The blades in the cutting tool are the foundation of everything. A kitchen knife, grinder discs, chains for a brushcutter or chainsaw with a well-sharpened blade simplify and speed up the work process.
You can sharpen the tool in a professional workshop or at home, if you make a machine for sharpening knives with your own hands from simple materials.
Household knives do not need a special sharpening tool; it is enough to have a sharpener in the form of a bar at hand. But if there is a chainsaw at home, the chains of which also need regular sharpening, or a grinder whose discs are constantly dull, then it is better to make an installation with your own hands. The essence of the device is as follows: a bar is attached to the desktop in two variations - with or without adjustment. For those who do not understand the essence of making a sharpener with their own hands from the text, you can watch a photo or video of master classes.
Fixture manufacturing scheme
In order for the device to be of high quality and safe, you need to calculate in advance the dimensions of the machine for sharpening knives with your own hands and select the necessary materials. The first thing to do is calculate the angle between the working part of the cutting blade and the bar.
This is followed by the selection of materials for the base (support) and stone. You can make the machine out of glass covered with sandpaper or stone attached to a support. The first option is less expensive, and the sandpaper can be changed at any time, but a more reliable installation is made of stone.
Nuances of the process
In order for the machine for sharpening knives according to do-it-yourself drawings to turn out ideal and serve for more than one year, you need to use the advice of specialists. The first thing to consider is what kind of blade will be sharpened.
After all, an individual angle is selected for each knife:
- Blades for cutting hard objects (for example, cardboard, wood, metal), chainsaws - 30-45 degrees.
- Hunting, tourist knives - at an angle of 25-30 degrees.
- Kitchen cutting tools for cutting various products need to be sharpened at 20-25 degrees.
- Simple knives for slicing bread, vegetables and fruits require 15-20 degrees of sharpening. Sharpen ordinary household scissors and razor knives at the same angle.
Necessary materials
If you need to make a sharpening machine, you will need the following materials:
- several wooden beams;
- sandpaper;
- sawing tools;
- drill with multiple drills.
Simple machine. Step-by-step instruction
- Step 1. Take three sticks and place them so that together they form the letter H. The width of the middle stick should be the same as the width of the saw bar. Repeat the procedure.
- Step 2. Place the sticks perpendicular to each other, connecting their bases - the main structure for holding the saw bar is ready.
- Step 3. This is one of the most important steps! It is necessary to correctly calculate the angle of attachment of the bar relative to the rails. Calculate it using measuring tools and mark the attachment points of the timber along the vertical and horizontal strips.
If you want a universal fixture, then you need to make several sliding bolts at once at a spacing distance so that you can change the slope of the beam if necessary. This can be done using simple measuring tools and drills. Then you can cut the slats to a comfortable length.
The disadvantage of such a machine is that you will have to independently control the location of the knife relative to the bar. If you don't want to think about anything at all while sharpening knives, scissors or chains, then you should make a more complex machine.
Universal machine. Step-by-step instruction
Read each step carefully and, where possible, draw a drawing for each step indicating all sizes - this will be an excellent help in your work:
- Cut two rectangular trapezoids out of plywood, the bases of which will be 60 and 170 mm, and the sidewall along the right angle is 230 mm.
- Cut a rectangular board measuring 230 x 150 mm.
- Fasten the rectangle between the bases so that it protrudes 40 mm upward.
- Cut a block out of 60 x 60 mm and secure it to the base of the wedge.
- Use a drill to make a vertical hole in the block 50 mm from the center. Insert the fittings at the top and bottom of the hole, and in them a pin corresponding to the diameter, 25 cm long.
- Process a rectangular base. At the level of 40 mm of the protrusion, cut about 2 mm so that a sheet of sandpaper can be attached to this place
- Make a retainer:
- Take an L-shaped bar with dimensions 15 by 18 cm along the long edges and an approximate width of each shelf up to 5 cm.
- Take a 5 x 5 cm rectangular plank.
- Make a groove in the plank at the level of the stud and fix the strips on it with minimal movement.
