High dollar knives on paper wheels?

S

Sauce1

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Jan 18, 2013
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Ok, so I am quite familiar with Richard J and most if not all the paper wheel threads on here. I've watched most of the youtube vids on them. My question here is how many of you use the paper wheels on your better/higher end knives?

I was sharpening on the WE for about a year and was looking for something that can put an edge on faster. The highly pollished whittling edges from WE are great, but quite time consuming. Even touch ups can take a bit with mounting, adjusting, checking and rechecking angles through the stones.

So I bought the paper wheels and a buffer. I've done about 10 of my "beater" knives and am quite impressed with the results. In 2 mins you can reprofile and power strop a blade. Shaving sharp in 2 mins, pretty nice. I'm careful not to remove too much metal as that seems to be the biggest concern here, and mine as well./U]

The farthest I've gone with a good knife is with a para 2 with a factory edge on it, took it to the buffing wheel only. Good results. Took the factory toothy edge to a more pollished/sharper edge. Just leary to take the leap and sharpen a nice knife on the grit/carbide wheel.

So you paper wheel guys, any input or info?

Thanks,
Sauce
 
I would say it takes a good 30 knoves to get use to. I sharpen everything on them now.
 
I don't personally have any "high dollar" knives, but I have sharpened some fairly expensive knives of varying metals with my paper wheels, and had excellent results with them. I had one customer that had me sharpen 8 of his best personal collection of knives. When I was finished, he remarked that "I did not know that knives could be this sharp!" Two of his knives were factory fresh and had never been sharpened. One of them was S30V, and was quite easy to get an extremely sharp edge on.

Don't be afraid to remove enough metal to raise a good burr all along the edge. When I first started I was too cautious with customer's knives, and was afraid to remove too much metal. I wound up having to re-grind them to get them sharp enough. I finally realized that I was removing more metal that way than if I had gone ahead and ground enough to get a good sound burr the first go around. Just watch the heat build up and you will be fine.

Blessings,

Omar
 
Many people have issue with taking high dollar knives on any kind of powered sharpener. It is purely based on the skill of the sharpener. Just last night I achieved a zen like meditative state while I was using my Worksharp and my edges were coming out with a near professional look.

Best I can say is take it slow, be extra careful that you don't build much heat up, and let muscle memory take over. I would also suggest NOT doing what I did and jump right into sharpening my nice knives. Check out a flea market for a junker or two and experiment Find an angle you like and practice, practice, practice. If you notice a spot where there is a chip or abnormal microbevel mark the spine of the knife where it is so you can put extra focus on there. Also make sure not to screw the tips up. This is the absolute easiest thing to mess up, and also one of the harder things to get right until you have experience. Last thing is keep a cup of water with you when sharpening. Dip your blade every few passes and you should never have an issue with heat.

I have never used paper wheels, but luckily belt sanders have a ton of tips and tricks in common.
 
dkb45 said:
I have never used paper wheels, but luckily belt sanders have a ton of tips and tricks in common.
Click to expand...

The paper wheels are basically a belt sander without the give inherent in a belt. The wax that is imbedded in the grit wheel acts to cut down on sparking and helps keep the blade from overheating. You are right in that they have a lot of things in common.

Blessings,

Omar
 
Most of the knives i sharpen on Paper Wheels are higher dollar ones: from Spyderco's to Striders and Sebenza's, from William Henry's to Microtechs, to custom knives from Jens Anso, Sponaugle, Andrew Jordan etc.

This is a user large Sebenza i did a few days ago.
The new edge measures just under 30 degrees inclusive, can whittle a chest hair towards it's point and slice single sheet toilet paper.



Also look on pages 71 and 72 of the big Paper Wheels thread for more pics of knives i sharpened:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...els-when-your-time-is-important-to-you/page72
 
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Your fears are shared by me as well. I am going to work a craft fair in a few weeks as my first endevour with my new buisness. I have done lots of knives/tools over the years but the concern is still there that I will mess up a high $ folder. Not sure what my issue is, I do high end kitchen knives with no concern at all.

One thing to help that I have done is mounted the BG-100 from Tormek on my paperwheel setup. I can use the tormek guides to set my angles and work the edges. Added benefit is I can wet grind and then buff the edge or just use the grit wheel then buff it out. Depends on the situation. For the craft fair the paperwheel setup is probably all I will bring with me for quick work.
 
Getting better with the wheels...............like the instructions state, I'm trying not to use too much wax. Before each knife I take to the grit wheel, I just touch the wax to it. It seems there are areas where there is wax build up and doesn't seem to come off when grinding a bevel. Particularly when you first start touching the knife to the wheel it seems to jump a bit until a little pressure is added to smooth the grinding out. Anyone else notice this? I took a steel pry bar and ground on it a bit just to see if it would even/smooth out a the wax a little, but just seems to have waxy areas.

Thanks for any info,
Sauce
 
CWME said:
Your fears are shared by me as well. I am going to work a craft fair in a few weeks as my first endevour with my new buisness. I have done lots of knives/tools over the years but the concern is still there that I will mess up a high $ folder. Not sure what my issue is, I do high end kitchen knives with no concern at all.

One thing to help that I have done is mounted the BG-100 from Tormek on my paperwheel setup. I can use the tormek guides to set my angles and work the edges. Added benefit is I can wet grind and then buff the edge or just use the grit wheel then buff it out. Depends on the situation. For the craft fair the paperwheel setup is probably all I will bring with me for quick work.
Click to expand...

Can you post a picture of that? It sounds intresting.
 
Well I think paper wheels are great. I don't do sufficient volume to make the investment in the equipment or the learning. But I suspect that it's a pretty difficult transition. Somebody like me who has a lot of nice knives (although no "high" dollar as yet) will be very reticent to practice on "keepers". Buying a bunch of junk at a truck stop, it would seem to me, would be only somewhat fruitful in that most of those are so bad you are not really practicing on good steel...improperly hardened steel often enough.

You'd almost need to go out and buy like two or three dozen Bucks, Gerbers, and other moderately priced but otherwise quality knives and reprofile them all. You'll presumably mess the first few up but that last batch would presumably be some very sharp Bucks and Gerbers! Keep them or sell them to friends! That start on you Benchmades and work you way up the price ladder.
 
Get some hack saw blades and practice on them. Not very expensive, yet they are hardened steel, and the heat generated will give fairly quick feedback when you tend to over grind them. I started with some "goodwill" kitchen knives for $1 each, and still have them as they are razor sharp and in excellent shape. Could sell them at a local flea market for $5 or $6 each and the buyer's would get a good deal and so would I. Win Win!

Also for Sauce1, there is no need to add wax every time you use the grit wheel. If there is imbedded wax on the wheel, and there is little sparking, then there is no need to add wax. I have not added wax on my wheel for about two months, and it still does not really need any yet. In fact, there is probably too much wax on it right now, but I like it that way. It takes a little time longer to grind a blade, but little heat or sparks are evident when sharpening knives. I sharpen about 100 knives a month on average, sometimes more.

Blessings,

Omar
 
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