Sharpening ceramic knives

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mdav056

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#210474 28-Mar-2017 21:52

I had thought that ceramic knives never need sharpening. But they do, and the sharpener has to be diamond. Question is -- does anyone know where to get a sharpener in NZ? Suitable for general home use, not a cheffy one. Googling "ceramic knife sharpener" brings up millions of knife sharpeners made of ceramic material and very few sharpeners for ceramic knives, demonstrating a serious failure in language. AliExpress better, but results not very convincing. Just wondered whether one of you had purchased one, and where from.

Thanks.

gml

alpbetgam

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#1749815 28-Mar-2017 22:18

Ceramic knives are very hard to sharpen by yourself. You'll have to send it to the manufacturer, and they'll sharpen it for you (cost depends). I know with Kyocera knives you pay the shipping to Japan, and they sharpen it and ship it back to you for free.

Geektastic

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#1749982 29-Mar-2017 10:27

I would second @alpbetgam's suggestion.

It's the main reason why I own no ceramic knives. I'm a bit of a knife-aholic and use a slow speed bench mounted belt sharpener for my steel knives. It's made by a US company called Work Sharp and is available in NZ although it's about $500 so you need to want to be doing your own sharpening and enjoy doing it to justify the expense.

They do make a ceramic knife sharpening kit for it - here - but I do not have it. There's a video on the page I linked to as well.

Batman

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#1749988 29-Mar-2017 10:34

is there any harm in trying with a normal sharpening tool you buy from stevens? they claim to be diamond sharpener

trig42

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#1749993 29-Mar-2017 10:43

I have a Lansky diamond sharpening set.

It would probably be able to do it, but the knife needs to be clamped into a holder and the sharpening stones moved over the knife edge at a set angle (which is what the clamp is for).

It does a really good job on steel knives (quite time consuming though). I would be worried that it would chip or crack a ceramic blade however.

For steel knives I now use a Nirey electric sharpener. It does a good job.

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#1750003 29-Mar-2017 11:02

joker97:

is there any harm in trying with a normal sharpening tool you buy from stevens? they claim to be diamond sharpener

Ceramic knives are usually pretty costly, so messing them up could be an expensive refurb at best - or total ruination at worst.

A friend of mine had some Global kitchen knives when they were trendy 20 years ago. He decided he would be a smart Alec and sharpen one on his FiL's angle grinder. Ended up with a ruined blade with a deep reverse curve where there should have been a flat edge, no cutting edge and the temper burned out of the blade because he had over-heated it. In the bin it went!

It's a sensible view to take that if you paid for expensive knives, trying to sharpen them on the cheap is a foolish way to treat your investment.

We have a mobile knife sharpening guy who visits the restaurant kitchens around here every few months - he charges $6/knife and they come back sharp enough to shave the hairs off your arm, which is fairly much the standard they should be at.