Question
Sylvia Edwards
Is there a way to sharpen serrated knives ourselves?
Answer
I don't know of a fantastic way to sharpen serrated knives, but I'll tell you what I do and what I have done over the years. There's two sides to it. Typically, a serrated knife will have a flat side, and then the other side has the scallops cut out of it or ground out of it, so the serration is just on one side. So you can apply the flat side to your steel, and that'll straighten up some of the rollover that typically is experienced with a serrated knife and restore some of the sharpness, at least temporarily. Okay? You can also lightly apply that side, that same smooth side, to a stone, but very lightly, okay? Now, longer term, if you do that repeatedly, you're going to start to actually grind away through the serrations, such that you'll start to see these ellipses form on the cutting edge and in a deeper fashion. So that's a downside long term. The other thing you can do is on the side of the serrations, or the scallops, is you can get a steel for your daily honing that is round in cross-section, and you can draw that down as you rotate it through each of the scallops. And that'll scrape that inside surface and bring a little bit of sharpness to that cutting edge. Now, it's labor-intensive and all of that, and the effects are minimal but noticeable. So give that a try. In the longer-term picture, a serrated knife is-- You can grind it down and just use what you have, or you can replace it. That's kind of what it comes down to. Okay. Thank you.
