you easily, in one go, cut a hemp rope folded four times with your knife? Or shave a hair off your forearm? No? So it's not that sharp.

It is known that steel has such an indicator as hardness. The optimum hardness of steel for a knife should be within 45 to 60 HRC, mild steel will be easily crushed, and hard steel will crumble. The angle of inclination of the knife depends on the hardness - the harder the blade, the greater the sharpening angle should be. Hardness can also be checked at home - take a needle file and run it along the blade, if with light pressure it slides freely, and with strong pressure it slightly catches the surface, then the hardness is good. Well, as for the quality of the blade, unfortunately, it will not work to determine it "by eye", because. it does not depend more on the characteristics of the feedstock, but on the manufacturing technology and the conscientiousness of the manufacturer.

2. Sharpening tool

Choosing a good sharpening tool is actually more difficult than choosing a knife. The modern market can offer a lot of tools and tools for sharpening, grinding and straightening blades - bars, musats, grinding belts, mechanical and electronic sharpeners, etc., and sharpening knives using each of these tools has its own characteristics. Keep in mind that a professional tool costs a lot, and in this case it’s not worth saving, a low-quality bar will not give that level of sharpening, and even more than that - a bad bar can ruin the knife.

Despite all the variety of tools suitable for domestic use, a really good result can only be obtained with the help of professional whetstones or electric sharpeners.

3. Patience

Keep in mind that for a good sharpening of any blade on a whetstone, you need at least half an hour- well, sharpening a long forged knife with the removal of an ideal geometric shape can take all 30 hours. So you should prepare yourself for this in advance.

How to sharpen a knife

And finally, about how to sharpen knives correctly. Sharpening begins with a rough bar and continues until a burr appears on the blade - a strip of metal from the very edge along the entire cutting edge. After that, they change the bar to another, with a finer grain, if any.

It is best to place the whetstone on a fixed surface (such as a table) as this will give you more control over the process, and something should be placed under the whetstone to prevent scratches. The longer the bar, the better (optimally - one and a half to two times longer than the blade). Start passing the knife along the bar with the cutting edge forward, while the direction of movement should be as close as possible to perpendicular to the edge (see figure).

It is important to keep the angle as close as possible to 90°, this will ensure uniform sharpening along the entire length of the blade and give it good cutting properties. The angle between the plane of the blade and the working surface of the bar should be 20-25°, try to keep the angle constant while sharpening - to do this, you need to slightly raise the handle, reaching the point where the blade of the blade bends. The angle may be different (for example, blades intended for cutting are sharpened at a large angle) - it is important that this angle does not change.

Having reached the end of the bar, you must simultaneously reach the edge of the knife, while making sure that the blade does not break, otherwise you will scratch the side surface. The described movement must be repeated many times for both sides of the blade. You do not need to press hard on the bar, trying to speed up the work - you will not achieve anything by this, the sharpening of the knife will not accelerate, but you will lose accuracy. Run the blade evenly and carefully over the bar, try not to change the angle - and keep in mind that one careless movement can send all the work down the drain! In order to work out this skill, you will need to sharpen more than one knife - the skill will only come with practice.

knife grinding

Now you know how to sharpen a knife, but that's not all - after sharpening, the blade must be polished, otherwise the sharpness will not last long. Grind the blade in order to remove the burr - this gives sharpening durability, while the forming surfaces should become perfectly smooth. At the same time, the movements remain the same, only the grinding block is selected with a very fine grain.

Conclusion

In practice, sharpening a knife is not an easy task. Professional sharpening of knives requires a lot of patience and care - one careless movement can ruin all the work. Theoretical knowledge of how to properly sharpen a knife is not enough, real skill comes only with practice. In addition, this activity is not cheap, good bars cost a lot of money, and low-quality bars will not allow you to achieve the desired level of sharpness. An alternative to this is to use electric knife sharpeners, these devices allow you to get high quality sharpening and maintain the cutting properties of the blade for a long time. Of course, electric sharpeners cost more than bars, but they allow you to avoid the tedious sharpening process, and besides, the question of price remains open, because. the combined cost of several bars with different grain sizes may eventually exceed the cost of an electric apparatus. Using electric cutters will save you effort, precious time and nerves, and at the same time will keep your knives in excellent condition for years to come!

