Coffs Sharpening Service - Merv Dower

Professional knife and garden tool sharpening service
I am equipped to sharpen knives, scissors, secateurs, hedge clippers & trimmers

Knives - Kitchen & Others

Dressmaking & Embroidery Scissors

Hedge Clippers, Electric & Petrol Powered Trimmers

Secateurs

Prices from $5.00

Same day Service 8am – 6pm 7 days a week service.
While you wait or shop by prior phone arrangement.

Jetty Market Sharpening

We also sharpen Scissors & knives every Sunday at the Jetty markets in Coffs Harbour
near the southern entrance in the undercover car park

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 hone the edge down flat first before setting both cutting bevels. In this case there is a nominal cost over the standard sharpening charge.
If I consider the knife is not worth repairing I will recommend replacement.