Sharpening set for knives with your own hands. Sharpening machine with your own hands. Do-it-yourself knife sharpeners: types and drawings

Almost everyone has home master available cutting tools. Over time, the cutting edges lose their former sharpness, and working with such a product becomes unbearable. There are two options for solving this problem: give the tool for sharpening and pay a lot of money, or assemble a device for sharpening knives yourself and sharpen the products with your own hands.

Reasons for a dull blade

Blade blunting can be explained as follows. During cutting, the smallest abrasive particles, whether fruits or vegetables, act on the blade. The cutting edge of the blade is gradually erased, and the knife becomes dull. Another reason is the retention of the blade when cutting at a certain angle.

On some parts of the blade, the load increases, and increased wear occurs.

There are types of knives that cannot be sharpened on their own because of the embossed blades. Also, knives made of ceramics cannot be sharpened. But, as a rule, the quality of steel for such products is high, and they rarely become dull. There is a variety of knives of low quality, and they have to be sharpened very often. As practice shows, if the steel is of poor quality, then sharpening will solve the problem for a while, and then the blade will become dull again.

To sharpen knives, you will need abrasive wheels. If it is not possible to purchase ready-made circles, then you can make them yourself using wooden bars and sandpaper different graininess.

The standard sharpening angle is 20 - 30 degrees. It is quite difficult to maintain the angle during sharpening, and therefore it is necessary to make a simple knife sharpener, in which it is not necessary to maintain the optimal angle. The basic rule in this process is the observance of a precisely set constant angle. Strength is not required here. The main thing is that the bar and the blade meet at a certain angle. This is the basic rule of sharpening technique.

Basic Mistakes

As it may seem at first glance, sharpening is simple, but if you delve into the process itself, you can notice a fairly large number of different nuances. Most people make commonplace mistakes when sharpening knives, which leads to uneven sharpening or damage to the knife. Common Mistakes when sharpening:

The cutting edge has not been sharpened. As a result, small burrs form on the sides, which temporarily sharpen the blade, and after a short work with the knife, the blade becomes dull again. To prevent this problem, carefully sharpen both edges, and then, as you sharpen, use sandpaper or a circle of different grain sizes.
The presence of paint, oil, dirt on the tip. The bottom line is that when turning, grease, dirt, oil and other components are mixed with grinding abrasives and lead to scratches and micro-splitting of the blade. After such sharpening, the blade becomes dull quickly.
Pressure plays an important role. It is necessary to remember one simple rule: sharpness does not depend on the applied force, but on the duration of sharpening. Excessively strong pressure leads to chipping of microparticles from the blade and to poor-quality sharpening.
Wrong choice of angle. The angle may vary - depending on the grade of steel and on the purpose of the tool. For home kitchen knives it is 20 - 25 degrees. For other types of blades that have to withstand heavy loads and work with hard materials, the angle will be 40 degrees.

Guided by simple, but at the same time relevant rules for sharpening, you can not only save time, but also not spoil the product.

Sharpener "House"

Nice tool for sharpening knives. Despite simple design The sharpener does its job well. This design consists of a rectangular bar, the upper face of which is made in the form gable roof. The angle of inclination of one face is 20 - 25 degrees, which is optimal. The product must be installed with a blade close to one of the ridges of the roof, then take an abrasive wheel or a bar with emery and move along a horizontal line. This ensures a constant angle of inclination, which leads to uniform sharpening of the blade.

There are also complex structures homemade grinder. For the manufacture will need the following materials:

A piece of board measuring 500x150x20 mm.
Threaded metal stud that will serve as a guide for the bar.
M8 bolts and nuts and wood screws.
Clamping nuts or nuts - "lamb".
Ordinary textolite or plexiglass, which will serve as a substrate for a knife and a kind of movable bed.
To attach the knife, you should take a neodymium magnet. The usual one will not work, since its downforce is quite small.

The board must be cleaned, processed, and then made into a rectangle. Another board should be made in a rectangular shape, which will serve as a stand or support. Its height should be such that the slope of the main board is 20 degrees. You can fasten them together with wood screws. Then attach the resulting structure to the workbench or cut out the tabletop in advance, to which one of the studs will be attached. After securely fastening the stud to the tabletop, you need to take a 200x100 bar and make two holes in it: one for the main stud, on which the movable carriage with a sharpener will be attached, and the other for the stud, which is attached to the tabletop.

Now you can start assembling the carriage with the sharpener holder. On the pin that will hold the carriage, you need to make two clips made of wood, plexiglass or metal. Drill holes in the clamps, put them on the stud and fix them on both sides with nuts. The carriage will rotate freely on its axis.

The next step will be the installation of a neodymium magnet on a previously prepared plate. It needs to be done longitudinal groove- so that the tripod can be moved up and down. Drill a hole in the middle of the bed and insert a bolt with a nut, which, in turn, will press the plate. At the end of the plate, you can simply glue a neodymium magnet to hold the knife.

