If you need to quickly sharpen something, then an ordinary knife sharpening bar will do. It would be faster, better and more convenient to straighten the blade on the emery, but this work requires not only a certain skill, but also knowledge.
The fact is that sharpening at high speed raises the temperature of the material being ground, and this is fraught with uncontrollability of the process of spontaneous release of the hardened blade blade. The result is predictable. The knife after such sharpening can be thrown away.
It turns out that the quality indicators of a hand-sharpened tool can surpass those of a tool brought to the appropriate level by factory automation.
Any bar for sharpening a knife necessarily consists of two fractions:
- abrasive grains of a harder material than the one from which the machined object is made;
- matrix of plastic substance that is able to hold the first element in the form of the same bar shape.
Typically, the hardness of the template is comparable to that of the material being ground,sometimes less.
It is necessary to choose the characteristics of the matrix correctly, this will allow it to wear out during operation and expose new abrasive grains. The old ones, dulling, crumble. Simply put, when the processed material is erased, the bar for sharpening the knife is also erased. This is his normal job. If the template is too soft, the bar will sharpen poorly. In this case, abrasive grains will be pulled out of the soft matrix by the processed material. Self-absorbing, the bar will quickly lose the necessary shape of the contact surface with the material being processed. Processing will be inaccurate.
The main characteristic of an abrasive is the uniformity of its particle sizes. If the dimensions of the grains are different, then the sharpening will not be very accurate, and the result will be random. Of course, a knife sharpening bar must be of high quality, but let's make a reservation right away: the quality of work directly depends on the skill of the master, and only then on the quality factor of the material.
The king of abrasive materials is diamond. In its crystal lattice, the grains have a sharp shape. They don't change it during the process. To put it simply, don't be stupid.
Diamond knife sharpener will never lose its flat shape. Such a coating has a thickness measured in millimeters, so all talk about the development of the surface of such devices is groundless. Before working with such a bar, it must be moistened with water, then it will abrade metal surfaces.faster and less heat.
But the most "running" were and remain ceramic whetstones for sharpening knives. The indisputable advantage of such tools is their wear resistance and a huge resource. The matrix of such bars wears out slowly. But there is also the other side of the coin. During operation, ceramic bars are quickly clogged with the smallest particles of abraded steel, and this entails a loss of abrasive properties. To restore the working properties of such a sharpener, an ordinary kitchen dishwashing detergent will help.
And finally, a little tip for beginners. You don't have to buy expensive equipment right away. Even the best abrasive will be just a bar if you do not have the skills to work with it.
