How to Easily Sharpen a Steel Knife Using the Unglazed Bottom of Ceramic Dishware

A recent Chemistry Life Hacks episode by ACS Reactions demonstrates a simple and inexpensive way to easily sharpen a steel knife using the unglazed bottom of ceramic dishware.

A stainless steel knife is sharp because of the way that the blade tapers down into a tight point. Now that tight point isn’t perfect, and there are little tiny fragments of steel that push outward, and act sort of like teeth on a saw. This is why pushing a knife straight down into food doesn’t cut as well as using a pulling or pushing motion. The bottoms of a ceramic plate, bowl, or even coffee cup are actually hard enough offer a good temporary solution to both true your blade’s edge, that is, make it as straight as possible, and also remove some surface steel to create a refreshed edge.