Today we’re going to be attempting something that I’ve heard over and over again that is how do you sharpen ceramic knives? I got tons of people asking me whether or not you could sharpen ceramic knives in a world where ceramic knives are known to be throw away consumables.
One man stands in the way all right so right out of the box it will slice phone book paper. It’s not a super clean slice but it will do it and it won’t shave at least. It’s not a very good shape so it’s not the sharpest knife that I’ve ever pulled out of the box. But it’s definitely not dull I guess you could say so it has a very interesting feeling edge.
It doesn’t feel like a typical steel edge. I’m not real sure how to explain it the question is how did they sharpen well?
There is a lot of really good advertising jargon on the back of this packaging. Our advanced ceramic is a material close on hardness to diamond with a rock-like edge that will not roll like steel blades. The result is a razor-sharp blade that retains its original sharpness more than ten times longer than steel knives that’s all my cardboard.
How to sharpen ceramic knives
I don’t know exactly how many cuts that was but I will tell you right now that each one of the flaps you know the flaps to close the box and then the flaps on the bottom to close the box was approximately forty cuts per flat. So that’s a hundred and sixty cuts times two and then we had the main body of the box that was some serious cardboard cutting and see if it’ll still slice phone book paper wasn’t as good as it was before.
But still, it’ll still slice it it’ll sort of slice phone book paper, okay and it doesn’t shave. I think this is a good starting point for sharpening oh wow… so the first thing I noticed first pass on this stone is that it feels very hard. I can tell that immediately after the first pass oh yeah that’s, that is definitely a very hard blade and this is me full of optimism. Wow feels dollar than it did. When I started maybe I’m gonna have to go back and relearn how to sharpen again.
So by now even the hardest most difficult Steel’s in the entire world to sharpen would be fairly close to being sharp and this actually feels duller than it did. When I first started I’ve got no idea we’re just gonna go ahead and try a strop. I have no idea whether or not we’re apex. I have no idea if a strap can even do anything. I don’t know if we should go to a coarser stone. So I tried everything to get this knife sharp. I tried coarse Diamond stones all the way through extra flying.
Best way to sharpen ceramic knives
Diamond stones the more I sharpened on stones the dollar it became. I even tried dropping which actually seemed to do more than the stones did. However I stopped for ages but it never really took a super fine edge, at least not one I call a very sharp. So the thing is if I take my finger and run it down the edge it feels like there’s like microchipping, it feels I can feel it feels like chips.
So after realizing I had a chipping issue. I ended up taking it back to the extra-extra fine DMT stone and attempted to completely profile the blade on the hat stone, thinking that the course of stones was causing the chipping.
So I’m definitely a peck scene because I’m working that bevel back and forth to a point where you know we’re making one bevel smaller than the other bevels large. I’m gonna make the other bevel small and the other bevels large. I mean it would cut you if you cut yourself obviously but it’s not as sharp as it was.
When we first got it because it won’t slice phone book paper and most definitely will not shave. So I don’t know how to make it sharper what so after hours and hours of messing around on different stones and shops.
So the things that we had to do to sharpen this ceramic knife were off the charts. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble sharpening anything in my entire life and here we go these are my thoughts on the ceramic knife. And why it’s practically impossible to sharpen? So first off traditional stones even traditional diamond stones.
which by the way you need in order to sharpen serenity and you need Diamond stones in order to be at are move material from ceramic because ceramic is such a hard material that doesn’t mean that it makes a good knife material.
Ceramic is extremely brittle if I drop this on the floor it would probably shatter into several pieces when you take an extremely brittle material that’s not super strong and you bring it to a very fine apex which you need a very fine apex in a knife. Because thinner things pass through other things easier. You can have something called microchipping or just chipping in general and that’s.
When the apex is just not strong enough to support itself even while you’re sharpening it. When you pass this on an even a very fine DMT extra-fine diamond soon.
Those diamond particles are simply they’re passing over that apex and they’re chipping it rather than remove material. Where the diamonds actually cut the material and then remove some of that material. The diamonds are simply kind of passing over the apex and chipping off that apex rather than pulling material off if that makes sense.
Maybe you can visualize that maybe you can’t but I could not get this anywhere close to being sharp on any type of traditional diamond stone.
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However, when I took this to a much finer diamond compound strop I started to see some improvement. So my thought was okay well let’s power this process and I made a power stropping wheel out of MDF and apply the three-micron diamond paste to the first wheel. Which got me fairly sharp now I know I’m on to something.
So then I go to a 1-micron diamond wheel and it will slice paper and shave no problem, and all that other stuff I can not.
How to sharpen ceramic blades
However, get this to hair whittling sharp even taking this to a much finer strop progression than 1micron. It just won’t get there and I’ve spent way too much time trying to get this to whittle hair. I can’t do it there’s anybody out there who can do it. I would love to see it let me know so when did it clarify something here.
I believe the reason the Diamond stones didn’t work was simply that we didn’t have a fine enough grit diamond stone. I believe a very fine grid is needed to help mitigate the chipping issue.
This is why the diamond compound worked however I still believe that there’s microchipping happening at a much smaller level. Which is the reason I couldn’t get it to hair whittling the MDF stropping will simply allow me to remove a decent amount of material at 3 microns rather than spend hours dropping chips out of the edge ceramic.
In my opinion does not make a great knife material, because most people who buy this are not going to have a power dropping wheel setup like this. 
And sharpening it with traditional sharpening stones or some type of a beginner sharpening system like a Lansky or something like that. Nothing stays sharp forever even ceramic dolls. Just the same as any other knife except ceramic dolls in a sense where it chips away it doesn’t necessarily wear away.
At least that’s been my observation my question is where do the chips go? because there’s no way that you’re gonna use this at any level of actual sharpness on a cutting board without some type of microchipping happening.
There’s just not enough strength in that apex in order to support itself while it comes in contact with a cutting board and most likely any type of food. But anyway my opinion stays away from ceramic knives just buy a decent quality high-carbon steel knife and you can be much better served unless you have this type of setup.
And for some reason, you just like ceramic knives don’t bother meany hopefully.
Final Verdict:
This article “How do you sharpen ceramic knives” was somewhat entertaining and educational if you liked it please hit the comments box. It really makes a big difference to encourage us and what I’m doing here really appreciate it trust me and again thank you for reading attentively and we’ll see in the next article.