Homemade device is ready to use. With it, you can sharpen chisels and planers.

It should be noted that sharpening is carried out without water, so the abrasive paper or wheel will wear out a lot, but this option is quite suitable for sharpening knives and tools at home.

home knife sharpener

If the farm has a grinding machine, it will facilitate the process, but there is one circumstance. When sharpening on the machine, it is almost impossible to evenly press on the knife. Therefore, it is possible to make a knife sharpener that will serve as a guide for the blade and provide uniform pressure. Get a simple but effective electric sharpener. For its manufacture you will need the following components:

Bar.
Four bolts or four studs with M8 thread.
Four lambs.
Wood screws.

Opposite the electric grinder, a guide is attached along which the slider will move. The guide itself can be attached to a workbench or pre-made frame. She must be mobile. To do this, you can cut a longitudinal groove in the frame and fix the tripod with two pins. Then take two bars, drill holes on the sides, insert the studs and tighten them with lambs on both sides. The next step will be the mount on which the cutting product will lie. This can be done using small pieces of timber, which should be attached to the sides of the moving carriage.

After that, you can start sharpening. Set the movable carriage to the desired height and clamp it with the lambs. Move the tripod itself to the desired distance, securely fasten and sharpen the product by moving the knife along the side guides.

Sharpener LM

If in the future it is planned to engage in professional tool sharpening in large quantities, then you can make a sharpener, which is called: Lansky-Metabo. Fixture drawings for sharpening knives with your own hands are as follows:

If the product is clamped in the clamps by the root part, then the sharpening angle will be the largest. A knife with such an angle can be used as a "cleaver" and processing hard rock wood. You can also sharpen knives with ease. planer. Clips for a knife can be made from a corner or from a tree. The disadvantage of this design is the complexity of the assembly and the large number of parts.

If it is not possible to collect complex tool for sharpening knives, you can get by with improvised means and make manual knife sharpeners. A simple sharpener can be made from a corner frame in which a whetstone is mounted.

If the sharpener is supplemented with a sliding carriage, then you do not have to hold the knife at a certain angle, which, in turn, will have a good effect on sharpening the blade. To make a movable carriage, you will need a triangular bar and a magnet. It is best to use a neodymium magnet, which allows you to attract the knife and fix it securely. If there is no such magnet, then you can take components from the HDD (hard disk).

Before you give a knife or other product for sharpening, you should familiarize yourself with the material that will help not only in making a sharpener with your own hands, but also save a certain amount. The main aspect is to gain additional experience that will come in handy in the future.

Interest in making knife sharpeners with your own hands arises for a reason. The consumer qualities of a hand cutting tool are enhanced by the use of modern materials and technologies for blade manufacturing and precise factory sharpening. At the same time, the price of the product is also growing, but it is becoming easier to spoil a fairly expensive thing with primitive sharpening. Therefore, various household appliances for sharpening knives are needed not only for convenience. To figure out why a knife sharpener is still needed and how to make it right, you have to start with the ideology and evolution of the knife.

Why you need a sharpener

A living relic of our days is a Finnish hunting knife. Not a gangster finca, sometimes of a bizarre shape, but a hunting knife Finnish type, on the left in Fig. Traditional Hunter knives(in the center and on the left) are similar in shape to it, but the difference between them is very large.

The blade of a Finnish knife is forged from bloomery iron, which can be smelted right in your yard from swamp ore in a domnitsa furnace, without resorting to the blast furnace process, puddling, and other methods of converting cast iron into iron and steel. The viscosity of bloom iron is excellent, it is very difficult to break a blade from it. But the hardness is also low, somewhere around HRS55, the knife gets dull pretty quickly. Finnish hunters did not care: a blade of such hardness can be directed (sharpened) by beating on many natural stones, and smoothed moraine boulders in Fennoscandia have always been enough.

They sharpen the knife with a beating in much the same way as they beat off a scythe, only the touchstone is motionless, and the blade is moved. First, he is pulled along the donkey with the butt away from himself, then he is turned over and pulled with the butt towards him. The position of the cutting edge (RK) on the touchstone is always dragging; the movements are fast: shirk-shirk! On each movement, you need to keep the contact patch of the blade with the touchstone (see below), but the requirements for maintaining the angle of inclination are not so strict. Learning how to sharpen a knife with a bevel is not very difficult, and with some skill, you can also aim a smoothly running profile at the blade, see below. However, the Finnish knife is, in general, a dead end in the evolution of a cutting tool that has survived in special natural conditions.

