Sharpening Handbook

Kitchen Knives

Guidelines shown below are for Included Angles (⍺).

Secondary Bevels are achieved during the deburring step..

If you want to get truly sharp, KnifeGrinders has a really good method and has adapted the Tormek system to these wheels. He's been nice enough to provide pictures.

Jan Svancara posted a design for using a knife sharpening platform in 2015 on the Tormek Forum. This is certainly worth reading, and there are also pictures of this in the jigs section.

CB created an excellent USB Projection Calculator which can be used to calculate the settings you will need to use with the Tormek knife jigs. His calculations have been vetted for accuracy to the sub-degree level, so I recommend this over the one I'd previously created.

General Guidelines
Type	⍺	Notes
Bread Knife		Hone the non-scalloped side of the knife.
Butcher Knife	40º
Chopping Knife	30º
Clever	50º	No secondary bevel for these blades.
Filleting Knife	15º	No secondary bevel for these blades.
General Knife	24º	Could be anything up to 35º, however Dr. Vadim Kraichuk at KnifeGrinders recommends 24º. Given his vast experience and testing data, this is the recommended value. Vadim posted a great analysis titled, "Edge Stability in Butcher’s and Kitchen Knives as a Function of Edge Angle and Initial Sharpness" on the BESS EXchange.
Paring Knife	25º

Use same ⍺ angle for both setting the apex angle, and for edge-leading honing (up to 8,000 grit).

Deburring Guidelines
Type	1st Deburring		2d Deburring		Notes
Type	Angle	Grit size	Angle	Grit size	Notes
Harder steels	-0.1º to -0.3º	3 to 6	3º to 6º	0.25 to 0.5	Edge Angle Stropping - for steels which are brittle, have high hardness, are high carbon or carbide steels.
Softer steels	0º	3 to 6	0.4º to 2º	1	High Angle Stropping - for steels which are tough or ductile, have low hardness or low carbon, or are fine carbide.

Grit size measured in µm (aka, microns)

Notes & Comments

Information regarding Grindstones

Online Calculators that can be used for sharpening knives.

Research Articles, Other Information, and some Final Thoughts.

It is a common, but quite bad, practice of drawing the newly sharpened knife edge through a piece of wood or some other media to “rip off” the remnants of the burr. When this is done, the ripped off metal builds up on the front of the slice, and you then drag the rest of the edge through this crud. This crud, together with breaking off of ledges of material along the edge, will roughen the edge and worsen sharpness.
The following scanning electron microscope (SEM) images show the burr on a knife in the 1st image, that was then “ripped off” by cutting cross-grain into a piece of redwood in the 2nd image – loss of the sharp edge is obvious.

Click on either image for bigger size.
Images courtesy Todd Simpson via Dr. Vadim Kraichuk of KnifeGrinders
Key take-away from these photos : don't skip the honing step.

Good videos showing use of the Tormek KVM-45, KVM-100, and KVM-140 Knife Jigs, and the SVM-00 Small Knife Holder :

Good videos showing use of the Tormek WM-200 AngleMaster :

Tormek AngleMaster WM-200

Good video by Herman Trivilino showing the use of a platform jig :

Tormek Knife Jig

Good videos by Knife Grinders showing sharpening of knives with complex curves :

Convex
Concave
Mounting the Pin Pivot Collar on your Knife Jig

Pin Pivot Jig

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