8. Make a traffic controller:
- Secure the hairpin with a nut so that it does not rotate.
- Cut a block from hard wood with dimensions of 20x40x80 mm and fasten it to the stud with nuts.
- On the wide side, make a 9 mm hole with a 15 mm distance from the edge.
- Cut two 50x80x20 mm blocks of hardwood and make one hole in them at a distance of 20 mm from the edge in the center.
- Take the stud and smooth rod weld and attach the blocks to it as follows: first the lock nut, then the first block. Then an aluminum profile, then a second bar and another lock.
- Glue the sandpaper to the aluminum profile.
The universal sharpening tool is ready. Cut out several templates with different angles to guide you when working. Remember that at every stage of creating a tool, pre-created drawings will help you - do not neglect this step, otherwise it will be very difficult to avoid mistakes.
No matter what you need to sharpen - a simple kitchen knife, gardening or nail clippers, or chainsaw chains - this tool will handle any job as long as you set the angle correctly and remember to use it when the need arises.
Everyone knows that working with a blunt knife is not only difficult, but also dangerous. Due to the slowing down of the working process, the tension in the muscles grows and the blade, which looks like it, will jump off, causing serious injury. Alternatively, you can use the services of a workshop, but this will take some time, which is often not enough and will require financial costs. But if there is a knife sharpening machine at home, the process is greatly accelerated.
Why knives lose their sharpness
Cutting products, whatever quality they are, become dull over time. This is due to the change in shape of the blades as a result of the loss of microscopic particles of the material from which the blade is made, when interacting with the object being cut. In addition, under pressure, which is sometimes quite strong, the cutting edge deforms as a result of deflection in either direction.
In addition, the cutting direction is not always maintained, which causes a curvature of the very edge of the knife surface and makes it difficult to pass along the notch line. This is especially evident in blades made from low-grade raw materials.
Many people think that knives dull much faster in hot water. This assumption is partly true, although it is not decisive. Such a tap liquid is saturated with salts and metals much stronger than a cold one, therefore, their interaction with the cutting surface has a negative, although not decisive, effect.
How to sharpen a blade
Household cutting accessories are made from special and powder steel grades. The structure of their sharpening resembles the teeth of rodents: the farther from the edge, the less hard the cutting layer.
Therefore, the ideal manual sharpening of knives occurs according to the push-pull principle or push-pull method (from the English push-pull sharpening):
- The cutting blade is first pushed away from itself with a scraping motion, with a slight turn to the side.
- Further, without detaching the blade from the sharpener, the movement occurs towards itself, with a turn in the opposite direction.
- This continues until complete sharpening, with a gradual weakening of the pressure.
This technique requires certain skills from the sharpener, as well as careful attitude to the blade itself. This method requires:
- Keep the tilt of the knife clearly, gradually changing it depending on the curvature of the knife.
- The contact spot of the blade should coincide with the tangent line of the wheelstone and be perpendicular to its longitudinal axis.
- The surface pressure must be changed smoothly.
It is difficult to carry out the process, observing all the rules when the blade moves in both directions, and the wrong result makes the blade unusable. To save the grinder from constant monitoring of the sharpening process, they came up with machines for sharpening knives.
Prerequisites for sharpening
Compliance with the angle between the edges of the blade when sharpening it is the key to effective use and a long service life of household accessories. It must be restored in accordance with technological standards, then there will be no problems with cutting. There is a sharpening angle for knives for various purposes:
It is difficult to maintain the required parameters without using a special device. Therefore, there are many ways to make them yourself. It's easy to do, and you will have to spend nothing at all.
Sharpening parts
No matter how many such devices have been invented, they have the same common features. The main and invariable parts of any grinding tool are;
- Abrasive component.
- Stubborn part.
All grinding components that are used at home and at work are available in stores. Here are the main ones:
- Ceramic bars.
- A natural stone.
- Diamond sharpener.
- Water Japanese devices.
The most popular and readily available abrasive is the ceramic bar, which is most commonly found in retail outlets. Most often this is an ordinary boat for coarse sharpening of the blade. There are two-sided bars, which are preferable for the household. This is an inexpensive device, replacing it with wear and tear will not bring large financial costs.
