sharpening serrated electric filet knife?

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bdmicarta

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Feb 16, 2012
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I just returned from a fishing trip where we caught a lot of fish. My uncle was complaining that he went through 3 sets of blades for his electric filet knife. I told him I thought I might be able to sharpen them so he gave me about 5 sets to work on.

I have a triangle sharpmaker that I've sharpened a SE Endura with. The filet blades look similar but with deeper serrations.

I'm assuming these cheap blades are fairly soft steel.

I've got a few other ideas besides the sharpmaker but any other suggestions are welcome.
 
Are they chisel ground or V ground?

If chisel, I would run the flat at a Very slight angle to sharpen all of the serrations from the back side and raise your burr, then touch up the inside of the scallops and strop.

If you need something to help with cleaning the inside of the scallops, try a ceramic casserole dish. It offers long straight sections, that a coffee mug doesn't and they are domed, unlike the sharpmaker rods.
 
In my experience you are better off tossing the blades and keeping replacements on hand.
Now I can imaging how he went through 3 sets of blades, without burning up the knife. We generally run 2 knives and swap out when they heat up. Even still a set of blades should fillet a few hundred fish.


Sent via telegraph with the same fingers I use to sip whiskey.
 
You can sharpen them with the sharpmaker. Just keep your rods clean with Ajax. If it's taking to much time then i would use a harbor freight needle file to set the edge.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
3fifty7 said:
In my experience you are better off tossing the blades and keeping replacements on hand.
Now I can imaging how he went through 3 sets of blades, without burning up the knife. We generally run 2 knives and swap out when they heat up. Even still a set of blades should fillet a few hundred fish.
Click to expand...

They caught a lot of fish that weekend- about 20 people fishing and they caught 300-400 lbs of fish total. They set up an assembly line for the cleaning and were using 3 or 4 electric knives constantly. They would rotate the knives when they got too hot and said that they did burn out one knife. In the past I've seen them use electric knives to fine trim the meat but this time they had a couple of traditional filet knives for that. It was interesting to see one of the guys try to sharpen the filet knives with a black stone and steel rod. I don't think he was doing much to the knives and after he tried to sharpen them they still seemed pretty dull by my standards.

My uncle said the serrated blades are about $8 per set and he gave me 5 sets to play with. I thought if I could sharpen them in my spare time I could save him some money. I also thought I might be able to get them sharper than they come from the factory. He was otherwise going to throw them away. I told him I might be able to sharpen them and he told me he had thrown a couple of dull sets into the water. I told him I couldn't sharpen those.

Depending on my experience with the blades it might even be feasible to take the Sharpmaker with me to the dock and touch up the blades there.
 
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