A good knife has never been cheap, but in extreme situation the durability of the blade, combined with the toughness of the blade, became vital circumstances. Therefore, even in ancient times, knife blades learned to be hardened from the surface and cemented: the core remained viscous, not brittle, and a hard, hardened crust formed on the outside, see next. rice.:

It is still possible to direct a knife with a cemented blade with a beating, but a skill is needed that is not given to everyone. And the abrasive is already needed from a special breed of stone - lithographic grunstein shale. It is scarce in nature; grunstein is still considered a strategic raw material. There is no artificial grunstein and is not expected. Spoiling a cemented knife with an inept chop is as easy as shelling pears - a little somewhere, the cementation bark will be torn off to raw metal (this is not visible to the eye), the knife will only be thrown away, the blade will immediately become dull and will crumble.

Note: if you have an old slightly greenish scythe touchstone lying around somewhere, do not throw it away, it is a valuable rarity.

Knife blades don't need the toughness and toughness of hunting and camping knives, and they should cost a lot less. As a result, special steels and powder metallurgy are widely used in the production of home knives. The blade of the "eternal" kitchen knife is structured like a rodent cutter: in longitudinal layers, the hardness of which decreases from the core outwards. In any case, you have to sharpen the knife less often, but the beating is definitely excluded - the blade from it immediately crumbles.

How do you sharpen a knife?

For these reasons, the push-pull sharpening technology (push-pull sharpening or push-pull sharpening technique) has long been invented:

The blade is pushed along the touchstone away from oneself with a twist, holding the butt towards oneself, the position of the RK is running (scraping);
Then, without tearing the blade from the touchstone, they pull it with the butt towards themselves with a twist in reverse side, RK dragging position;
The blade is turned over and repeat paragraphs. 1 and 2;
Pp. 1-3 are repeated, in each cycle reducing the pressure, until the burr formed on the RC comes to naught (does not stick together).

Note: when they say or write “the burr will go away”, etc., this is not true. Metalheads have a slang word for slang; electricians have a “switch”. But in Russian, a burr and a switch are masculine.

Push-pull sharpening saves the blade, but requires high skill from the operator, because. during the sharpening process, a number of conditions must be continuously and precisely observed, see also fig. below:

Maintain the angle of inclination of the blade to the touchstone, smoothly changing it in accordance with the curvature of the RK.
Make sure that the tangent to the generatrix of the blade and the transverse axis of the contact patch of the RC with the touchstone coincide.
Also make sure that the axis of the contact patch is always perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the touchstone.
Smoothly change the pressure on the blade as the area of the contact patch changes.

It is very difficult to meet all these conditions at the same time, completely symmetrically on the forward and reverse stroke of the blade along the touchstone, and a modern knife, as mentioned above, can be damaged by improper sharpening. Any household knife sharpener is just designed to save the grinder from continuous control of at least part of these conditions.

Note: for successful push-pull sharpening, the length of the whetstone (see below) must be at least 2 lengths of the knife blade from shank to tip.

Sharpening profiles

The profile of a knife blade is linked to the properties of the material and the structure of the blade, as well as to the properties of the materials for which the tool is intended to be processed. Sharpening on a simple blunt wedge (pos. 1 in the figure) gives a stable but rough blade: cutting resistance is high, and the knife tears quite viscous materials. A sharp wedge (pos. 2) quickly becomes dull or chipped; on viscous and / or fibrous materials, the cutting resistance may be greater than with a blunt wedge due to the friction of the cut against the blade.

Ideal in all respects is an animated (smoothly escaping) profile, pos. 3. Experts are still arguing which generator is better - evolvent, hyperbola or exponential. But one thing is indisputable - it is difficult and expensive to make an ogival blade under production conditions, and it is impossible to direct it yourself. Therefore, knives with ogive sharpening are used only in special equipment, for example. microtomes - biological devices for obtaining the thinnest tissue sections.

For disposable blades, e.g. blades of safety razors, faceted sharpening is used, pos. 4, i.e. An ogive generatrix, as mathematicians say, is approximated by line segments. The number of sharpening edges is indicated in the certificate or on the manufacturer's website. For thick coarse bristles better fit 3-4-sided; for delicate hair not on the face - 8-sided. Universal is considered 6-sided.

Angle α

The sharpening angle is always given in half the value of α, because many tools and, for example, bayonet-knives, are sharpened on one side. For knives for various purposes, the angle α is maintained in the following. limits:

10-15 degrees - medical scalpels, straight razors, knives for artistic carving.
15-20 degrees - confectionery (for cakes) and vegetable knives.
20-25 degrees - bread and fillet knives.
25-30 degrees - hunting, camping, survival knives.
30-35 degrees - general purpose household knives.
35-40 degrees - carpentry tools, shoe knives, axes.

One and a half

Sharpening knives, except for special ones, is done almost exclusively with a one-and-a-half profile, on the left in fig. One-and-a-half sharpening is so named because the flat edge of the blade (descent) is formed during the manufacture of the blade and cannot be sharpened. In fact, guiding a knife with one and a half sharpening is no more difficult than sharpening a simple wedge. One and a half sharpening is optimal for a knife that works with the most different materials, and making a sharpener for knives with one and a half sharpening is much easier than for sharpening a faceted one.