After a long use in the kitchen, any knife needs to be sharpened. Many, in order to do this quickly, resort to using a special grinding wheel, which is driven by an electric motor. In the absence of it, the most desperate try to sharpen knives with a file, and even But few people know how to sharpen knives with a bar.

This process is simple, but rather painstaking, it requires perseverance and a little skill that comes with experience. Before that bar, you need to correctly select the bars. In total, you will need two bars for sharpening: one coarse-grained, and the second fine-grained. In the process, you must constantly keep the knife blade wet. It is best to lubricate it with mineral oil, but in the absence of one at hand, you can use ordinary water.

Also, in front of that stone, look for a piece of leather. In this case, you can use the old belt. More precisely, you only need its back side, which is not processed and resembles suede.

Choice of sharpening angle

Before getting down to business, it is necessary to determine at what angle we will sharpen the knife. The range is quite wide and ranges from 15 to 45 degrees. The choice is made depending on the quality of the steel from which the knife is made, and on the purpose for which it will be used in the future.

It is also necessary to take into account the following feature. The smaller the angle at which you sharpen a knife, the faster it will dull. This can be explained by the fact that the edge of a sharp knife quickly rounds off, or, even worse, crumbles.

How to keep the same angle all the time?

Now let's figure out how to sharpen knives with a bar. First, place the bar on the table and fix it motionless. Then position the knife blade in relation to the bar at the angle you need. Move the blade along the bar in only one direction, for example away from you, trying to maintain a given angle. It can be noted right away that this is difficult. Therefore, it is better not to rush, but to do everything smoothly.

The inexperienced can give this advice. Make a blade from the angle of which would correspond to the required sharpening angle. Put the blade on the wooden wedge and move the knife along the bar with it.

sharpening

First you need to take a bar with a large grain. Before work, moisten it with water or oil, as mentioned above. Sharpen the blade until the so-called burr appears along the entire length. In order to determine its presence, simply run your fingernail along the reverse side, which has not been sharpened, from the butt to the edge. Also sharpen from the reverse side, after which the burr should bend in the other direction. Repeat the same with a fine-grained bar. After that, the burr will become a little smaller.

For the third time, repeat the manipulation with the bar, which has a fine grain. As a result, the burr will decrease even more. To finally get rid of it, use the skin on the back.

Thus, after reading this article, you already know how to sharpen knives with a bar. However, there are many other ways to make a knife sharper. It can also be special sharpeners that are sold in any underground passage. But what is better to sharpen knives, a person understands only with experience, having tried a whole arsenal of devices.

Any knife made from the finest steel or ceramic will dull over time. This complicates the work of the hostess in cooking, increasing the time and effort expended, sometimes a dull knife slips and causes injury.

To avoid such situations, you can use simple devices that provide instant dressing of the blade for constant maintenance in a sharp state. Also, sharpening kitchen knives should be repeated periodically - this can be done at home with the help of simple tools.

Having mastered the technique, you will not only please the hostess on March 8 and on other days, but you will also be able to greatly surprise the guests (if there is nothing else) by demonstrating a knife at the table that can cut hair. It is this degree of sharpness of a kitchen knife that can be achieved if you know how to properly sharpen a knife with simple, inexpensive tools.

Correctly sharpening a knife is not the most difficult thing, the main thing is to listen to the recommendations

What knives can be sharpened

You can sharpen all kinds of kitchen knives - it depends primarily on the equipment. Professional electric sharpening machines sharpen European, Japanese (one-sided), serrated (with a wavy surface), cutting, hunting, tourist, ceramic knives with any sharpening angle.

