Sharpening knives: the 3 best tips and tricks

If you have blunt knives in your cutlery, you can sharpen them with tricks even if you don't have a sharpening steel or whetstone at hand. We present the three best tips in this article.

Sharpen knives with a cup or plate

To get your knife sharp again, you only need a cup or a plate made of porcelain.

• Porcelain tableware has an edge at the bottom that is not glazed. The porcelain is rough here.
• Pull the edge of the knife at a flat 45 degree angle several times in one go over this rough edge.
• Tip: If you moisten the edge of the cup or plate a little, this trick works even better. The fine particles are bound by the water and then act like an emery compound.

Sharp knives with sandpaper

With simple sandpaper from the hardware store, you can not only sand wood, but also sharpen your knives.

• The grain of the sandpaper depends on how blunt the knife is. If the knife cuts very badly, use sandpaper with a grain size between 120 and 300.
• To maintain the sharpness of the knife, the sandpaper should be very fine. Grains between 600 and 1000 are suitable here.
• Attach the sandpaper well and flat on a block of wood. Then you can sharpen your knives on it like on a whetstone.

Newsprint makes it razor-sharp

You can easily misuse a newspaper in the household.

• Find a newspaper page with a lot of ink.
• Run the knife blade over the newspaper several times at a very shallow angle. The more ink the page contains, the better the result.
• The carbon contained in the printing ink acts like emery powder. However, this trick only works with a daily newspaper. Illustrated books are not suitable for this.
• General sharpening tip: If your knife is a high-quality knife, you should rather use professional sharpening tools, for example the "Belgian chunk".

In our next post, read how you can sharpen and sharpen scissors.