If the knives of a manual meat grinder become dull, then the meat is not so much cut as it is wrinkled. Blood fluid begins to flow from the mechanism, often you have to remove the film and tendons from the knives, and make significant physical efforts to turn even a small piece of meat. By sharpening your knives with sandpaper by hand or with a drill, you can bring them to razor sharpness and turn this boring task into a pleasant and not labor-intensive task that will take a little time.
Will need
Materials and tools:
- small rectangle of flat glass:
- sandpaper with grit P180;
- masking tape;
- household scissors;
- active (cross) and passive (circle) knives;
- wooden rod;
- marker and measuring square;
- grinder;
- spray bottle with soapy water;
- electric drill.
The process of sharpening the active and passive knife of a manual meat grinder using sandpaper
Place a rectangle of glass on a flat and hard surface, to which we glue a sheet of sandpaper with a grit of P180. To do this, glue the sandpaper to the sides on the back side and after a while remove the paper tape.
After this procedure, the sandpaper should stay on the glass in any position.
Place the disc knife on the sandpaper and begin to move it along the surface of the paper in different directions, lightly pressing it with your fingers. Movements can be longitudinal, transverse, reciprocating and rotational in one direction or the other. We do the same actions with a cross knife. In this case, the pressure on the knives should be uniform over the entire surface during the entire sharpening process.
To ensure the safety of the fingers and speed up the sharpening process, we shape the end of the wooden rod under the holes of the knives using a sharpening machine. The most important thing in this case is to ensure that the rod is vertical relative to the knife being sharpened.
The efficiency and quality of sharpening knives will noticeably increase when the surface of the sandpaper is periodically moistened with soapy water from a spray bottle. This process will be completely easier and faster if the free end of a wooden rod with a knife attached to the other end is clamped in the drill chuck and the tool is rotated.
We rinse the knives in clean water and install a manual meat grinder. Now the process of rolling meat is much better, easier and faster.
