[Avodah] Knife Sharpening

[Prof. Levine]

The following is from an article posted on the 
CRC web site at https://goo.gl/ispg9T


Food service establishments regularly send out 
their knives for sharpening, and it appears that 
there are three potential kashrus concerns with this practice, as follows:
    * The sharpening company may give the 
establishment different knives than the ones 
which the establishment gave them for 
sharpening.  This is an especially likely in 
cases where the sharpening company actually owns 
the knives and lends them to the establishment in 
exchange for the rights to sharpen them.  This 
issue can be avoided if the Mashgiach has a 
tevias ayin on the knives and/or marks them.
    * Knives are typically very dirty when they 
arrive at the sharpening facility, and therefore 
all knives are washed in hot water or a 
dishwasher before the sharpening begins.  This 
potentially allows non-kosher b’lios to get into 
the kosher knives.  See below for more on this.
    * The same machine is used to sharpen the 
(clean) kosher and non-kosher knives, and the 
friction created by the process does heat up the 
knives somewhat.  If that heat would be above yad 
soledes bo, there would be a potential for b’lios 
to transfer between the machinery and 
knives.  However, in tests which Rabbi Neustadt 
performed in one sharpening company, the 
sharpening wheel and the cooling water (where 
that was used) were consistently cooler than 100° 
F and were not hot to the touch.  As such, it 
appears that this does not pose a serious concern.
See the above URL for more.

YL
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