Sharpener for knives with widely different edge angles

摘要

A wide range of knives and blades, including Western, Asian or traditional Japanese style blades that have a primary edge facet on at least one side of the knife edge are sharpened through use of an electric knife sharpener having a first sharpening stage with at least one rotating abrasive surface disk and a knife angle guide to position the blade's facet at a first relative angle of approximately 15 degrees as it contacts the moving abrasive surface. The knife sharpener includes a second sharpening stage with at least one rotating abrasive surfaced disk and a knife angle guide to position the blade's facet at a second relative angle of approximately 20 degrees as it contacts the rotating abrasive surface. The knife sharpener also has a third stropping stage with at least one rotating stropping disk containing abrasive particles of less than 1 thousandth of inch diameter and a knife angle guide to position the blade's facet at a third relative angle larger than the first and second angles as it contacts the rotating surface of the stropping disk. The rotating sharpening and stropping disks are displaceable from a rest position against specific restraining forces when contacted by the edge facet being sharpened or stropped.

主权项

1. An electric knife sharpener for selectively optimally sharpening an Asian or Japanese style knife and a Euro-American style knife with the same sharpener wherein each such knife has a blade edge with a primary facet on at least one side of the blade edge, said sharpener having a first stage and a second stage and a third stage, said sharpener having a motor driven shaft, said first stage having at least one rotatable abrasive surfaced disk mounted on said shaft for sharpening a blade edge, a first knife angle guide in said first stage having a guide surface to position the blade edge facet into contact with said first stage abrasive surfaced disk to create a primary facet along the blade edge, said first stage guide surface with respect to the vertical being at an angle A which is about 15 degrees, a first spring arrangement urging said first stage disk and said first stage guide relatively toward each other with a spring force of less than 0.6 pounds, said first stage disk having its abrasive surface formed from abrasives of predominantly on the order of 230-270 grit, said second stage having at least one rotatable abrasive surfaced disk mounted on said shaft for sharpening a blade edge, a second knife angle guide in said second stage having a guide surface to position the blade edge facet into contact with said second stage abrasive surfaced disk to create a primary facet along the blade edge, said second stage guide surface with respect to the vertical being at an angle B which is 17-23 degrees, a second spring arrangement urging said second stage disk and said second stage guide relatively toward each other with a low spring force of less than 0.6 pounds, said second stage disk having its abrasive surface formed from abrasives finer than 200 grit, said third stage having at least one rotatable abrasive surfaced disk mounted on said shaft for contacting the blade edge, a third knife angle guide in said third stage having a guide surface to position the blade edge facet into contact with said third stage abrasive surfaced disk, said third stage guide surface with respect to the vertical being at an angle C which is 19-25 degrees and which is at least as great as angle B, a third spring arrangement urging said third stage disk and said third stage guide relatively toward each other at a low spring force of less than 0.6 pounds, and said third stage disk having its abrasive surface formed from abrasives predominantly no greater than 20 microns.