Patent ID: 7494403

Claim:
A blade sharpener for modifying the edge of a knife blade by abrasive sharpening, steeling, or conditioning of the blade edge, said blade sharpener comprising an edge modifying element, a knife blade surface guiding structure having a guide surface that minimizes scratching, abrading, burnishing or defacement of the knife blade as it makes sustained moving contact with said guide surface of said structure in order to control an angle at which the edge is being modified by said edge modifying element, said guide surface of said knife guiding structure being nonabrasive and having a configuration to allow particles of swarf and abrasive material resulting from an edge modifying process to move below said guide surface when contacted by the moving blade, said guiding structure comprising an array of rollers which are freely rotatable and arranged to provide said guide surface as a planar support formed by spaced portions of said rollers with the intermediate regions between said spaced portions comprising said configuration which allows particles to move below said guide surface, including a cleaning mechanism disposed for contacting said rollers at a location remote from the blade to remove debris from said rollers, said rollers having an outer surface, and said cleaning mechanism including vertical fibers in contact with said outer surface of said rollers.