Sharpening French Mandoline

[ThEoRy]

So, I've always wanted one at home like I use at work. A really nice professional mandoline. Problem is they're expensive. Every year now for 3 years we've purchased a new one at work. We started out with 2, one of them was messed up beyond repair so it got chucked and one of them was ok but had seen better days.

I told the Chef I could just sharpen it and he said I could have it. All I have to do is remove the blade with a ratchet and sharpen it up. It's 18 10 stainless so it should be easy enough. Anyone ever try this before?

 

[chefjbs]

interesting, sounds easy enough. What about the blades for the julliene and battonettes?? they seem to always dull out from those dammed elephant carrots.

 

[Chef Niloc]

I know Dave has done a few. You can get it sharp yourself easy but if you don't get the angle of the bevel just right it won't cut right as it's a fixed blade. So I would send it to Dave or just buy a new plate. If the thing is very beat up I would go with a new blade as the little blades are likely all beat up too? I like to get the 41/20 blade combo as it makes a thinner matchstick cut and also then it just doesn't look like every other mandoline cut you see everywhere
http://www.fantes.com/bron-mandoline.html

 

[Dave Martell]

You have to keep the angle the same, not remove but the tiniest bit of steel, and deburr properly. A key thing is to NOT add a bevel on the backside when de-burring. These things can be a pain in the butt to sharpen. Touching up before they get dull is a much better alternative to full blown sharpening. Replace when they get dull.

 

[ghalle]

I sharpened one of these French mandolines two months ago for the head chef of a nearby restaurant. I had no idea at first in how to go about it, but after removing the blade assembly I found that sharpening by hand, at the same angle as the original, was fairly easy to do using small EZE Lap diamond sharpeners. By small, I mean the small flat sharpeners that have a sharpening surface of 3/4-inch x 2-inches and the folding models that have a working surface of 3/4-inches x 4-inches. I started with a Medium grit one and ended up with Super Fine, sharpening by moving the sharpener from one side of the blade to the other and back again numerous times. I first marked the edge bevel with a Sharpie to verify that I was replicating the original angle and removing steel uniformly across the blade. I deburred the edge by using the Super Fine sharpener held flat against the back side. The steel isn't very hard so it didn't take very long to sharpen. The edge had a couple of very small dings but I decided it was better to just sharpen everything and ignore the dings as grinding the blade enough to eliminate them would slightly shorten the blade and this might affect the cutting efficiency of the mandoline. Before starting to sharpen the blade I examined it with a magnifying loupe to determine the type of edge bevel and if there was more than one bevel angle involved. It looked to me like a single, flat bevel, so I knew it wouldn't be difficult to sharpen.

 

[ThEoRy]

The damage isn't too significant. I think I'll be able to get away with just starting on the 1200 bester to bring back the edge and just a little go on the rika to refine it. Thanks for the tips everybody. Now should I strop it on leather or felt with diamond or chromium?