Sharpen ceramic knife

The same way they sharpen ceramic cutting inserts: Buy new ones.

Tom Gardner prodded the keyboard

Diamond abrasives will sharpen ceramic knives ! They use diamond wheels to sharpen them in the first place.

Fine for the $5 knife I got at Aldi's but one could make a substantial investment in ceramic knives. Are you saying to stay away from Ceramic? I have a few Stainless Steel knives and I don't like them, I prefer carbon steel knives and I know how to care for them. But the ceramic one I have I just loved while it was razor sharp.

No, just be careful with them and don't let them get nicked. Unless you're slicing sausage with sand in it, they take a hell of a long time to get dull.

Well, maybe you'll find a way to restore them. *Good* diamond hones are so friggin' expensive in all but the smallest sizes that I avoid them -- or anything that requires them to sharpen.

Maybe silicon carbide is hard enough; I don't know. Anyway, remember that you don't have to worry about burrs, so you can drag the edge across a stone, rather than pushing into it.

I'm with you on carbon steel knives. I have some that are 60 years old or more. My parents sold Sabatier (plain carbon) and Zanger (440 ss) in their store, so I have some really fine kitchen knives. And at least 30 sharpening stones.

==================== for how to videos see

For use rather than show you may be better off using commercial food prep cutlery. The new "high carbon stainless" takes a fine edge, and the less expensive lines such as Mercer [made in Taiwan using German HCSS steel] seem to be a very good value. Mercer is sold in the restaurant supply stores and not the big box outlets.

I have dealt with webstaurant and have found them to be reliable and easy to do business with.

I particularly like the Mercer wide chefs knife and the straight boning knife for food prep. Suggest buying the blade guards and cutting sheet at the same time to protect the knives.

Diamond abrasives used to be expensive, but they seem to be fairly cheap no w. I have a couple of the Eze-Lap hones that I have had for years. The cost o f them now is about the same as I paid. But taking inflation into account, they are now about half the price.

and ebay item 321469341282. Not bad for about $5 when you add shipping.

This site

Shows SiC is harder than Zirconia so you can use that. But the diamond is a lot faster.

I have some diamond coated stainless disks, most made by Kinik. They were used to flatten silicon wafers and are worn out as far as industry is conce rned. At least that is what I suspect as they were in the local scrap yard . But they still work well. The only problem is they are relatively coars e. Too coarse for sharpening knifes.

But back to how to sharpen Ceramic Knifes. Just do the same as sharpening steel knifes.

Find of the day. A soft Arkansas stone for twenty five cents at the Habita t for Humanity store. It was dirty and not close to flat, but rubbing it o n some sandpaper got it flatter and clean.

Dan

What are you doing to these poor things to dull them, Tawm? I quickly realized that I couldn't use them to wedge chicken thighs from their sockets (chip), and I broke my ceramic chef's knife by trying to cut a sweet potato with it. As it broke through the halfway point and the potato gave way, the knife snapped in half on the poly cutting board. I learned a hard ($25) lesson there. The ceramic paring knife doesn't seem to ever dull, though.

I like the relative coarseness of the 600 grit diamond plates for all my carbon steel knives, but prefer the 1200 grit diamond for ceramic. The 600 roughed out the chip, and the 1200 sharpened it. Even with the diamond, it takes forever. But because they stay so sharp for so long, I have little experience sharpening ceramic.

Diamond wheel or flat hone. Sharpen like any other knife.

Well, maybe that's worth a try. I picked up some samples of diamond hones at IMTS a few years back, and I've used them for honing WC brazed-tip tools. They look like a narrower version of those you've linked to. They're OK, but I'd want a larger stone for working on knives.

Hmm. It's worth a try. If you've ever ground carbide tools with a green wheel (SiC), you've probably noticed that you don't get a great edge, and that the wheel wears pretty fast.

But it may work better honing by hand. Tom should give it a try and let us know.

Good. I love tose, and have quite a few in different degrees of hardness and grit. That's what I use for most of my cutting edges.

I'm not sure if it would work on ceramic knives, but I made a leather belt for my HF 1X30 belt sander and made a power hone. If it was charged with some ultra fine diamond compound, it might be great for sharpening ceramic knives. I'm guessing the compounds for steel wouldn't work on ceramic, haven't tried though.

RogerN

It sounds as if you are well fixed for sharpening stones, but if you want a diamond sharpening stone look on Ebay. I think the Chinese military encou raged the manufacture of diamond coated tools. At any rate there is a larg e variety of diamond coated things on Ebay.

is harder than Zirconia so you can use that. But the diamond is a lot fast er.

SiC does not work real well for honing carbide by hand. Although the SiC i s hard enough, it is not strong enough.

Dan

Thanks, George. Maybe I'll break down and give them a try. The price is right. You can pay a lot more than that for a hard Arkansas stone. I have a couple of 6" x 2" stones, and they sell for over $40 each now.

I'll give one a try when I can. Norton is a source I contact every week. I should see if they have any discounts. The list price on their diamond bench stones is over the top, for me.

======================= If you need to reprofile the knife see

this also works very well on the new harder steel knives.

If you try this be sure to get the post mount as these are almost impossible to use otherwise.

[not necesary to screw down] c-clamp version

For a super fine edge, Lansky sells just the stone holders and you can hot melt or epoxy a ultrafine diamond hone.

I doubt that any stone from HF, despite their claims, goes finer than

300 grit. They're fine for yard tools, but I wouldn't sharpen one of my good knives or woodworking blades on one. It's OK for my pocket knife since that, usually, is relegated to cutting string or cable ties, and opening packages.

I keep a set of DMT paddles (1x2.5") in the truck and have 2x6 hones at home.

and Go with DMT (best) or EzeLap (better) over HF (cheap/inconsistent). The Eze seemed coarser at first, then got finer, while the DMT hasn't changed in 20 years.

Amazon has great deals on them. eBay has outstanding deals on them on occasion.

Buy a diamond hone and keep/use it forever.

"Special honing oil" with a diamond hone? Whatever floats their boat.

Nice! Will order.

Great idea!