Grinding with diamond stones is more difficult and costly. In addition to the high price, such sharpeners quickly wear out the working part of the blade.
The best sharpening stones are natural and Japanese stones. However, their price is very high and they are not produced in our country.
Homemade grinder
In order to make a knife sharpener with your own hands, the first step is to find a suitable drawing. There are many modifications for its production.
The easiest way
This option does not require special skill and the use of expensive components. To make it you will need:
- Wooden corners with a side of 20-30 centimeters: 2 pieces.
- Screws with nuts, 10 pieces.
- Protractor for precise angle setting.
- You will also need a drill and drill bits.
For manufacturing, it is necessary to mark the corners and drill 3-4 holes at the same points. Install a block between them at the desired angle and fasten with bolts.
To sharpen a knife or scissors, you just need to hold the blade along the surface of the bar, keeping it strictly vertical.
To change the sharpening angle, simply loosen the fasteners and modify the position of the abrasive part. In order not to pick up the protractor every time, it is recommended to apply risks to the base, marking the main positions of the bar.
The ability to change the sharpening angle is the only advantage of such a manual knife sharpening machine. For convenience, it is not far from the usual bar.
The sharpening machine is more complicated
For more comfortable work, a more complex device will be required. ... To make it, you need the following parts and tools:
- Plywood, laminate or chipboard.
- Meter rail with a thickness and height of 2-4 centimeters. You can take two pieces, one is authentic, the other is shorter.
- Bolts with nuts - 2 pieces.
- Hacksaw and marking tool.
First you need to make a knife holder. To do this, from a piece of plywood, or what is available, you need to cut a rectangle measuring 10 by 4 centimeters (approximate dimensions). The wide part must be grinded off at an acute angle to prevent the bar from touching its edge when sharpening.
For the base, you need to cut out another piece of plywood with dimensions of 30 by 25 centimeters.
At a distance of 1-2 centimeters from its edge, the holder is placed with a cut outward and bolted. A blade will be located between them.
The next stage is the manufacture of a rack from a long strip, along which the bar moves at a fixed angle. It must be installed vertically on the base and the angle measured in relation to the holder. The upper part is cut at an appropriate angle. In a similar way, the second post is cut off and connected with the remainder of the rail from above, so that the result is a U-shaped part.
The assembled structure is attached to the base on the side opposite to the holder. This can be done with screws or wood glue.
It remains to make the base for the abrasive part. To do this, glue sandpaper with grit from P600 to P2000 on a short bar.
To work with such a sharpener, it is better to place it on the edge of the table so that the protruding bolts connecting the base and the blade holder rest against it, thus preventing the device from sliding.
Electrical devices
These are the most versatile devices. The angle of sharpening when using them is selected independently, it is enough to choose the desired position of the blade. The main part of an electric knife sharpening machine is emery wheels with different grain sizes and inclination. The discs are driven by an electric motor. Therefore, volatility is a disadvantage, although not the main one in the use of such equipment.
The main disadvantage of this sharpening method is the inability to visually control the process, since all rotating mechanisms are completely closed to ensure safety during sharpening.
It is impossible to make such a device at home. Therefore, it is easier to do: a disc or a belt abrasive is attached to a conventional electric motor. In the case of a round stone, a stop is installed with the ability to change the inclination of the blade. Any cutting tools can be restored on such a machine.
Errors in manual work
Not every family has professional specialists for such work. In order to properly sharpen the blade, you need to avoid typical mistakes that beginners make:
Model overview
In addition to homemade sharpening devices, there are many factory-made similar devices. The most popular ones are:
These are the most well-known brand names, and cheaper and simpler devices can be purchased for $ 20-30.
Electrical installations are much more convenient, but also more expensive. From 120 to 250-300 dollars there are small Chief's Choice fixtures of various modifications. Their sharpening angle is fixed, 20 degrees, and is used for sharpening flat knives in cafes and restaurants.
