Sharpening serrated steak knives

[Prelude_to_Fascination]

Okay, I’m not a complete moron, but when it comes to kitchen utensils, I’m kind of in the low-maintenance-relatively-cheap-ass-doofus category. In other words, when I buy a knife, pan, etc., I want quality, but I’m not going to spend $180 on one knife, although I don’t buy As Seen on TV! crap pushed by Billy Mays or Vince the Sham guy.

To the subject: I’ve got a set of serrated steak knives I’ve had for many years, and they need to be sharpened.

Is there an affordable, easy-to-use sharpener you can recommend (preferably not more than $20 unless it’s really, really worth it), or should I have a professional do it (which would probably cost more than these are worth)?

Thanks.

[phouka]

I was under the impression that you can’t sharpen serrated knives. I could be wrong, though.

[squeegee]

Yeah, me too.

[silenus]

Well, there is obviously a way to sharpen them, or they never would have been sharp in the first place. Whether or not this method is available to the modern consumer at an appropriate cost is the question.

[Gary_T]

I dress our serrated knives with a honing steel. Typically one side is flat, and a fair amount of pressure can be applied with the blade virtually parallel to the steel; the other side is beveled, and I use a light touch there with the blade angled from the steel to match the bevel. This may or may not be enough to restore sharpness to your knives, but it’s the cheapest and easiest thing to try first.

[Winsling]

Handling Serrated Knives

Serrated knives and bread knives are a special case. Serrated knives will stay sharp longer than plain edged knives, mainly because the insides of the serrations generally don’t contact hard surfaces. That’s what the teeth are for. The teeth not only have a cutting function, but are also sacrificial lambs, offered up to steakhouse swordsman and children everywhere who feel that if they’re not grinding into the ceramic of the plate, they’re not cutting.

There are four ways to sharpen serrated knives:

1. Pretend the serrations don’t exist and sharpen on a stone, sharpening system or electric sharpener as you would a plain edged knife. This will eventually remove the serrations.
2. Sharpen the flat, non-serrated back of the blade. This will sharpen the knife, but also will eventually remove the serrations, though not as quickly as the first method.
3. Sharpen the serrations individually with a tapered diamond or ceramic file.
4. Sharpen on a crock stick setup, going very slowly so the ceramic rod glides in and out of the serrations.

This last method actually works fairly well, especially with the Spyderco Sharpmaker. It’s triangular rods fit into serrations much easier than the standard round crock sticks. If you want to keep your serrated knives as sharp as they can be, the Sharpmaker system is the way to go, though the Lansky rod-guided system also has an accessory hone for sharpening serrated edges.

From here.

[Uzi]

I just use a small metal file that will fit into the serrations. This will result in some rough edges on the flat side of the blade. I then use the file as if it was a steel and knock them off. It makes them as sharp as original and more than sharp enough for their purpose.

[Prelude_to_Fascination]

Thanks for the replies. It looks like a small file and some time are what I need.