Edgecraft Chef'sChoice 315XV Instructions page 6

(Figure 10) can be easily seen only with a hand magnifier. The back face is ground flat at the
factory or more commonly it is slightly hollow ground to ensure that an effective microfacet can
be formed there as part of the cutting edge. Because of the lack of standardization, commonly
the manual approach used to sharpen these knives has proven difficult, laborious and time con-
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suming. The Chef'sChoice Model 315XV Sharpener is designed to sharpen all traditional Asian
blades and to create a factory-like edge.
Before you start to sharpen a traditional blade, examine it carefully in order to confirm that you
have the traditional single bevel blade and to determine whether you have a right or left handed
type as described on page 9, Figure 9b. It is essential that you follow carefully the sharpening
procedure and sequence as described below in order to achieve the optimum edge on your
traditional blade.
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Note: Do not attempt to sharpen any traditional blade thicker than / inch (3 mm) in the Model
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315XV sharpener. (Control of the sharpening angle becomes difficult for such thick blades.)
Again confirm which side of the blade has the large factory Bevel A. Hold the blade in your hand
(as if you are cutting) and if the large factory bevel is on the right side of the blade, the blade is
right handed. For the right handed blades start sharpening in the left slot of Polishing Stage 2 so
that only the beveled side (right side) of the edge will contact the polishing wheel.
Step 1 - Start In polIShIng Stage 2 (rIght handed BladeS)
Pull the full length of the blade through the left slot of Stage 2 (Figure 5) about ten (10) times
(take about 3 seconds for each pull of a 5 inch [12 cm] blade and proportionally longer for
longer blades). Feel for a burr on back side of blade edge as shown in Figure 4. (The burr will
be extremely small). If there is no burr, make ten (10) additional slow pulls through the left slot.
If no burr is formed after these pulls proceed to Step 2; otherwise omit Step 2 and go to Step 3.
Step 2 – uSIng the honIng Stage 1 (rIght handed BladeS)
If you were unable to develop a burr in Stage 2 as described in Step 1 you will need to hone the
edge in Stage 1 as follows: Since your traditional blade is right handed you must hone only in
the left slot of Stage 1 (see Figure 6). The number of pulls that you need to make depends on
how dull your blade is. Duller blades will require more pulls.
Make ten (10) pulls in the left slot of Stage 1 and then check for a burr along the back side of the
blade edge. (The burr created in Stage 1 will be small but easily felt as shown in Figure 4). Make
certain the burr is present along the entire length of the edge. If there is no burr or only a partial
burr, continue to make additional pulls all in the left slot about five (5) at a time and check for a
burr after each group of five (5) pulls. Probably 20-30 total pulls in the left slot will be adequate
Figure 5. Traditional (sushimi) knife in left slot of Stage 2. Figure 6. Traditional (sushimi) knife in left slot of Stage 1.
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