Spatula

[Herman Trivilino]

Anybody ever been asked to "sharpen" a spatula?



These are used in a restaurant to flip burgers. Apparently the tip works much like a wood chisel to separate the burger cleanly from the surface of the grill. These were not working correctly. My son brought them to me yesterday and said that the burgers weren't separating from grill surface properly, leaving behind a large amount of residue stuck on the grill. This ruins the appearance of the burger, leaves behind some of the tastiest parts of the burger, and makes clean up a chore.

The best way I can describe the situation is by comparing it to a wood chisel. The upper surface of the spatula has the bevel, and the bottom surface is flat. If you can imagine that somehow the corners of your wood chisel were mushroomed, this is the best way I can describe what they looked like. I had to flatten the backs to remove the mushrooming on each corner. These apparently prevented the knife edge of the spatula from making contact with the grill, thus causing the reported problem.

After flattening the backs on the side of my Tormek grindstone I used my homemade mini-clearance jig to restore the 25° bevel on the tops. I didn't grind away enough material to raise a burr because I didn't think it wise to create a sharp knife edge. For one thing it would be dangerous (people expect knives and chisels to be sharp, but not spatulas!) and for another it would quickly fold over and that might cause a performance issue.

Anyway, any advice on technique? How much would you charge?

I also sharpened two grill scraper blades. They were rather like jointer knives, but shorter and wider so again I was able to use my homemade jig. I otherwise sharpened them in the same way I would a wood chisel.

Again, and advice on technique would be appreciated. And how much would you charge? The blades are about 4 inches long.

If they perform well I may get a lot of business from the company my son works for. Apparently they have a machine for sharpening spatulas but he said his employees weren't using it right, or something. I suspect the issue was the mushrooming I described above. You could dress up the bevel on the top all you want, but with those mushrooms on the bottom the spatula will never make good contact with the grill's surface along the cutting edge.

[grepper]

Cool project.

I'm no hamburger turner spatula expert or aficionado, but you may want to ask them how sharp they want it.  If you search around, it looks like a lot of spatulas are pretty sharp so as to scrape well on a griddle surface or chop stuff in half.  So like I mentioned, you may want to ask what they want or give them a sample of both sharp and not so sharp so they could check out both.  Some, like this one, even warn how sharp they are:

https://www.pamperedchef.com/shop/Outdoor/BBQ+Tools/BBQ+Turner/2692

The Use and Care link provides the following information:

Important Safeguards
The stainless steel blade of the Barbecue Turner is extremely sharp to offer you the best performance and may cause serious injury if not used properly. Please follow these important safeguards:
Always keep this and all other cutting devices out of children's reach.
Always store the dry, clean Turner safely in the protective storage sleeve when not in use.
Carefully read and follow all Use and Care instructions prior to first use.

[Ken S]

Herman,

It would be helpful if you could examine a new spatula used for the purpose. Check both the amount of sharpness and how flat it is. Compare it with some used spatulas.

Also, compare the smoothness. You might need to spend some time with the leather honing wheel. Spatulas can be plastic or wood, so I would first suspect flatness and smoothness.

It would be interesting to see how the restaurant's sharpening unit works.

Good topic; please keep us posted.

Ken

[SharpenADullWitt]

I also, would be interested in what the restaurant sharpener is.  I imagine something that probably sharpens two sided knives and for one sided things (serrated knives, spatula's), your supposed to use only one area for the backside.