In the center and on the right in Fig. the stages of sharpening the blade and the numbers of abrasives used on them are shown. The abrasive number corresponds to the number of its grains per 1 sq. mm surface. The finishing stage has some features:

Hunting and camping knives are not brought. So it is easier to cut hard (eg, bones) with a broach (with filing) with them. In addition, if you accidentally cut yourself, then a slightly lacerated wound stops bleeding faster, heals more easily, and there is less danger of infection entering it.
The blades of dangerous razors, shoe knives and for artistic carving after abrasive are brought to a mirror smoothness on a leather whetstone with GOI paste.
Guiding and finishing the blades of kitchen knives can be reduced to one operation with abrasive No. 800-1100.

Touchstone

A home-made knife sharpener will be much more convenient and accurate if you don’t buy a donkey for it, but make it from a piece of a square professional pipe 200-300 mm long (on the left in the figure below) or wooden block.

The edges of the base are glued sandpaper resp. numbers. Glue - clerical glue stick. The advantages of a skin-based touchstone are obvious:

Much cheaper than an emery bar.
It can be made on 4 abrasive numbers, while emery stones are maximum 2-sided.
Wear (development) of the abrasive is possible no more than the thickness of the abrasive layer of the skin; the waviness of the RK due to the rotation of the touchstone on the sharpener rod (see below) is also no more than this value.
As a result, the error in the angle of sharpening from the development and rotation of the touchstone does not exceed fractions of a degree.
A touchstone from a pipe can be put on threaded rod(center in the figure), which makes changing the abrasive faster and easier.
A whetstone made of a pipe or a wooden block is held in any clamps for an emery block no worse than the latter, on the right in fig.

Knife sharpeners

The simplest manual knife sharpener is an angular frame in which a whetstone is clamped, pos. 1 next. rice. The same type of “company” is on sale, and this is marketing, marketing: for a plastic board with inclined sockets for donkeys, they want up to $50 or more. Touchstones - non-standard sizes; Ordinary holes won't fit. Worked out - you need to buy the original ones. Price - you know. And all the convenience - when sharpening, keeping the blade strictly vertical is still easier than maintaining its angle of inclination.

Use the simplest sharpener for knives can be further simplified to the complete absence of the need for skills, if supplemented with a sliding shoe with magnetic holder for a knife, pos. 2. The order of sharpening in this case is the following:

The knife is held by the handle with the right hand, turning in the direction of travel according to the curvature of the blade;
With the fingers of the left hand, except for the big one, they press the shoe to the touchstone;
With the thumb of the left hand, they press on the butt of the blade, pressing the RC to the abrasive.

The function of maintaining the angle of inclination is removed from the operator, and the rest are distributed to 2 hands. In this case, the skill of sharpening with one's own hands is developed immediately, but a holder is needed that firmly holds the knife and at the same time allows it to slide over its surface. This can be done from the magnets of the carriage drive of the write-read heads from an unusable HDD drive (hard drive). The “screw” carriage drive magnets are niobium, thin, flat, smooth and very strong (shown by red arrows in pos. 3). They are glued with DIFFERENT poles on a steel strip, the force of attraction of the blade will then double. And to ensure sliding, the holder is covered with a fluoroplastic film 0.05-0.07 mm thick. PET from bottles will also work, but it is thicker and the attraction will be weaker. Polyethylene is not suitable, it will be wiped immediately.

Note: remember this holder, we will need it later.

LM

It does not require any special skills and the use of a manual sharpener for knives such as Lansky-Metabo, pos. 1 in fig. The scheme of its device is given in pos. 2, and the order of use - on pos. 3. The disadvantage of the Lansky-Metabo sharpener is the instability of the sharpening angle along the length of the blade: a rod with a whetstone is driven along it. The offset of the touch point is constantly changing, because it describes an arc of a circle, and the blade has a different configuration. Resp. "floats" and the corner. Therefore, the Lansky-Metabo sharpener is mainly used for sharpening hiking and hunting knives with a relatively short blade.

However, this drawback can be turned into a virtue if the blade is clamped in the terminals with the root part A (near the handle) and the tip slightly turned away from you, pos. 4. Then, at the root of the blade, the sharpening angle will be the largest, which is optimal for processing hard materials or using a knife as a cleaver. So after all, they work in such cases, so that the outer arm of the arm-blade lever is shorter.

Towards the middle of the blade B, the sharpening angle will gradually decrease and reach a minimum at the bend of its generatrix B1, which is convenient for fine workmanship. Then, towards the B tip, the angle will increase again, which will make the tip more resistant to drilling, gouging/impact and breakdown (piercing).