The same company offers a large number of mechanical devices that represent an abrasive bar in a housing, set at a certain angle. You will have to pay from 40 to 50 dollars for them.
Sharpening knives is a process that even gentle female hands can handle. Indeed, in our time there are many devices that facilitate this task. Ceramic knives, for example, do not require sharpening, which is very convenient, and steel knives require periodic sharpening, since the material is dull. To sharpen the knives, you can use coated abrasive bars or a knife sharpener.
- Grinding bar.
- Special cut files.
- Sharpening accessories.
- Knife sharpening machines.
Note.
Sharpening knives the old fashioned way, of course, is a good and effective way, but a finely tuned machine for household use gives a better result with the desired angle of formation of the blade edge.
Knife sharpening rules
Experts recommend following a number of rules in order to obtain high-quality knife sharpening at home, which in turn will reduce the number of blade sharpenings.
If you are a proponent of using an abrasive bar, start with the sharpest part of the blade, and end with the duller one, namely the one that is little involved in the cutting process. Often the process starts in the middle, moving towards the edge of the blade with a slight twist. The shape of the knife and its thickness affects the angle of the blade. The sharpener for kitchen knives performs turning at an angle of 25 °, the blade is tilted over the bar by 12 - 13 °.
The type of sharpening machine for planer knives and the material from which it is made also affects the quality of the work.
On various Internet resources, you can find special videos that clearly show the process of sharpening a knife blade.
Note.
Knives are manufactured mainly from alloy and carbon steel. Hardened steel needs to be sharpened with a bar with an abrasive, stainless steel - with a triangular file. This is due to the fact that relatively soft metals, during the sharpening process, forget the surface of the bar with the abrasive. The forged blade is quite flexible, so it is advisable to fix it and sharpen it with a bar in casual movements. Frequent use of abrasive stones contributes to the formation of a greasy film on the surface, which must be rubbed off.
Previously, table sharpening machines for knives were made of wedge-shaped bars and oak. The bars were placed on both sides of the wooden blade, so that the cutting edge was free. The structure was pulled with a rope and with the help of a sharpening stone the blades were sharpened to the utmost sharpness, thus obtaining an excellent sharpening angle.
Sharpening knives used in planers is done as follows: on a glass of large thickness, impose an emery cloth with a fine fraction, the beveled part of the cutting edge on an abrasive and sharpen in a circular motion.
Sharpening knives at home
For this purpose, you need to take a block of hard wood, the surface of which is formed by sharpening at a certain angle necessary to form the edge of the blade. This makes it possible to keep the corner of the cut edge. For the convenience of sharpening the blade, fix the blade in the plane of the bar using self-tapping screws.
Sharpening machine for jointer knives, make a tool with your own hands, this will make it possible to make the process easier, and the quality of work is much higher. The main thing is to follow the rules and nuances in work, and there will be no problems.
The do-it-yourself knife sharpening machine is designed to facilitate working with metal products. You can sharpen your home tool with your own hands with the help of improvised tools, and you cannot do without a machine in production. There are more volumes and more serious tools.
Professional knife sharpening machines
The sharpest tool is considered a rock knife or a carving knife.
This is used by butchers for butchering animal carcasses, and cutting the skins. With such intense work, the tool blade dulls extremely quickly. If the volume of work is not too large, sharpening can be done on a conventional machine, which is equipped with control over the angle of the blade edge. Knife sharpeners in the meat processing industry are mainly used by KNECHT USK 160. Such machines are universal, so absolutely any knives can be sharpened on them.
At enterprises engaged in woodworking and in carpentry shops, equipment is installed that can cope with large volumes of work. It uses a tool that has long-blade jointers and planers. Metal sharpening takes place on equipment with a mechanical drive, which feeds the tool for sharpening.
When trying to sharpen a tool yourself with a sharpening bowl
... without the use of fixation and guides, zones with different angles will form on the blade. When processing wood with a poorly sharpened tool, you will get an uneven cut and a wavy surface. The sharpening machine for flat knives has a simple vertical design, the discs are sharpened on machines with a separator and a rotating table.
