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Sharpening and Maintaining The Edge On Kitchen Knives
By Merv Dower at Coffs Sharpening Service
Most quality kitchen knives feature a double bevel edge, I
restore both the back or relief bevel (as its sometimes called),
and the actual cutting bevel (primary edge). When I sharpen a
lower grade knife with a single bevel edge I upgrade it to a
double bevel as its a much more efficient edge from the point of
both knife performance and edge durability.
Knife blade edges thicken over time
With continued sharpening of a knife with a sharpening stone
or steel it gradually thickens reducing the blades penetrating
and slicing ability, it needs thinning. On all knives I sharpen
I first restore the back bevel down to zero to thin the blade,
then I reset the primary cutting edge. I refer to this as
re-profiling the knife, not simply sharpening it!
What are the correct back and primary edge angles?
This depends on the type of work the knife is mainly used for.
For a general purpose knife used in the kitchen I set the back
bevel angle at 15 degrees and the primary at 20 degrees, this
gives the user a relatively thin knife with a good strong
primary edge, this primary edge is very small, less than half a
millimetre high and is very easy to maintain with a good steel
If my customer uses the knife or cleaver for mainly chopping I
will increase these angles to 20 & 25 degrees giving the knife a
stronger edge still, should the knife be designated to only
slicing and not likely to encounter hard bone I decrease the
angles to 10 & 15 degrees.
Some chefs want lower angles still, but it must be a top quality
knife with exceptionally good steel.
Chipped or uneven cutting edges
Should I get a knife where the edge is unevenly worn or badly
chipped I can grind the edge down flat first before setting both
cutting bevels. In this case there is a nominal cost over the
standard sharpening charge of $4.50. If I consider the knife is
not worth repairing I will recommend replacement. |
