5 Easy Steps to Sharpen Your Old Meat Cleaver

The method that is used to sharpen a meat cleaver matters to its effectiveness. Unlike knives, meat cleavers exist in a range of shapes and structures, necessitating slightly different sharpening techniques. The good news is that most meat cleavers, with their heavy edges and simple bevels, are built to last and do not require considerable honing.

This post will bring you through a simple 5-step process for sharpening your old,  cleaver. Even if you have a regular meat cleaver, these instructions will still work.

How to Sharpen an Old Meat Cleaver?

The sharpness of a knife is required for proper cutting, even if the task is minor. Otherwise, a narrow edge will turn over, causing all of your cutting to be ruined. It is hard to chop meat correctly without a good sharpness, especially with a meat cleaver. It’s also difficult to cook meat properly that hasn’t been correctly shaped during cutting.

When a cleaver already gets old, the blade can become rusty and the edge of the blade can become blunter. So, we have to keep this in mind before choosing the technique to sharpen an old meat cleaver.

Piercing in a cleaver is one of the techniques to make the knife. All sharping processes have to follow some certain angle to get better results. The recommended angle for sharpening a meat cleaver is between 30 and 35 degrees.

Sharpening your meat cleavers can be done in a variety of ways. Sharping knife depends on where you need to use it for example the meat cutting knife has to be more sharp than a vegetable cutting knife.

Some processes help to make old meat clever and sharper. They are as follows.

Process 1: Sharpening Using Grit Japanese Whetstone

The Grit Japanese Whetstone is one of the easiest and most common ways to sharpen your meat cleaver.  This method is workable for sharpening old blades. Some old blades have a lot of rust on them, and although some of it was just surface rust, other sections appeared to have been pitted. Also, some old blades have dull edges and are chipped out in several places. Grift helps to remove all of these things from a knife.

They come in a variety of grit sizes. The grit size number is written on the rubstone. The higher the grit quality, the more effectively your blade will be sharpened.

Japanese gritstones are made of steel and knives get sharp after getting a good amount rubbed by this steel rub stone. To sharpen a butcher knife with a Japanese whetstone, the following steps will help you to get desired sharpness in your knife-

• At first, you need to hold your cleaver tightly and start rubbing the chopped with the stone from starting to the ending point of the cleaver.
• You have to repeat the same process to the other side which will help the cleaver to get a nice sharpness from both sides.
• Then, clean the cleaver before using it to cut the meat.
• Finally, the last step is to clean the whetstone thoroughly so that the small steel pieces which came from the cleaver while sharpening, cannot make any damage to the whetstone later.

This method may seem simple, but it takes a lot of practice to get this process done in the right way. Therefore, you need to be careful when doing this.

You can check kitchengeeky to know some of the best meat cleavers and some tips on what to consider before buying a meat cleaver. Also, you can gather some information from there on how to take care of your cleaver.

How to Sharpen a Knife with a Japanese Master Sharpener

Process 2: Sharpening Using Stone

Stones also help cleavers to get perfect sharpness.  Stones are capable of removing the dullness from timeworn cleavers and making them sharp. With or without regular use, Cleaver loses its sharpness over time. Therefore, it needs to be finely sharpened so that it works properly while cutting the meat. One of the most common ways is to use a rough stone to sharpen the old clever. The steps of this sharping method are given below:

• If the blade of your knife is not so heavy, then you can hone your knife at 22.5 inclination.
• Sharpen the knife continuously until the knife bevel reaches your satisfactory level. But, this time, you have to keep in mind that the sharpening process has to be done at a 30-degree angle.  A 30-degree angle chopping edge is sufficient to withstand continuous use.
• The cutting edge of the knife should not be too wide so that it does not get clogged instead of sharpening.

You need to sharpen your knives evenly on both sides to get equal thickness. This can help increase the strength and duration of your blade.

Process 3: Sharpening Using Electric Grinding

No practice is required to learn this technique which will be time-saving for culinary people. The structure of this machine is that it has one or more spaces with different types of piercings.

The best thing about this machine is that the angle is fixed so you don’t need to worry about angling the knife while sharpening. This technique is quietly easy and less time-consuming, also it gives a great sharpness to the knife. On the other hand, this technique has some cons and one of them is it reduces the duration of the cleaver. And this technique is applicable for those knives that have heavy blades.

Therefore, if the knife is heavy, you can use an electric chopping stone to follow up to the edge of the knife and sharpen the carving knife. Both sides of the knife must be equally sharp to get the great sharpness. Continue this process until it is pointed out as needed. You can apply this process to a traditional weight knife.

Process 4: Sharpening Using Clamp

Usually, people use clamps to sharpen their western meat cleaver. This method is good for those knives which have a heavy edge and do not have so much piercing in it. It is designed primarily for rough use. Perfect for cutting meat and bones. But chopping vegetables is not comfortable with a cleaver.

If the cleaver has a sharpened edge, it does not have to be pierced predominantly. It does not require much work to sharpen a cleaver.

To sharpen a knife by using this technique, you need to follow these steps:

• Firstly, insert the edge of the cleaver into the clamp.
• Secondly, when you insert the copper into the clamp you have to make sure that it nearly touches the 1st nail.
• Thirdly, choose the medium hone and it has to be used at a 30-degree angle
• Fourthly, move the hone in the clamp’s direction. The movement of the hone will be marginal and you have to continue the movement 5 times in a row for both sides.
• Finally, continue this process until your cleaver reaches perfect sharpness.

Process 5: Sharpening Using Belt Sander

To sharpen a meat knife with a belt sander, you need two sides of the replaced knife. Otherwise, the sharpness on both sides will not be the same. The even sharpness on both sides helps the blade to extend its life a little longer and cut things better.

• First, hold the knife edge vertically in the belt.
• Secondly, you have to make sure the knife is angled 20-25 degrees.
• Proper angling helps the blade to get a plane edge when the blade polishes the belt sander.

Therefore, these are the ways you can use to sharpen meat cleavers but choose one of these methods according to your cleaver styles.

Wrapping Up

Any of the above techniques will help you to get better sharpness in your knife. Last but not least before choosing any method to sharpen your knife please consider their style, otherwise, if the method is not suitable for the knife style it can damage the blade. Hope these techniques will help you in the kitchen. Happy cooking.

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