Universal knife sharpener
This type of equipment is best suited for enterprises that perform large volumes of work per day. No one is going to tinker with metal by hand, since it is hard work. The VZ-319 benchtop machine is equipped with a rigid bed and a precisely fitted mechanical drive. Therefore, it copes with the sharpening of any type of tool - planers, cutters, knives, etc.
For domestic use, the Tormek T7 model is suitable. The equipment of this unit is large, there are many attachments and additional elements for sharpening kitchen knives, scissors and other tools.
Making a knife sharpener with your own hands
It is quite simple to make a knife sharpener for household use, for this you need a piece, or, a wooden rail, sandpaper, bolts with thumbs. The first step is to make a knife holder, for this purpose cut a piece of material. In order to avoid clinging of the bar to the holder, you need to clean the edge at a certain angle using emery. On a vertical stand, mark up and cut off the top, this will serve as the basis for. The angle is set to half that required for sharpening the blade.
For household knives, the angle is 10 - 15 °. To facilitate the work on the construction of a knife sharpening machine, make a drawing, so it will be much easier for you. Take into account the fact that the height is influenced by the transverse base. Finally, all elements must be trimmed and sanded. Then, you need to make holes for the bolts in the plate, which will fix the blade. When marking, determine the distance of the holes from the edge of the base. This will allow you to sharpen blades of varying thickness.
In the next step, the plate needs to be secured using bolts. Racks of vertical position are fixed with screws. It is important to remember that the pressure on the bottom is small, therefore thermal glue can be used to fix the elements. The horizontal bar is attached in the same way.
To make a bar, you need to cut a rail of a certain length. At one edge, sandpaper is attached with a sufficient fraction of abrasive particles. In order to achieve the best result in work, you can make more bars with different abrasives. A good grit range is considered to be P600 - P2000.
Note.
In order to protect your hands from injury when sharpening the tool, screw the handle onto the top of the rail. Thus, you get a machine for home use with good functional properties.
In the process of sharpening knives, the device receives support on the table, which in turn makes it easier to work with it.
The process of sharpening a knife or any tool does not require any outstanding skill or knowledge of special movements. In most cases, the sharpening of a knife, even the most original and expensive, can be done with ordinary abrasive stones or sharpening devices. But on one condition - it is necessary to try to follow the recommendations of specialists engaged in sharpening tools in an industrial environment.
How to sharpen a knife
There can be several answers to the question of how to sharpen a knife:
- You can restore the tool using a sharpening bar or a set of triangular files with a fine notch;
- Use a knife sharpener. The main difference between this method and the previous version is that the lodgement for the blade allows you to maintain a stable edge sharpening angle;
- Use a knife sharpener.
Note! Whatever hand-sharpening enthusiasts may say, a properly tuned machine or miniature machine will handle edge angle formation much better than a hand-held bar.
For ordinary people, sharpening knife edges is a daily matter, and if there is a choice, to use a machine for sharpening knives with your own hands or to sharpen a blade with manual adjustment of the cutting edge for several hours, then apparently common sense will choose a sharpening machine.
How to get a sharp edge of a kitchen knife correctly
The movement and inclination of the blade relative to the bar is not as obvious as it might seem at first glance. To correctly understand the sharpening technique, you can use the video about sharpening knives:
Note! Modern knives are made from a wide variety of carbon and alloy steels. Hardened forged steel must be sharpened with an abrasive block, and relatively tough stainless steel only with a triangular file.
Blades made of soft and tough steels with low chromium and carbon content can be sharpened with a file while clogging the abrasive stone surface very quickly. Flexible forged blades must be fixed with a stop and sharpened with a bar, sliding movements. Regular use of a kitchen knife sharpener leads to a greasy surface, which must be restored by roughing.
The old device for sharpening forged knives was made in the form of two wedge-shaped bog oak bars. The bars were laid on both sides of the blade so that the cutting edge remained free, the "sandwich" was pulled over with a string and was sharpened with an ordinary sharpening stone to a razor sharpness. The hardwood wedges allowed the block to be guided correctly and to obtain the desired sharpening angle.
