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From novice sharpeners you can often hear the question: “What is needed for good knife sharpening?”. A comprehensive answer is required, and there are five factors that have a key influence on the results of the work:
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Quality sharpening device -
Suitable abrasive
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Knowledge of steels.
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Knowledge of sharpening methods and techniques
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Know how to sharpen knives (work skills)
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Let’s review them in order.
1. Sharpening device
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In the past, when sharpening knives by hand, the basic skill of the sharpener was the ability to maintain the desired angle while applying minimal pressure to the abrasive. This was a skill achieved through thousands of repetitions of the same movements, over a long period of time. However, with the advent of controlled angle sharpening machines, this skill has lost its power. Now the device itself creates the stability of maintaining the angle. And the sharpener just needs to find the right equipment for the job. It must meet several important criteria: ease of setting the sharpening angle, high speed of abrasive change, and ease of turning the knife in the clamps.
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TSPROF offers a full line of these machines. From the professional device Profile K03 Pro with electronic angle meter Axicube, to the most compact home – Blitz Pro. There are also devices with high mobility: Kadet Pro and TSPROF Pioneer. Now the sharpeners only need to make a choice, matching the device to their needs. All machine parameters can be found on our website.
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2. Selecting the appropriate abrasive
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We live in an era of maximum diversity in sharpening abrasives. It is hard to imagine that 100 years ago, all tasks were solved using only natural stones. Today, the market offers water and oil stones made of silicon carbide and aluminum oxide; diamond and elborium stones on galvanic, metal, organic, rubber and polymer bonds.
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With this choice, the main task of the sharpener to pick up the abrasive under the steel. And if with hard steels (including powder steels) everything is quite simple – diamond or elbor on the bond that the sharpener subjectively likes. But when selecting bars for the softest steels, first of all on cheap kitchen knives, there are difficulties. It is the most “simple” knives that cause the greatest problems in sharpening and require the maximum labor input. If a sharpener wants to become a master, he will have to acquire a wide pool of different abrasives and flexibly change them depending on the reaction of the steel in the process of work.
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However, there is an “easy” way – to buy any knives only from proven and quality manufacturers, giving preference to modern powder steels. In this case, it will be possible to use only one extended set of “superabrasives”. For example, such as TSPROF Alpha rubber-bonded diamond stones, which can be purchased on our site.
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3. Knowledge of the chemical compositions of knife steels
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Just like with abrasives, there is now a maximum selection of modern metals on the market that are used on knife blades. From the “simple” 420 stainless steel, to the most “advanced powders”. Knowledge of their chemical composition plays an important role, as it allows you to understand even before sharpening the approximate level of their heat treatment (hardness), and hence the degree of toughness/strength. These are very important criteria on which the choice of abrasive depends.
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Ductile, soft steels can behave unpredictably. It is not recommended to sharpen them with diamonds and elbors on an organic bond, as the abrasive in such work will quickly get sallow and lose grain. Also on these steels it is necessary to use diamonds on galvanic bond with caution, as it is possible to carve them out, especially with rough rough roughing stones, at small grinding angles. The best abrasives for such knives are ceramic-bonded aluminum oxide stones, including vacuum-sealed ceramics.
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Also, great care should be taken when sharpening hard carbon steels such as P6M5, P18, CVG, 9XS, etc. with diamond stones on any bond. These metals are often brought by manufacturers to the hardness limit of 63-65 HRC and can be pitted.
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The case with powder steels is somewhat simpler. Virtually all of them, provided that heat treatment standards are met, can be easily sharpened with diamonds on virtually any bond.
4. General knowledge of sharpening methods and techniques
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If you have a good knife sharpener and quality abrasives, as well as knowledge of knife steels, the next step is to gain knowledge of the sharpening process itself. The most important points here will be the rules of positioning the blade in the clamps, choosing the angle of sharpening according to the purpose of use of the knife, methods of deburring, the use of step sharpening, sharpening in the lens and many other nuances. You can get all this knowledge from the videos on our YouTube channel.
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5. Knife sharpening skills
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All of the previous elements add up to the main skill – the ability to use a sharpening machine and abrasives. Modern devices do a lot for a person and help even a beginner. But this does not exclude the need to have a “set” hand, to sharpen without pressure on the abrasive, to be able to reprofile the blade and correct possible irregularities of the factory approach (so-called “locksmithing”). In addition, a master sharpener knows how to deal with over-hardened or too soft steels, remove foil burr, know how to create the most transparent mirror on the approach, etc. Understanding of all these moments comes with experience. And it is experience that transforms all of the above factors into sharpening skill.
