Sharpening serrated knives

This is an explanation on how to very inexpensively sharpen a serrated knife, it isn't exactly how I do it but it is close enough and with practice it should work for you. The idea here is to give you an option that is easy to do and affordable.

Remember, you need to form a burr on the flat side of the knife, i.e. the back of the blade by sharpening each serration separately. I didn't invent this, I got the idea from Ben Dale who created the Edge Pro. I have modified it slightly but I don't take any credit for it.

What you need: Here is a wooden dowel or a ceramic rod which is to the right of the wooden dowel in the picture.  Also some wet/dry sandpaper which I use dry.  (about 5 bucks for the dowel and sandpaper which can be re-used)

Just wrap the 320 grit around the dowel and hold in place with your finger, it is easy, no need to adhere it to the dowel, let's make this quick and easy and efficient. (Start with the coarse grit paper and work your way up, you can go as high as you like, I usually stop at 1,000 grit if using sandpaper. (I often use ceramics for this job)

Now to hold the blade, and again making it quick and easy, I just put it on the edge of a telephone book which was on the counter top. It just gives you access to the handle and provides a good firm platform to hold the blade. 

Now run the dowel down each serration at the correct angle. You can use the sharpie trick on the serrations to find the angle but it is pretty simple to determine the angle, about 45 deg. You just use a trailing motion on each serration, do a count of 8. You need to repeat the process with each separate grit of sandpaper of course.  (The count of 8 is not critical, use 10 if you like)

Assuming you have a burr on the flat back side, you need to remove it and here I am holding the stone over the flat side at about 5 deg or less to remove the burr. If you haven't formed a burr, go back and try again. You are not achieving anything if you haven't formed a burr, i.e. removed that fatigued metal.

This is just the quick and inexpensive but very effective method. You can send the serrated knives somewhere to be sharpened professionally I suppose but why.

Good luck, have patience.