According to the recommendations given, manual sharpening of planer knives is performed. A fine-grained emery cloth is glued onto thick glass, but it is installed with the beveled part of the cutting edge on the abrasive surface and sharpened in a circular motion.
Sharpening of a ceramic knife turns out to be more difficult; manually the cutting edge can be corrected with a diamond-coated file, or using a special grinding paste.
Home options for sharpening a knife
The simplest tool for sharpening knives is shown in the diagram. To make it, you need a hardwood block, the upper plane of which is sharpened at the angle of the formation of the cutting edge. This solution helps to maintain the correct bevel angle. To sharpen the blade more conveniently, to fix the blade in the plane of the bar, you can wrap a pair of self-tapping screws.
To sharpen planing knives, you can make your own sharpener attachment, shown in the photo. This solution simplifies the process and allows you to sharpen the blade as sharply as possible, but the lack of mechanization requires a certain skill and dexterity from the master.
Devices and machines for dressing and sharpening knives
Sharpening knives is definitely a creative activity that requires a lot of patience and skill. But is it worth spending time and energy on solving a problem that a specially designed machine or a knife sharpening device can successfully cope with? If for knives, household tools, for example, planers, kitchen or cutting blades, you can try to restore the cutting edge of the blade with your own hands, then even sharpening devices will not help for industrial volumes. You will need a powerful and productive machine.
Machines for sharpening carving knives
The highest form of a sharp knife blade are non-rarity models with chrome-plated blades and handles made of rare wood species. These are rather museum pieces or their cheap imitation. The example of the sharpness of the blade is considered to be a cutting or rock cutter, which is used to cut raw meat and skins for 12 hours a day. It is in such conditions that the edge of a forged knife made of high-quality steel dulls unusually quickly.
For small amounts of chopping work, knife blades can be sharpened on simple machines with automatic control of the cutting edge angle.
Professional equipment KNECHT USK 160 is most often used for cutting sections of meat processing enterprises. The machine has a high degree of versatility, which allows sharpening the entire range of cutting tools, from fillet blades to cutting shears.
Machine tools for sharpening cutting elements of carpentry tools
Sharpening knives for woodworking machines requires the mandatory use of specialized machine tools. If you can sharpen a relatively short blade of a household knife or a hand planer manually using a simple device, then long and sharp blades of jointers and planers must be sharpened using a mechanical feed drive of the sharpening tool.
If you try to sharpen the tool with your own hands on a sharpening cup without support and guide slides, areas with different sharpening angles are formed on the cutting edge. When processing wood, this leads to the formation of an uneven wavy surface of the board or solid wood.
Small flat knife blades can be sharpened on a simple vertical machine.
Circular saws are usually sharpened on machines equipped with a divider and a rotary table.
Universal sharpening machines
In the work of small carpentry shops, woodworking sites, repair offices, universal sharpening machines are used, capable of sharpening a very large range of cutting tools, including sharpening guillotine knives.
An example is the desktop model of the VZ-319 machine. Thanks to its rigid base and correctly selected gear ratios of the mechanical drive, the unit can sharpen almost any tool, from planer blades to cylindrical cutters.
Conclusion
Sharpening knives has long gone beyond the scope of handicraft skills into the category of a common mechanical operation. A large number of all kinds of machines and devices, table-top machines and automatic machines are capable of performing difficult work within a few minutes. A high-quality sharpener bought once in a lifetime can last for several decades, eliminating the problems of sharpening knife blades.
In the household, such a simple device as a knife is constantly used. In the process of work, sooner or later the knives begin to dull. It becomes uncomfortable and often unsafe to use such household utensils. When cutting food, such a knife can break off and cause injury, so knives in the household should always be quite sharp. To do this, this tool should be periodically sharpened.