You can effectively sharpen a knife at home with simple whetstones and following the technology to the extent of cutting the hair, which is more than enough when used in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, not all knives lend themselves well to sharpening.

Some types of knives are made using modern technologies with a cutting edge coated with a special wear-resistant composition that provides a self-sharpening effect. Sharpening kitchen knives of this type erases the special coating and the knife loses its advantages - naturally, such models cannot be sharpened.

Blade sharpening angle

The sharpening angle of a knife is the deviation between the line of symmetry of the blade and the plane of its cutting edge.

The sharpness of the blade and its durability depend on this value: the smaller the sharpening angle, the sharper the blade, but it grinds faster.

A larger knife sharpening angle reduces the sharpness of the cutting edge, but increases the duration of its work.

Kitchen types for everyday cutting of products have sharpening angles from 20 to 30 degrees, ultra-sharp medical scalpels sharpen at an angle of 10 - 17 degrees, hunting knives, kitchen home hatchets for chopping meat with bones and cleavers have a sharpening angle of 25 - 35 degrees.

To know at what angle to sharpen any knife, the blade is inserted into the scissors and the blades are compressed so that their tip is in close contact with the cutting edge of the knife. The angle at which the blades of the scissors will be moved apart is the sharpening angle.

Musat

Musat is a device with a handle and a shaft 20-25 cm long, resembling a round or oval faceted file made of diamond-coated metal, hard steel or ceramic. The surface of the metal rod along the axis is covered with small grooves; in ceramics, the structure is less embossed.

Musat is used for regular daily finishing and grinding of the working edge of knives, and allows you to maintain the sharpness of their cutting edges in a sharp state.

Musat is not suitable for all types of knives, only for models with a certain steel hardness index

The main condition for the use of musat is the competent manufacture of cutting edges and the hardness of the steel of the knife is less than 60 units. Musat allows you to straighten the smoothing or bending of the cutting edge on hard surfaces.

Work rules

For inexperienced homeowners, sharpening on a musat looks like this:

• Musat is taken in the left hand and rests with a sharp end on a wooden surface at an angle of 25-30 degrees.
• The knife in the right hand moves from top to bottom along the arc towards the exit, the movements are repeated with a little effort several times on each side of the blade.
• At the final stage of finishing, the force is reduced, after work, the musat is washed with water and hung to dry on the hook of the handle.

The generally accepted method of checking the quality of sharpening is to cut a sheet of paper - if you can draw winding lines on it or cut off thin strips, then the sharpness of the blade is very high. Razor sharpness can be tested on the hairline of the hand - a sharply sharpened blade easily cuts hair.

whetstones

When deciding how to sharpen a knife, many people first consider whetstones with varying degrees of abrasiveness. Modern bars have two sides - when using abrasive stones, the side with a coarse-grained structure is used at the beginning, at the end of sharpening they switch to the fine grain of the other side.

The whetstone is a classic option for standard kitchen knives.

Sharpening rules

The bars are moistened with water or soapy water before and during operation - this is necessary to clean the pores of the bar from metal dust and its surface from the spent suspension, to improve the sliding of the blade (many modern types do not require pre-treatment with water). To know how to sharpen a kitchen knife, the rules of work described in the instructions for the bar will help.

• Wet the stone with water, add a drop of dishwashing detergent on top.
• We install the bar on a flat surface, it is desirable that it be with a slight relief (not a planed board) for better grip.
• We apply the knife to the surface of the stone at the desired angle.

To set the angle, you can use a regular sheet of paper folded several times, in which case you can get a final sharpening angle for the blade of 22.5 degrees (obtained by folding the sheet 90 degrees twice). We apply a sheet of paper with the resulting angle and a knife to the bar, we try to remember the resulting slope.