Note: Another disadvantage of the Lansky-Metabo sharpener is the difficulty of execution in desktop version. But this shortcoming, as they say, is fake, see pos. 5.

Detail drawings of the original Lansky-Metabo sharpener are given in fig. The numbers at the windows for the bar (guide) correspond to FULL ANGLES sharpening.

On the trail. rice. Dan Assembly drawing clamp, and then - the drawings and dimensions of the Lansky-Metabo terminals, made from a corner 90x90x6 mm. The author of the development hides under the pseudonym Serjant. It is certainly a matter of his modesty. But, by the way, in production, technological innovations that make it possible to use standard profiles for the manufacture of shaped parts are sometimes valued more than serious inventions.

Note: on the trail. rice. given the assembly drawing of the sharpener Serjant. As for the inconvenience of fixing in a vice - see above.

Knife sharpening machine

The most advanced household manual sharpener today is the Apex type knife sharpener. His appearance, device diagrams and how to use, see fig. Apex can be made with a continuously variable sharpening angle (pos. 2) or fixed angles like Lansky-Metabo (pos. 3). Normally, they work on Apex as on Lansky-Metabo (pos. 4), but other options are possible for more accurate sharpening, see below.

A homemade version of the Apex sharpener - a sharpener for knives Skomorokh

In 2016, in Runet, it made a noise, perhaps, no less than once the bubafonya stove, the desktop modification of Apex by Ivan Skomorokhov, see fig. on right.

Skomorokh sharpeners are much simpler than the prototype and in no way inferior to it in functionality.

How to make a knife sharpener Skomorokh, see video:

Not only knives...

The original Apex sharpener is not very suitable for sharpening carpentry tools- chisel, planer iron. Apex's sharpening angle floats for the same reasons as Lansky-Metabo. Meanwhile, if the angle of sharpening the chisel along the width of the blade “walks” by more than 1-1.5 degrees, then the tool strives to go sideways, crawl out or go deep into the solid wood along its fibers. It is very difficult to choose a groove for a spike / comb evenly and accurately with such a chisel.

There are special devices for sharpening carpentry tools, about which a special conversation is needed. Homemade products like a roller cart sharpener, see fig. on the right, rather curiosities: not to mention the complexity, they require a stone or steel table, and, most importantly, they do not guarantee against misalignment of the blade on the whetstone, which leads to the same undesirable result.

Meanwhile, 2-3 years ago, in one of the Chinese magazines on technical creativity, Apex’s refinement flashed for sharpening, not inferior to that on a factory electric grinding semi-automatic. The alteration is not difficult, see Fig.: the bar is set horizontally according to the level and the horizon of the bar is held along it, leading to sharpening. Within the angle of rotation of the rod in the horizontal plane of 10-12 degrees to the right and left, the sharpening angle error is less than 1 degree. If the extension of the point of contact is from 250 mm, it is possible to sharpen chisels and pieces of iron planers up to 120 mm wide.

In this mode of operation, zero (theoretically) sharpening angle error can be achieved by keeping the bar stationary and moving the knife held by the magnetic holder, see above. Thus, it is also possible to sharpen the irons of shaped planes if a round cross-section, semicircular, elliptical or segmental whetstone is placed in the clamps. The main thing is that the touch spot should always be a point.

...but also scissors

Another refinement of the Apex sharpener for sharpening scissors (also a necessary thing in the household) is shown in fig. on right. Total work - a couple of pieces of a corner or scraps of galvanization and 4 additional holes in the sharpener table. About the process of making do-it-yourself attachments for sharpening scissors to the Skomorokh sharpener, see next. video:

Video: sharpening scissors, attachment to the sharpener Skomorokh

One last thing about scissors

Before grabbing badly cutting scissors and sticking them in the sharpener, check to see if the hinge is loose. Open the scissors and look at them from the side. See how the tip is wrapped with a screw towards each other? That's why scissors cut: the point of contact of the blades during cutting shifts from the roots to the ends. And therefore it is difficult to cut with scissors with the left hand: the inversion of the ends is designed for the kinematics of the right. And if the hinge of the scissors is loose, the blades will move away from each other and will not even cope with paper. In this case, you just need to tighten the riveted hinge with a hammer, and the screw hinge with a screwdriver.

With the help of a knife, we cook food, cut food and perform other household chores. Therefore, it is very important that the blade of the knife always remains sharp. Theoretically, there is nothing complicated in sharpening knives, but in practice it turns out that not everyone can sharpen a blade well. To have an idea of how to sharpen knives and how to do it correctly, we advise you to read our article.

Before you start sharpening a knife, you need to find out what material it is made of. There are several types of knives:

- Carbon steel knives are the most affordable, made from an alloy of iron and carbon, easy to sharpen and stay sharp for a long time. Among the shortcomings, it can be noted - oxidation of the knife blade from interaction with food or an acidic environment, because of this, rust and stains appear on the knife, and the products acquire a metallic taste. Over time, after the formation of plaque on the blade, oxidation stops.

