Application Tips
and Frequent Questions

For knives that have been sharpened freely by hand until now, the angle usually varies after each sharpening. For this reason, the actual grinding angle can often not be determined. Therfore, it is worthwhile to sharpen your knives once with the sharpener and the Magentic-Angle-Support to a constant grinding angle which can be reproduced with each sharpening process.

Basically kitchen knives of any quality can be sharpened at 20°. However, depending on the condition of the blade and the quality of the steel, many knives are able to achieve even finer sharpness at 15°. To find out whether a particular knife is suitable for this purpose, sharpen the 15° side for 2-3 minutes. If the sharpness is not satisfactory, it is recommended to use the 20° grinding angle.

As a rule, 1 - 5 minutes (or 10 minutes in hardness cases) of grinding time must be spent once before a knife is sharpened for the first time by the sharpener, as the 20° or 15° grinding angle must first be taught-in. The actual grinding time may vary depending on the condition of the blade. Resharpening usually requires only a few movements from both sides due to the constant grinding angle.

To find out whether the knife has already "learned" the prefered angle, the so-called marker pen can be applied.For using this method, the uppermost part of the edge is colored with a marker pen. The knife is then placed against the Magnetic-Angle-Support and ground as usual. After a few grinding movements, it can be visually checked whether the coloring of the marker pen has already been ground away. If the felt tip pen stroke is still visible, the knife has not yet been ground in completely. In this case, the old grinding angle still prevents the knife from reaching the cutting edge. This process should always be performed on both sides. After grinding, the knife should be cleaned with a cloth or leather.

If there is a residue of sharpening dust on the diamond and ceramic surfaces after a few sharpening movements, this can be removed with an eraser. For larger deposits, soak the surfaces in a hot water bath with dishwashing liquid. Then remove the residue with a brush.

Depending on the level of use, the diamond disc will not need to be replaced in an entire kitchen lifetime. Basically, diamonds are harder than any knife steel and therefore hardly wear out during the grinding process. However, during the first grinding processes, production related surplus diamonds are quickly removed. After the somewhat rougher grinding noise at the very beginning, the disc quickly sounds finer when grinding has reached its normal usage surface. The diamonds are set about 55% deep in a nickel bed. If this nickel bed is broken by sharp, chipped or damaged objects, diamonds might fall out. Therefore, use it only to sharpen kitchen and cooking knives. The sharpener is not suitable for scythes, scissors, garden tools, chisels or similar.

The corundum whetstones wear off visibly during grinding and with average use, they have a service life of 3 - 6 years. The whetstone #6000 wears off faster than the whetstone #3000. Before and after grinding, remove any grinding dust from the sharpener, Magnetic-Angle-Support and knife.

It's best to clean the corundum whetstones by gently rubbing both their surfaces against each other. Just a few circular motions are enough to clean them. If you only have one of the whetstones, you can clean it with some sandpaper, an eraser or a wet brush.

Enclose the HORL® Sharpener firmly with one hand. With the other hand, the desired grinding wheel is turned up in an opposite movement. After changing the grinding wheels, the grinding wheels should again be mounted on the roller grinder with the screws tightly screwed down by hand. Note: The grinding wheels can be changed on the model HORL® 2, HORL® 2 Pro and the first generation HORL® Sharpeners.

In order to sharpen more unusual blade heights, such as cleavers, which are higher than the sharpener's grinding disc, the sharpener is supported accordingly during the grinding process, for example with a cutting board. The sharpener is then moved to this height, while the knife is attached to the Magnetic-Angle-Support on the lower surface's level.

Although damascus knives are often made of harder steel than most ordinary knives, a hardness degree of beyond 60 HRC is no problem for the sharpener.You can use the sharpener to sharpen any steel knife. Due to the even application without any concentrated strain, the sharpener sharpens even the most precious knives with the highest precision. Due to the constant grinding angle, only the material that prevents the knife from becoming sharp again is removed.

In general, the sharpener is well suited for also sharpening ceramic knives. However, since ceramic is not magnetic, the angle must be maintained by hand.

You do not need water to sharpen knives with the sharpener because no significant heat is generated due to the smooth rolling movements. The diamond coating is also designed just to be used dry. The additionally available high-grade corundum grinding whetstones #3000 and #6000 also achieve top results when used dry.

The sharpener is primarily designed to sharpen large and small kitchen knives. Therefore, due to the possibility of a great difference in grinding angles, sharpening scissors, scythes or other tools with the sharpener is not recommended.

Cutlery knives often have fine serrations which cannot be sharpened with a sharpener. However, smooth cutlery knives can be sharpened without any problem.

The grinding angle is the angle at which the knife is machined from one side. Since most knives are ground on both sides, the grinding angle (e.g. 15°) is also ground in from both sides. After grinding both sides with 15° grinding angle, a 30° cutting edge or 30° cutting angle is obtained. Therefore, the cutting angle is usually twice the grinding angle.

After grinding, the HORL® Leather removes even the finest abrasive particles and ensures a clean, smooth blade. Basically, the smoother the blade, the more impressive the sharpening result. If you feel a slight scratching when you pull the blade over the leather, this is a sign of burr. Removing it only requires a few movements with diamond and honing side of the sharpener. The knife can then be wiped again over the HORL® Leather. Just like spreading butter on bread, the strokes are repeated on both sides of the knife until it glides smoothly and without any resistance over the leather.

Basically, the coarsest grain size is used first and the finest is used last. We start with the HORL® diamond to grind the knife completely. Afterwards the ceramic or stainless steel honing disc is used, the HORL® Stone - #3000 fine, HORL® Stone - #6000 extra fine and finally the HORL® leather. When re-sharpening the HORL® diamond can usually be skipped and sharpened with the HORL® Stone - #3000 fine, HORL Stone - #6000 extra fine. At the end the blade will be wiped over the HORL® leather again.

Every hardened knife steel is magnetic due to its iron or carbon content. Therefore, knives also known as "stainless steel" are usually magnetic. There are different stainless steels for different applications. There are magnetic and anti-magnetic stainless steels. An anti-magnetic stainless steel is used for example for kitchen sinks or the like. However, this would not be suitable for hardening, let alone for producing a powerful knife from it.