• We set the knife at the beginning and across the bar, while the end of its handle should be at the very edge of the bar, and with a little effort we slide the blade along the bar in an arc in the direction of cutting. For a more stable fixation of the sharpening angle, you can support the blade with your second hand. The movement is repeated 40-50 times, then the side and direction of movement change.
• When a burr edge appears along the entire length of the blade, stop sharpening on the coarse-grained side of the bar and go to the fine-grained side. The sharpening operation is repeated, at the end the pressing force on the blade is reduced.
• It is possible, after processing the knife on a coarse-grained bar, to carry out its fine-tuning on the musat.
• At the end of the work, the bars are washed under running water.

If desired, you can get a razor-sharp knife. For this operation, genuine leather (a fragment of a leather belt) and abrasive paste (GOI, Dialux) are used. The paste is applied to the belt and it is repeatedly passed with a knife at the desired angle, while the movement is opposite to the direction of cutting.

Sandpaper

Sandpaper is the most economical option for keeping a knife sharp

The process of sharpening using sandpaper is no different from grinding stones. You can even make an impromptu bar out of it by gluing or tying sandpaper to a wooden beam: coarse-grained sandpaper is fixed on one side, and fine sandpaper on the other.

Mechanical sharpener

Similar sharpeners, the most convenient way to sharpen a knife at home

The standard design of mechanical-type sharpeners for kitchen knives is an oblong body, consisting of a handle for holding and several slots with grinding discs for blades of varying degrees of sharpening. The sharpening angle when using it is constant and optimal for frequently used kitchen knives.

Another option for a manual mechanical sharpener is a role knife, which has only one sharpening groove with mechanical rollers in the body.

Sharpening set

The main task when sharpening and editing knives is to set the exact angle. To implement this task, a wide range of mechanical designs of grinding devices has been developed.

Some models consist of a base and fasteners for a knife blade, a whetstone is attached to a guide rod. When working, it moves along the blade at a set angle, then the knife turns over. The set is equipped with uneven-grained bars - this allows you to straighten the geometry of the blade and its polishing.

The sharpening kit contains components for sharpening a knife in disassembled form. This set is pretty compact.

Another type of grinding machine is a frame with a holder, into which grinding stones are inserted vertically at an angle of sharpening, the knife moves in a strictly vertical plane during operation, sliding along the surface of the bar from top to bottom.

The designs of such devices are quite diverse and simple, everyone can make such a device from improvised means with a minimum set of necessary tools at home.

electric sharpener

The fastest sharpening method is electric sharpeners for sharpening and polishing. Structurally, they are made in a closed case with a slot for inserting knives, an electric motor is located inside, on the axis of which conical abrasive wheels with diamond coating are fixed. This method is not very popular in everyday life due to the high cost of devices and is intended for professional work.

An electric sharpener will do all the work for you. You just have to hold the knife correctly at the right angle.

High-quality models of electric sharpeners usually have two types of abrasive wheels - the first for restoring the geometry of the blade, the second for its final polishing, the sharpening angle in such devices can be adjusted or set automatically.

Some models of electrical devices allow you to sharpen kitchen knives of various types: European, serrated, Japanese, ceramic, and scissors. In electric machines, each side has its own groove.

Work rules

• With a strongly frenzied working edge with notches, the knife is processed on coarse-grained emery. It is inserted into the groove and pulled towards itself, the number of repetitions depends on the degree of blunting of the cutting edge.
• After a visual or contact check for sharpness, the knife is inserted into the polishing groove and the process is repeated. To obtain a high sharpness of the blade, 5 to 10 broaches are usually required.

Grinder

The sharpening machine is a professional option, with it you can sharpen a dozen knives in a short period of time.

Many homeowners have at their disposal a grinder - an electric motor with an abrasive grinding wheel mounted on a shaft, sometimes the machine has an adjustable rotation speed.

Abrasive wheels are often used to sharpen knives, but if used incorrectly (strong pressure and high speed), you can easily overheat the steel and render the blade unusable. For sharpening on a grinding machine, you need to know the following rules.