- Low carbon blades of stainless steel- made of an alloy of iron, chromium, carbon and in some cases nickel or molybdenum. Stainless steel knives are inferior in hardness to carbon steel, so they dull quickly and require regular sharpening. The advantages include - resistance to corrosion.

- High carbon stainless steel blades - more high class knives, with a high carbon content and additives of cobalt or vanadium. Due to a higher quality alloy, this type of knife does not require frequent sharpening and is not subject to corrosion.

- Damascus steel knives are mainly made as edged weapons, but there are also kitchen options. The Damascus steel knife is a multi-layer blade made of different high quality alloys. The disadvantages include the high cost of knives.

Ceramic knives have gained popularity because of their sharpness and ability not to dull for a long time. But apart from the benefits, Ceramic knives have a significant disadvantage, which lies in their fragility when falling from a height and poor resistance to fracture.

Sharpening tools

Touchstone (whetstone)

Grinding stones are available with a different number of abrasive grains per square millimeter. Therefore, for rough sharpening and final grinding you need to use bars with a minimum and maximum content of abrasive. In foreign-made whetstones, information about the number of abrasive grains is on their marking. Grinding bars of domestic production have to be chosen "by eye" or ask the seller which whetstone to use for primary and which for finishing sharpening.

Mechanical sharpener

Mechanical sharpeners are mainly used for sharpening kitchen knives. The sharpening process, although it happens quickly, but the quality leaves much to be desired. For this reason, for hunting and sporting knives, it is recommended to use other sharpening methods.

electric sharpener

Modern models of electric sharpeners allow you to achieve high quality sharpening, due to the built-in function, automatic detection of the angle of the blade. The electric sharpener is perfect for both domestic use and for sharpening knives in catering establishments. The lineup electric sharpeners are presented in a wide range, so the price may be different, but if you want your knives to always remain sharp, then buy more "advanced" and expensive models.

Musat

Musat - designed to maintain the sharpness of the edge of the knife. In shape, musat resembles a round file with a handle. Musats are included in knife sets, and many owners often confuse them with a tool for full-fledged sharpening of the blade. Keep in mind that with the help of musat you will be able to maintain the sharpness of a sharpened knife, but if the knife is completely dull, it will not work to sharpen it with musat.

Sharpener "Lansky"

This sharpener is used for sharpening small and medium-sized knives. The design of the sharpener allows you to sharpen the blade at your chosen angle. Sharpener "Lansky" consists of a rod with a removable whetstone and two corners connected to each other. The corners simultaneously serve as a vise for the knife and a scale for selecting the sharpening angle. The sharpener also comes with ANSI marked whetstones in various grit sizes.

Sharpening and grinding machines

Sharpening machines are mainly used in production, for high-precision sharpening of blades of rotating shafts. In addition to high-precision machines, there are electrically driven abrasive wheels and rotating grinding discs. Sharpening knives on such machines should only be done by an experienced craftsman, because due to the speed of rotation of the circle or disk and high temperature heating, with any unsuccessful movement, the knife blade will become unusable.

Self-sharpening blades

Sharpening a knife with a whetstone

The sharpening of the blade, made by a whetstone, is considered the highest quality, of course, provided that it was produced experienced master. To sharpen a knife on a whetstone, do the following:

1. Place a whetstone with a low content of abrasive grains on a fixed surface. If the bar is small, it can be clamped in a vise.

1. Holding the knife at an angle of 20-25 degrees with respect to the surface of the bar, start moving the knife along the whetstone with the cutting edge forward.

Move the blade along the bar in such a way that during the movement it touches the surface of the whetstone, along its entire length.
Try to keep the same blade angle while moving.
After 2-3 strokes, turn the knife over and repeat the sharpening process on the other side of the blade.
Thus, alternating sides, sharpen the knife until an edge (burr) appears along the edge of the blade.
Change the rough sharpening stone for a grinding stone.
Sand the knife blade until the edge is gone.
Test the sharpness of a knife by cutting through a hemp rope that has been folded several times, or try cutting through a piece of paper.

How to sharpen a knife with a whetstone, see also the video:

Sharpening a hunting knife on a Lansky sharpener

Hunting knives are made of hard steel, so their initial sharpening requires whetstones with a low content of abrasive grains.

Clamp the knife in the vise of the sharpener.
Install a whetstone with a low content of abrasive grains on the shaft.
Select the angle of the bar (for hunting knives it is usually between 20 and 30 degrees).
Insert the rod into the desired hole.
Lubricate the whetstone with the special oil included in the sharpener set.
Start moving the bar along the blade of the knife, from the base to the tip.
Turn the sharpener over and repeat the process on the other side of the knife.
After the edge is formed, change the stone and do the final sanding.
Since hunting knives are mainly made with a double-edged blade, after completing sharpening on one side, change the position of the knife in the vise and start the sharpening process on the other side.
When finished sharpening, polish the knife blade with felt.

