How to Sharpen Knives with a KMG Grinder by Tommy Matthews

Tommy Matthews of Crooked River Forge demonstrates how to sharpen two of his popular kitchen knives using a classic KMG belt grinder. The knives include a long-slicer Western French Chef knife with a thin profile 8” blade, and a heavy duty chopping or mincing Cleaver with a thicker, slightly convex 7” blade. A rotary platen attachment enables the abrasive belt to maintain both flexibility and support while rolling around the convex shape of the blade. With the KMG belt grinder running at medium speed, a flexible, used and softened 180 grit abrasive belt is used for the first operation, followed by a used and softened 320 grit belt. The final step requires a leather strop to finely tune the edge for razor sharp performance. Cut tests including shaving hair, slicing paper and cleanly slitting paper floating in the air. The KMG belt grinder and the rotary platen are made by Beaumont Metal Works and available at BeaumontMetalWorks.com Timestamp listing: 00:12 Western French Chef 00:29 Cleaver 00:53 rotary platen 01:13 convex blade strengths 01:35 worn, softened 180 grit and 320 grit abrasive belts 02:29 chef’s knife sharpen with 180 grit, medium speed on grinder 03:02 sharpen chef’s edge with three passes on each side 03:43 looking for uniform, very fine burr or wire edge at cutting edge 05:08 cleaver sharpen with worn 180 grit belt 05:56 switch abrasive belts to worn and softened 320 grit 06:05 chef’s knife sharpen single pass each side with 320 06:34 chef’s edge sharp enough to shave 06:50 cleaver sharpen single pass each side with 320 07:05 cleaver edge sharp enough to shave 07:20 leather strop to remove micro burr and sharpen chef’s knife 08:28 leather strop to remove micro burr and sharpen cleaver 09:04 cut test - paper shred cleanly by chef’s knife 09:21 cut test - paper slit in mid-air by chef’s knife 09:47 cut test - paper slice mid-air by cleaver 10:38 Tommy @Crooked_River_Forge and CrookedRiverForge.com 10:42 buy KMG classic grinder and rotary platen at www.BeaumontMetalWorks.com 10:48 follow Beaumont on Instagram @BeaumontMetalWorks 10:50 subscribe to our YouTube channel Beaumont Metal Works for more videos