Ever seen anybody use a robot for sharpening?

[C_Claycomb]

How the hell is that robot and its enclosure THAT clean if that is how they grind?!?

I saw the thread title and immediately thought of Spyderco. I saw that robot in action in 2016 when I got my factory tour

 

[JTknives]

First thing I noticed is I want one of those hammers. And second is the big contact wheel is on a spring loaded pivot. I’m guessing that’s to take the ridged unforgiving aspect out of the robot arm.

 

[12345678910]

I wouldn't want a dozen hatchet heads banging around in the bottom of the parts catcher bin.
It would be nice to have them set back into the pallet rack they started in.

Can it do an auto belt change ?
How long would that belt last ?

 

[WValtakis]

I suppose it's all good until your robot becomes self aware while holding a freshly sharpened knife...

Can we all agree now not to let the robot sharpen the K18's, Nathan the Machinist ?

 

[Natlek]

Can it do an auto belt change ?
How long would that belt last ?

No , it can not auto change belts .They last longer then you would think , much longer . My friend have three station like this one.Soon I will tell you how long belts last .I m waiting to find one more circular saw for wood ,I have two already .From one can be laser cut 19 pieces , this means 57 knife blank .Steel is 2.8mm thick /2%tungsten steel / hardenable to 68 hrc .From what i know looking how they grind some parts in his shop , after grinding this 57 /hardened/ blanks i can bet that there will be no visible worn on belt ....HIGH belt speed and controlled pressure is key ,obviously .
In the meantime......I'm a robot This water jet cut steel parts are out of normal production he does so I take them in my shop and clean them from water jet marks on my horizontal grinder for him , they will go on CNC after this .That s the price I pay for access on some crazy machine he has I think that they are 118 pieces ..big one . I took me four hours to do that job

 

[Keith Nix]

To the original subject:
Nathan, I hope you find what you're looking for to add to your shop. I'd love to see a WIP getting it up and running too!

 

[P.Brewster]

Speaking of Nathan's parallelogram jig, I took his concept but made it upside-down. I'm not sure if I posted this on BF already. 99% of my work is freehand but I occasionally use it for grinding the primary bevel.

I have always had the long-term goal of using robotic grinding for grinding primary bevels.

 

[Drew Riley]

Speaking of Nathan's parallelogram jig, I took his concept but made it upside-down. I'm not sure if I posted this on BF already. 99% of my work is freehand but I occasionally use it for grinding the primary bevel.

I have always had the long-term goal of using robotic grinding for grinding primary bevels.

Now that is interesting...
Where do you get the ball joints from?

 

[P.Brewster]

Now that is interesting...
Where do you get the ball joints from?

The balljoints are just whatever I could find on McMaster. They are pretty terrible, but because the vertical posts are so long, the resulting error isn't too bad. The first step in making this thing better is to find/fabricate more precise ball joints. The second step is to design/fabricate a change-out/clamp system that is less of a hassle (mine only requires one screw to be loosened, but when I'm trying to bust out 30 knives/session, that is 1 screw too many).