Abrasive papers

Independent, accurate and unbiased information about kitchen knives used for the preparation of food

and how to sharpen them and keep them sharp

Abrasive sheets on a pad or the ‘Scary Sharp’ method

There is an extraordinary range of abrasive papers available today. The world of the old sandpaper has been transformed by the new technologies. Some of the new abrasive papers can be used for sharpening kitchen knives.

There are four commonly used abrasive papers that are suitable:

oAluminium oxide is the preferred abrasive for metals partly because it is the toughest of these abrasives

oSilicon carbide is dark grey or black and is harder than aluminium oxide

oCeramic is the hardest of the commonly produced abrasives and mostly is produced in the coarsest grades; alumina zirconia is one the most used ceramic minerals

oGarnet is a natural brown to brown-red abrasive

Chad Ward in his book An Edge in the Kitchen recommends using a mouse pad to create an ideal knife sharpening tool. He suggests fixing a sheet of abrasive paper to a standard mouse pad. The slight sponginess of the mouse pads makes them especially useful as a knife sharpener.

Alternatively, some of the abrasive pads, such as those produced by the 3M company, can be glued to cork tiles, the underneath side of cork-backed table or place mats, or small sheets of MDF composite wood.

These are very inexpensive to make, so it is easy to use a few sharpeners with range of grits. The 3M dark green 400 grit paper is good place to start, then use a 600 or 800 grit, and then finish with a 1200 grit paper.

These knife sharpening pads of tiles are best used like a whetstone, so a freehand method of sharpening is involved. The action should be a stropping action, with the cutting edge always trailing.

Chad Ward’s book gives some useful advice about how these sharpeners should be used to give a cutting edge with a highly desirable slightly convex bevel. More here >>>

What we like about these knife sharpener pads:

oThe sharpeners are very inexpensive

oThey can be replaced easily

oThey can be used wet or dry

oWhen used carefully they can produce an extremely sharp and long lasting cutting edge

What you might not like about these knife sharpener pads:

o Some skill is required because they are freehand sharpeners lasting cutting edge

oThey can’t be bought ready made, so some extra time is involved in their construction

Knife blade shapes

Knife blades and their shapes or profiles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade

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