Very often at home, in order to sharpen their cutting tool, they use regular sharpeners or abrasive stones, which does not always lead to a good result. Learning how to sharpen your kitchen tool with sharpeners takes a lot of practice, because if the sharpening angle is incorrect, the tool will not have the required sharpness. To carry out work on sharpening knives, there are both the simplest sharpeners with an angular gap shape, as well as a variety of factory grinders and complex electric grinders.
The simplest sharpener made of wooden bars
In order to independently make the simplest device for sharpening knives, you need a couple of abrasive bars. Then we take two identical wooden blanks and using sandpaper we carry out their processing... We process the blanks carefully so that there are no irregularities and burrs on them.
After that, we mark on wooden blocks the places where the sharpening stones will be installed. To do this, draw lines on the bar where the sharpening stones will be attached, taking into account the required angle of sharpening the blade. Attaching sharpening stones to the lines drawn, fix their thickness. Using the obtained markings, we make cuts with a depth of 1–1.5 cm. Choosing wood from the cuts and inserting the whetstones there, we should get a structure in which the wooden bars clamp the whetstones. In this case, the abrasives are located at an angle of sharpening of knives.
For the final assembly of our homemade design, you need drill two holes in wooden blocks and pull them off with bolts. Abrasive stones must be stationary. To prevent the knife from slipping when sharpening the knives, a rubberized gasket can be attached to the bottom of the bars.
Manual homemade knife sharpener
Currently, home craftsmen have developed a variety of designs for sharpening knives. They differ in both the principle of operation and the materials and tools required for manufacturing. If you decide to make a tool for sharpening knives with your own hands, drawings of such structures can be found on the Internet. According to the principle of operation, the machines are divided into two types.
The knife is fixed, the whetstone moves.
Such a device is quite simple to make. Structurally, such a machine consists of two main parts.
The sharpening block is fixed, the knife moves.
The second tool for sharpening the blade is based on the fact that the whetstone is fixed to the base, the sharpening of the blade is done by moving the knife. With this method of sharpening, a device is made in the form of a movable cart, on which the knife is rigidly fixed. The sharpening angle is set by the height of the bar relative to the platform.
Moving the cart with the clamped knife back and forth, the blade is sharpened, however, you need to adapt to sharpening the rounded edges of the blade. For high-quality sharpening, you need to place this device on a perfectly flat surface, for example, by laying a sheet of glass on the table or using a natural stone countertop.
Choice of bars for sharpening knives
When making a homemade knife sharpening machine, the main component will be a whetstone. To choose correct type of abrasive, you need to know the parameters of the bars, as well as what tool they are intended for sharpening. There are seven types of whetstones. The materials from which they are made are called abrasives.
Abrasive material can be natural and artificial. Artificial abrasives are made from a wide variety of materials, they differ in quality, strength and price. Natural abrasives are novaculite and Japanese water stones. The main parameters of whetstones are grain size and dimensions. In order to completely sharpen the knife, three types of grit are required.
- Coarse-grained... Designed for initial processing, blade shape correction.
- Medium-grained... Designed for sharpening, debugging after primary processing.
- Fine-grained... Designed for polishing and finishing the blade.
For domestic needs, sharpeners are also made with two types of grain on both sides of the bar.
DIY knife sharpening rules
It is not safe to use blunt knives, therefore, if the blade becomes blunt, sharpen it. It is important that when sharpening the cutting tool is located strictly perpendicular to the direction of the bar, and the knife must also be sharpened at the same angle along the entire blade.
Most kitchen cutting tools are factory-sharpened between 20 and 25 degrees. When sharpening for domestic use, this angle can be slightly reduced to about 15 degrees, which will increase its cutting properties. Processing should be started from the beginning of the blade; to control the sharpening angle and quality, you can paint over the processed part of the blade with a marker. Since in the process of use it wears out unevenly, when sharpening, you should focus on the bluest part of the blade.
We have all come across a situation where there is no desire or opportunity to buy a special device for professional knife sharpening or seek help from a master. There is a great way out - hand-made assembly for sharpening knives. For a safer and better sharpening, use it strictly for its intended purpose. The plus is that you can independently choose the mode and level of difficulty, this will allow you to quickly and efficiently achieve the desired result.