How to Sharpen a Kitchen Knife Using a Wheel Sharpener

Kitchen knives work best when kept as sharp as they were when purchased.

When your kitchen knives become dull, it can take more effort to do your usual kitchen chopping. If you want the cutting in your kitchen to keep going smoothly, sharpen your kitchen knives regularly to keep them at maximum sharpness. Several types of knife sharpeners can be used to complete this task, including a wheel sharpener, which gets its power from an electric table grinder.

Things You'll Need

• Electric table grinder
• Conditioning wax

Instructions

1. Attach the wheel sharpener to the electric table grinder. Remove the nut from the bolt on the grinder that holds attachments into place and push the sharpener onto the grinder so that the bolt goes through the middle hole on the wheel sharpener. Screw the nut until it is tight, to secure the wheel sharpener in place.

2. Rub a layer of conditioning wax on the edge of the wheel sharpener. Spread just enough wax over the edge that you can see it on the wheel, but make sure you can still feel the grit on the wheel's edge through the wax.

3. Turn the electric grinder onto its lowest setting so that the wheel sharpener begins spinning. Stand so that you are facing the wheel directly, not at the edge of the wheel.

4. Hold the kitchen knife you want to sharpen with both hands and place it against the edge of the wheel grinder on the side that is spinning downward. Keep the knife at a roughly 20- to 25-degree angle with the edge of the wheel with the sharp side of the blade against the grit. Move the knife slowly along the wheel so that the sharpener gets the knife sharpened from the base to the tip.

5. Sharpen the knife on the sharpener for only 30 seconds. According to the Knife Outlet, 30 seconds is all that most knives require to return to a sharp edge.

References

• Knife Outlet: Sharpening