Sharpening serrations is one of the most misunderstood techniques in sharpening.
The techniques shown in the videos above do nothing but round off the point of the serration. Sometimes thats the best one can do in an allotted time frame. Is the knife sharper? Probably. Has the knife lost an inordinate amount of life due to technique? Yes.
The key for me is to do as little as possible to get the knife back in in some sort of usable shape without cutting new serrations. Of course this is in a public environment where time is short.
The best hand tool I've used is the Veff unit that Max shows above. Rat tail like diamond files do more damage than good. You have to try to mimic how the serration was created to begin with and the Veff tool is suited to that.
So there is the Veff tool for quick work on points and works well on the variety of serrations one sees.
Scothbrite belt for working the inside of the serration on bread knives and the backside of the blade on a 1x42 belt grinder in a horizontal orientation.
To finish I use a buffer with 8 inch wheels and 30 and 16 micron diamond compounds in bar form from Ken Schwartz. A black compound on one wheel and white compound on the other works well too but I prefer the diamond. Many use the K1 (?) green compound but I've never tried it.
If new serrations need to be cut (standard bread knife serration only) I use an 8 inch diamond wheel on a Jet 8 inch grinder mounted so the wheels rotate away from me. I clean up the newly cut serrations on a 10 inch buff (because that is what I had available at the time) on the left side of the Jet unit and black compound of unknown origin. Then go to the other buffer to finish with the diamond compounds.
The techniques shown in the videos above do nothing but round off the point of the serration. Sometimes thats the best one can do in an allotted time frame. Is the knife sharper? Probably. Has the knife lost an inordinate amount of life due to technique? Yes.
The key for me is to do as little as possible to get the knife back in in some sort of usable shape without cutting new serrations. Of course this is in a public environment where time is short.
The best hand tool I've used is the Veff unit that Max shows above. Rat tail like diamond files do more damage than good. You have to try to mimic how the serration was created to begin with and the Veff tool is suited to that.
So there is the Veff tool for quick work on points and works well on the variety of serrations one sees.
Scothbrite belt for working the inside of the serration on bread knives and the backside of the blade on a 1x42 belt grinder in a horizontal orientation.
To finish I use a buffer with 8 inch wheels and 30 and 16 micron diamond compounds in bar form from Ken Schwartz. A black compound on one wheel and white compound on the other works well too but I prefer the diamond. Many use the K1 (?) green compound but I've never tried it.
If new serrations need to be cut (standard bread knife serration only) I use an 8 inch diamond wheel on a Jet 8 inch grinder mounted so the wheels rotate away from me. I clean up the newly cut serrations on a 10 inch buff (because that is what I had available at the time) on the left side of the Jet unit and black compound of unknown origin. Then go to the other buffer to finish with the diamond compounds.
Pete in San Ramon
925-548-6967
925-548-6967