How to sharpen knives in a Lansky sharpener, see the video:

Sharpening scissors

Sharpening scissors must be done on a special grinding machine. Sharpening blades with the help of improvised (sandpaper, the edge of a glass, etc.) can temporarily improve the sharpness of scissors, but not for long. If you do not have the opportunity to sharpen scissors from a professional, then you can try to sharpen yourself on an abrasive stone. When sharpening, you need to follow a few simple rules:

The sharpening stone should be fine-grained.
The blade is sharpened over the entire surface of the edge at the same time.
The angle of the blade must match the factory edge.
The movement of the blade over the stone must be done from the screw to the tip.
You need to sharpen scissors in disassembled form.

When sharpening scissors, do not rush, patience in this matter will be your ally.

How to quickly sharpen scissors, you can also see in the video:

Sharpening plane and chisel blades

Sharpening the blade of a planer and a chisel practically does not differ from each other. Therefore, the sharpening process described below applies to both tools:

Set the chisel on the whetstone at an angle of 30-40 degrees.
Holding the chisel with your hand, use the fingers of your free hand to press the bevel against the whetstone.
Start running the chisel over the grindstone until a burr forms on the smooth side of the chisel.
Change the touchstone to a fine-grained one and make the final grinding of the chisel.
Check the sharpness of the chisel blade by removing chips from the corner of the bar.

Apart from manual sharpening, the chisel can be sharpened on a machine with a rotating abrasive disc:

Turn on the machine and let the disc reach full speed.
Holding the chisel with both hands, lean its bevel against the grinding wheel.
Be sure to observe the angle of the chisel, otherwise you will ruin the blade of the tool.
Do not press the chisel with too much force and do not hold it too long on the disk, this will lead to overheating of the metal and destruction of the blade.
While sharpening, wet the blade with water.
The final grinding of the chisel blade is best done by hand, using a fine-grained bar or sandpaper.

Do not forget that when sharpening products on the machine, a lot of sparks and small particles are formed that can get into your eyes, so be sure to work with safety glasses. And in order not to injure your hands on a spinning disk, wear gloves.

You can also learn how to sharpen tools from the video:

Tips for quickly sharpening the blade with improvised means

Stone

To quickly sharpen a knife on a hike or on a picnic, you can use an ordinary cobblestone. Use any stone lying on the ground instead of a whetstone and run the blade of a knife along its surface. You will not achieve razor sharpness, but you will return the knife to working condition.

Second knife

It is quite possible to sharpen two knives at once, without sharpening stones and accessories. To do this, you need to take a knife in both hands and start sharpening the blade of one knife on the blade of another. After 5-10 minutes of this work, the knives will become sharper than before.

glass objects

The blade of a knife can be sharpened slightly on the rough edge of glass or ceramic objects. For example, about the bottom of a glass or edge tiles. The main thing is that the surface is rough.

Leather belt

A leather belt is more suitable for finishing and giving a knife blade razor sharp than for coarse sharpening. But if there is nothing at hand except for the belt, then you can try to sharpen the knife on it. To do this, the belt needs to be stretched and begin to drive along it with a blade, strong sharpness you may not achieve it, but you will polish the knife to a shine.

By learning how to sharpen knives and tools yourself, you will acquire a skill that will be useful to you throughout your life!

A knife sharpener is a must have in every home. Of course, you can buy a grinding machine industrial production. But it should be borne in mind: knife sharpeners, which are sold in specialized stores, are quite expensive and often fail.

Construct the simplest grinder you can do it yourself. This sharpener does not take up much space, and it is very easy to use. If there is no desire to make something, you can use the usual whetstone. However, a knife sharpening machine is all the same great idea, after all the simplest machine always useful, and you can sharpen other tools on it.

Why do knives get dull

Some houses have knives remain sharp for a long time, and the need for sharpening does not arise. And for some owners, on the contrary, they get dull every now and then. Why is this happening? Here are the most common reasons:

Do-it-yourself machine

Once upon a time, grinders were a rarity. When a grinder came to a village or city, all the locals brought him their knives, scissors and other cutting tools. In those days, the machine was a circle on which a knife was placed in a horizontal plane. The circle turned and the blade sharpened.

Until now, many owners who take care of their knives sharpen these items in a horizontal position, using a special bar. It is made of abrasive material, and the blade, in contact with the bar, restores its sharpness. If there is no grinder, this method can be used. However, sharpening knives in a horizontal position is very inconvenient, especially if you do it on weight. In this regard, many home craftsmen make their own grinding machines. Here are the main advantages of such a machine:

The principle of operation of the device

Here is how the simplest grinder works:

For sharpening on such a machine, no physical effort is required, and good result achieved very quickly. The risk of injury to the hand is reduced to zero.

