Knife sharpening guide pdf

Other task-specific blades like paring, utility, and boning knives are sharpened at the same angle, but are made with a thinner and lighter cross section.

Though not common in most American and European kitchens, traditional Japanese blades are the go-to for sushi chefs around the world. See our article on honing steel for Japanese knives to learn more about maintaining them.

Traditional Japanese knives should always be sharpened to a degree angle unless it is designed and specified for special work. The majority of European and American-made knives will come with degree facets, but some newer and more expensive models feature degree blades modeled after their Asian counterparts. View on Amazon. Many knife sharpening brands and manufacturers of kitchen accessories are coming out with both electric and manual knife sharpeners that can convert the edge of a degree blade down to degrees.

Fortunately for the consumer, these companies have also addressed the underlying issue of degree blades—their inherent thinness and the risk of edge folding, rolling and cracking. Many new sharpeners are designed to maintain the geometric integrity of these thinner-edged blades.

There are also products available that will serve the needs of both degree and degree blades, should you have both in your collection and desire to maintain their factory edges. Take into consideration that not all kitchen knives and not all knives, in general, follow this rule. Hunting and survival knives, for example, typically feature a slightly larger beveled blade somewhere between 22 and degrees.

These knives generally undergo more wear and see more use on different materials than the average kitchen knife, which is meant for cutting and slicing softer objects. At TOG we are on a mission to get everyone sharpening their own knives. Together we hope these make up a comprehensive guide to knife sharpening. Each article aims to answer a Frequently Asked Question FAQ and also includes a short film that answers the same question in a more visual way.

Bert introduces the TOG sharpening guide. There are so many different ways of sharpening kitchen knives and so many gadgets on the market. One of the most important things to get right with knife sharpening is the angle you sharpen at. If you are sharpening your knife to use in a cooking application, you do not want to use a sharpening stone grit higher than 4, - 6, as the muscle and sinew can actually bend the edge of the knife. Along with different sharpening stone grits, sharpening stones also differ in the shape of their grit.

You might think any shaped grit is fine as long as the grit is the right size, and you would be mostly right. Some sharpening stones can be used dry, while others will be destroyed if used with oil, so please proceed with caution.

If you are unsure, please check with your manufacturer or refer to Google. An angle guide is a small tool placed underneath your knife to ensure a consistent angle throughout the duration of the sharpening. Inspect after several strokes to determine whether you are removing the sharpie.

Or invest in an angle guide. Most sharpening stones will have a different grit on each side. The rougher side is used to grind down the blade, while the fine grit side is used to sharpen. Imagine slicing a thin layer off the sharpening stone, or a slice of cheese off a block. Now drag the knife across the stone in the opposite direction. You can continue to sharpen that side of the knife until you're roughly halfway through creating the new edge.

Skip this step if you are sharpening your goal is a one sided edge such as a scandi or chisel grind. Begin sharpening the second side until you have created a new edge. A good way to tell is when the steel begins creating burrs. Steel burrs are naturally formed when one bevel is ground until it meets another.

The steel burrs will be too small to see, but you will be able to feel them by running your fingers from the dull part of the edge to the sharp part. Please do this carefully. This is almost exactly the same as steps 5 and 6, but this time your goal is to completely smooth the blade edge of all the burrs created by sharpening your knife across the coarser grit. Perform this action with the fine grit on both sides of your knife blade before continuing on the to the next step.

Instead of swiping one side of the knife blade across the sharpening stone multiple times, flip the knife each stroke. They all mean the same thing - a rod with a handle you use to sharpen knives. Typically the rod is made of steel, hence the name, but can also be ceramic or a diamond composite.