Maintainence of ceramic blades

C

croyance

Joined
Jul 17, 2002
Messages
6
Hello all. I'm new to this forum.
Anyways, I was wondering what special care a ceramic blade needs. Also, how would I resharpen the blade. I see that some knife makers will resharpen the blades free of charge for 5 years, but I would own the knife longer than that.
I tried the search function, but came up with too many matches for "ceramic".
Thank-you for your help.
 
Originally posted by croyance
Hello all. I'm new to this forum.
Anyways, I was wondering what special care a ceramic blade needs. Also, how would I resharpen the blade. I see that some knife makers will resharpen the blades free of charge for 5 years, but I would own the knife longer than that.
I tried the search function, but came up with too many matches for "ceramic".
Thank-you for your help.
Click to expand...

I don't own any ceramic bladed knives, but I'm pretty sure the only real maintenance needed is "don't hit anything hard with it" since it can shatter. If you're talking kitchen knives, then I think Kyocera has like a lifetime sharpening thing, don't know about the rest of them. I did run into someone at a knife show once who claimed he uses the Diamond V sharpener on his ceramic blades, but I don't know how that compares to factory sharpening. Logically speaking, this should work since diamonds are harder than the ceramic, but I've never tried it myself. Hope that helps at least somewhat, and welcome to the forums.

-Z
 
I have a small Boker Gamma 88 (I think) that I have had for a couple of years and have not had the blade dull in any way. Now the disclaimer, I haven't used it for much other than cutting mounds of paper to see if I can dull it. As stated above be careful of what you are cutting. Think of it as a piece of brittle glass and you will most likely be OK. No prying, no hitting nails or other hard objects and frankly, I don't think that I would do any whittling with it. Boker offers to sharpen the knife for a flat $11 fee that includes shipping back to me.

On the subject, in Bob Terzuloa's book "The Tactical Folding Knife", he has one paragraph on ceramic where he talks about the need for lapidary equipment, diamond tools and a fundamental knowledge of stone working to be able to make or even sharpen a blade. Not what one typically thinks about in context with knives and not something that I have at home.
 
I have never had much success with sharpening ceramic blades, but they are possible to machine with even cheap abrasives. I repointed several folders with broken tips just with cheap AO belts. The main problem that I had was that the edge would tend to break apart rather than be cleanly cut. I tried several abrasives without much success. I keep meaning to look at it again.

-Cliff
 
I've had Kyoceras that survived years of careful use on fruits, vegetables, and boneless meats/fish without needing sharpening. However, one of my friends let her housekeepers use one and it quickly looked almost serrated. I used a Hewlett Jewelstik diamond sharpener (3 different abrasive levels) to resharpen it and eventually got it working again. It is important not to try to put on as thin an edge as you would with fine steel. As Cliff noted, the result will be micro-fractures along the edge.

I have a Mad Dog ceramic field knife and they recommend the DMT 1200 grit for sharpening, if I recall correctly.
 
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