When the blades are sharpened, the question arises of how to properly use and store them. Many housewives, after washing the knives, do not wipe them dry with a towel, but simply put them in a pile in the dish dryer so that water comes off the cutting tools. Under no circumstances should you do this. When not dried, wet knives are laid on top of each other in a horizontal position, they quickly rust and become dull.

Therefore, together with a grinding machine, it makes sense to design special device for storing knives. Such a device is a wooden rack in which slots of various sizes are made. Blades are inserted into these slots with the blade down. Thus, the cutting tools do not come into contact with each other, and the blades are always dry. In order to remove the knife from the “nest”, you just need to gently pull on its handle.

Proper use of knives

Of course, sharpening knives on homemade machine- pure pleasure. It's nice to see how a dull blade becomes sharp and begins to shine. However, no one likes to do extra work. Therefore, in order to sharpen them less often, they need to be properly looked after. Here are some helpful tips:

The sharpness of kitchen appliances largely depends not only on the quality of the product and the metal from which the blades are made, but also on storage conditions. Even the most good knife will quickly rust if kept constantly in water and stored horizontally with other kitchen utensils.

Proper sharpening of knives is of great importance. ie in everyday life. When the blade is well sharpened, it is easy and pleasant to work with it. But the main thing is that it is much more difficult to injure yourself with a sharp knife than with a blunt one. Sharpening knives on a homemade machine will not take much time and effort, but after that the cutting tools will become as good as new. Sometimes homemade grinders are used even in cafes and restaurants to make the work of cooks easier. But you can use the usual bar, because it all depends on the desire and possibilities.

To perform their functions, knives must always be sharp. Any housewife, using a knife for cutting food, knows how quickly it becomes dull.

Can make sharpening from wooden blocks. You will need 4 bars of the same size: 2 - wooden, and 2 - abrasive. The wood is sanded, removing all burrs with sandpaper. Markings are applied to them depending on the desired angle, a grindstone is applied to them and its width is fixed. On the markup, cuts are made with a depth of 1.5 cm. Abrasive bars are inserted into the recesses and fixed with bolts.

Consider the action of the clamping device. The knife is fixed and remains motionless, and the stone makes forward movements. It forms a cutting even edge on the edge of the knife at the required angle. To make the blade perfectly sharp, you need to consistently change the grinding stones. It must be remembered that the stones must move strictly perpendicular to the area that is being sharpened.

Chisels and planer knives can be sharpened at home. It is necessary to make an elementary fixture, where the sharpening angle will be fixed. Sharpening is carried out strictly on sanding paper.

Simple knife sharpening machine

For its manufacture, two pairs of slats and a bar are needed. The slats are connected to each other with adjustable screws, a bar is installed between them. The design must be stable, it is undesirable to move it around the desktop. To better fix the bar, it is necessary to provide support strips that can be placed between the wooden components.

Easy to do with your own hands. You need to prepare the right tool.

Such a machine has disadvantages:

it is not always possible to control the sharpening angle, especially if you work for a long time;
the design is unstable, another fixation unit is needed;
you need to regularly tighten the screws so that the location of the bar does not change.

Sharpening planer knives

This is a complex process that requires certain knowledge and skills. It is difficult to find a device for sharpening planer knives on sale. Many do this on regular sharpening. It is recommended for this case to purchase a modern low-speed sharpener, which is equipped with water cooling.

To do planer knife sharp, you need to find a smooth and non-greasy stone that is used in this area. Water stone is perfect.

You can sharpen such a knife in any car workshop where there is a tool for sharpening knives. For an additional fee, any blade will be sharpened using a special machine.

There are two types of knife sharpening.: single-sided and double-sided. Working methods will differ from each other. This must be taken into account.

When choosing a quality bar, you need to take a stone with an average grain.

Knives that have special cutting edge coatings do not need to be sharpened. They are made of extra hard alloys that protect the blade from wear.

A sharpener with a special cutting edge in the form of teeth should not be sharpened in the usual way. For such a blade, you need to use laser control, which is not in an ordinary apartment.

It is often impossible to wash the blades with hot water, as this will dull their blades faster.

To quickly sharpen a blade, without having a special tool at hand, use a regular ceramic mug. Its bottom usually has a rough rim not covered with glaze - it can be used instead of stone. The method is suitable for auxiliary subsharpening.

In some villages they still practice method of sharpening blades on the foundation. For its manufacture was used cement-sand mortar, so the surface of the foundation has a granular surface. Of course, this method is for residents apartment buildings can not be called acceptable, but it's a pretty good option.

Conclusion

Every home should have a knife sharpener. A simple model of a device for sharpening knives can be made by hand.

Let it be the most simple model, but if it is made by hand, your blades will never dull.