- Joined
- Dec 15, 2003
- Messages
- 3,154
A couple of weeks ago I reiceived my $40 Harbour Freight belt sander. I bought a variety of belts for it from Lee Valley: 180, 320, 500 & 1200, plus a leather belt and a chromium oxide stick.
So far it's working very well. The first thing I did was try it out on old kitchen knives. Then I worked on all of the other kitchen knives in the house. After that, I went door to door and sharpened neighbors' kitchen knives. I got a lot of nice comments iin the days that followed about how muuch better they cut.
It takes a few seconds to put a new edge bevel with this belt sander. It is fairly easy to control, although I've bungled a few tips with it.
I put new edges on dozens of super dull kitchen knives. I suspect most of these knives never had a proper edge to begin with, and on top of that were abused and neglected for years on end. A lot of them were really bad. The worst ones took 2-3 passes per side and about a minute to fix with a 180 grit belt. Many of them were done in one pass per side.
My method on the kitchen knives eventually progressed to thinning the edge down to about 30 degrees inclusive (I did a couple of cleavers and left their edges much thicker) with the 180, and then going straight to removing the burr with the Sharpmaker medium rods. It gave the knives what I felt was a good working edge that would shave with some pushing. So, I'm jumping grits big time, yet it seems to work. Comments?
I've also just plain messed around with it on a couple of Moras. I reshaped, progressed through alll of the belts, etc.
I was not about to subject my more expensive knives to lower grit belts. If I'm going to reprofile an expensive knive, it's going to be on the Edge Pro
I did try the 500 and 1200 belts on some convex blades, starting with a couple of Opinels and then a couple of Bark Rivers I use fairly regularly. I slackened the belt, and gently pressed the blade into the belt, more or less straight up and down. I was able to get it to hit a lot of the side of the blade and the edge at the same time. It worked beautifully.
I then loaded the leather belt with chromium oxide. The stuff Lee Valley sells comes in a large stick form, and goes on like a crayon. I found it a little diifficult to get an even coat. I fixed that problem, however, by dipping a finger in olive oil, and using it to spread the polish around, resulting in a nice even coat on the smooth side of the belt.
I was disappointed in the performance of the leather belt. I had hoped it would be a magic bulllet of sorts. No dice. I used a very light touch, and I'm not sure whether its the belt or me, but here's my observation: the belt does not run smooth; rather, it vibrates a mm or so. My theory is that its not really just touching the edge -- it's slapping it. When it does that, I think it must be curling around the edge and rounding it. I went back to the 1200 belt and then used a regular wood-mounted leather strop using 5 light strokes per side, and got better results. I'd like to hear some suggestions from those of you who get the leather belt to work properly.
My other question is about overheating the blade. When I sharpen, I'm almost always moving the blade at a rate of about 1" per second. It doesn't seem to be heating the blade much at all. The only time I felt uuncomfortable heat was on the tip of a very thin paring knife. Does 1" per second sound like a safe rate to avoid overheating using a 180 grit belt?
Overall, the belt sander seems to be a great tool for bulk sharpening of kitchen knives, especially when you're faced with really thick, extremely dull edges. It also works well on convex edges with the higher grit belts. I'm disappointed with the performance of the leather belt, but look forward to hearing the solutions of other who've used it.
So far it's working very well. The first thing I did was try it out on old kitchen knives. Then I worked on all of the other kitchen knives in the house. After that, I went door to door and sharpened neighbors' kitchen knives. I got a lot of nice comments iin the days that followed about how muuch better they cut.
It takes a few seconds to put a new edge bevel with this belt sander. It is fairly easy to control, although I've bungled a few tips with it.
I put new edges on dozens of super dull kitchen knives. I suspect most of these knives never had a proper edge to begin with, and on top of that were abused and neglected for years on end. A lot of them were really bad. The worst ones took 2-3 passes per side and about a minute to fix with a 180 grit belt. Many of them were done in one pass per side.
My method on the kitchen knives eventually progressed to thinning the edge down to about 30 degrees inclusive (I did a couple of cleavers and left their edges much thicker) with the 180, and then going straight to removing the burr with the Sharpmaker medium rods. It gave the knives what I felt was a good working edge that would shave with some pushing. So, I'm jumping grits big time, yet it seems to work. Comments?
I've also just plain messed around with it on a couple of Moras. I reshaped, progressed through alll of the belts, etc.
I was not about to subject my more expensive knives to lower grit belts. If I'm going to reprofile an expensive knive, it's going to be on the Edge Pro
I did try the 500 and 1200 belts on some convex blades, starting with a couple of Opinels and then a couple of Bark Rivers I use fairly regularly. I slackened the belt, and gently pressed the blade into the belt, more or less straight up and down. I was able to get it to hit a lot of the side of the blade and the edge at the same time. It worked beautifully.
I then loaded the leather belt with chromium oxide. The stuff Lee Valley sells comes in a large stick form, and goes on like a crayon. I found it a little diifficult to get an even coat. I fixed that problem, however, by dipping a finger in olive oil, and using it to spread the polish around, resulting in a nice even coat on the smooth side of the belt.
I was disappointed in the performance of the leather belt. I had hoped it would be a magic bulllet of sorts. No dice. I used a very light touch, and I'm not sure whether its the belt or me, but here's my observation: the belt does not run smooth; rather, it vibrates a mm or so. My theory is that its not really just touching the edge -- it's slapping it. When it does that, I think it must be curling around the edge and rounding it. I went back to the 1200 belt and then used a regular wood-mounted leather strop using 5 light strokes per side, and got better results. I'd like to hear some suggestions from those of you who get the leather belt to work properly.
My other question is about overheating the blade. When I sharpen, I'm almost always moving the blade at a rate of about 1" per second. It doesn't seem to be heating the blade much at all. The only time I felt uuncomfortable heat was on the tip of a very thin paring knife. Does 1" per second sound like a safe rate to avoid overheating using a 180 grit belt?
Overall, the belt sander seems to be a great tool for bulk sharpening of kitchen knives, especially when you're faced with really thick, extremely dull edges. It also works well on convex edges with the higher grit belts. I'm disappointed with the performance of the leather belt, but look forward to hearing the solutions of other who've used it.
I went ahead and mailed it to Bob Dozier and he heat treated the blade and the lockbar for me since both were D2. Ever since then I've made it a great everyday beater for my left pocket. 