All knives need to be sharpened sooner or later, even expensive knives dull after a while. A dull knife is not only annoying to use, but it can also be dangerous for you. A dull knife needs extra force and can slip out of the product instead of cutting it, increasing the risk of cutting yourself. A sharp knife will glide more easily, making it easier to control the knife and leaving few opportunities to cut yourself. That’s why you should sharpen your knives.
Modern electric knife sharpeners are easy to use, requiring little more than inserting the blade for sharpening in a pair of designated “V”-shaped slots, usually in two or three stages. The slots feature built-in precision angle guides to eliminate all the guesswork. Typically there are two stages of sharpening and one stage of polishing/sharpening. Most of the knives in your home or restaurant can be sharpened with an electric sharpener, such as knives for: hunting, craft, butcher, fishing and of course kitchen knives. Electric sharpeners typically have double blades and often incorporate industrial diamonds that are used in the sharpening process.
Electric knife sharpeners can make a knife like new again, and sometimes even better than new. Older quality knives or cheaper knives can have a second life when sharpened on an electric sharpener. The benefit of using an electric sharpener is that it doesn’t require the dexterity or skill that manual sharpening does. Sharpening a knife by hand is time consuming. Electric sharpeners differ from brand to brand and model to model, but some basic techniques are common to all of them.
The first thing to do when you have purchased an electric sharpener is to read the instructions and find out what each of the slots on your sharpener does. The manual should be able to tell you what the slots do in your machine and in what order you should use them. Some of the possibilities are honing, honing, honing, and steeling. The slots must be used in the correct order. The first stages structure the edge, eliminating nicks and warping. The later stages hone and polish the edge. If your knife later needs “touch up” sharpening, you can run it through the final stage without using the other stages.
Turn on the machine. Insert the blade into the first slot to sharpen the right edge of the blade. It will pull the blade towards you, make sure the area closest to the handle makes contact with the sharpener wheels first. It draws the blade at a speed of approximately two inches per second. For example, an 8-inch knife should take about four seconds to pull. Use just enough pressure to ensure good blade contact with the wheels.
Knife sharpeners often have a catcher for the metal shavings that come off the blades. It might be a good idea to clean the collector periodically. Knife sharpeners can put a very sharp edge on a knife, keep your fingers out of the way. The speed with which it cuts will probably surprise you!