How to sharpen shredder blades

Even with the widespread use of computers and mobile devices, paper is still essential in most businesses, so the tools for handling it remain important. One of these is a guillotine shredder with a single large blade that can cut paper of surprising thickness when the blade is at its sharpest. As the blades get used over time, dulling them can become a problem for users, and this is where learning how to sharpen them becomes especially necessary.

Here is the list of contents

1. There is a difference between honing and sharpening

2. How to sharpen the shredder blade

There is a difference between honing and sharpening

The first thing you need to know is that your knives may not need sharpening at all, but rather honing. Blades have a very thin edge, and in normal use, the fine edge will bend slightly, dulling the blade and weakening its cutting ability. Honing a blade simply means re-straightening the edge, which is really what we do when we sharpen a kitchen knife with a whetstone. You can sharpen the blade by taking it off and rubbing the flat side back and forth a few times on sharpening steel or a flat piece of unfinished industrial steel, or simply use it to cut some thick aluminum foil. If your knife is relatively new or little used, this may be all you need to do.

To sharpen the blade, you will need to remove the blade from the base. Usually, this means that you will have to use an Allen wrench to remove some small hex bolts from the blade. It is best for you to move these hex bolts away from each end and into the middle so that the middle bolt will eventually hold the blade in place. You can refer to the instructions for the blade for details, but for your safety, I would like to caution that the blade is sharp and should be handled with care.

How to sharpen the shredder blade

Use a sharpening stone to sharpen the blade

Your shredder blade is actually very much like a regular kitchen knife, except for the difference in length, the shredder blade can be sharpened on a whetstone in the same way as a kitchen knife. The main difference is that the shredder blade is usually angled on one side and flat on the other, so you only need to sharpen one side. When sharpening a shredder blade, use a stone large enough to cut the entire blade through it with each stroke. Using a fine stone with a grit of 1,000 is best; the larger the grit, the better the sharpening stone.

Sharpening knives with a grinder

If you have a bench grinder in your maintenance shop or production area, you can sharpen your knives faster. But you need to use a fine stone and be very careful about the angle of the grind, because high-speed grinding wheels can grind away steel very quickly, and if you make a mistake in the process, it can be very time-consuming to correct it. In either case, wear goggles when sharpening. Using a grinder will wear the blade faster, so you must weigh the cost of the blade against the time saved by not sharpening it by hand on a stone.

Leave the sharpening to the professionals

The third option is to delegate the sharpening task to a professional, which is the easiest and fastest way, but also comes with a certain amount of monetary loss. Most urban areas have many sharpening services, and even relatively small towns have at least one hardware store that specializes in sharpening knives and tools, so it's relatively easy to find a professional.