Grinding with a Dremel Tool...

P

Phry

Joined
Mar 27, 2005
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After reading everything I could find relating to sharpening, and practicing for several years, I believe my skills have gotten to an acceptable level. However, I am not by nature a patient person. Unless I feel the need to be extremely careful, I find myself taking extremely dull, worn or damaged blades and clamping them in a vise and grinding new bevels with a Dremel tool and rotary stone. I have yet to experience any significant increase in temperature along the blade or discolouration associated with overheating.

So my question is, besides removing more steel than I probably have to, is there any problems that would be associated with this method? Might this process weaken the steel along the edge or otherwise affect performance in the long run?
 
If you are grinding bevels or removing any steel with a Dremel on an already finished knife and it gets any warmer than you can tolerate by touching it to your cheek,lips,tongue or other sensitive zone:eek:of your body,you are tampering with the temper and IMO is ill advised.

I ruined a knife or two early on doing the exact same thing. :o

Doug
 
I know what you're talking about leatherbird, I burned the temper out of a few lawnmower blades before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Since then, I haven't detected any increase in temperature when using a Dremel to re-establish damaged bevels.

I'm aware of the inherent risks of this method, but I don't have the patience to spend an hour or two grinding away with a stone by hand to achieve the same result.
 
Belts are going to be much cooler. The longer the belt the cooler it cuts. If you are using a small wheel, or even a small drum sander in a drill mounted in a bench mount like the Craftsman portable Lathe you can produce enough heat on the thin edge of the knife to damage it. Remember that the edge is much more sensitive to it due to how thin it is. Feeling for heat even an 1/8" above where you are grinding doesn't give you a true reading of what is going on at the point of contact of the wheel or sander. Idealy a 2x 72" belt controlled by a variable speed and for precise angle will give you the best of coolness and cutting quality of the edge. But if you don't have that I'd suggest an Edge Pro or some other guide type system like the Razor Edge system you can use by hand.

STR
 
Thanks for the replies guys!

STR, would a 1x30" belt sander be a better option than a Dremel? I had a similar sized sander until it broke recently, and I've felt no need to replace it until now. I try to test for heating along the very edge itself and the new bevels that I'm grinding.

As a side note, I do have a decent array of sharpening equipment, but hauling out the Lansky to reprofile my bevels perfectly isn't always possible due to time constraints.
 
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