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New knife edge

warrior24

warrior24

Joined
May 3, 2006
Messages
673
What do you guys use to sharpen a new knife once you have made one? Do you just use your belt grinder?
 
I put the initial bevel on with my grinder, using an x-weight 150 or 220 grit slack belt split in half to 1" wide. I then sharpen the bevel by hand on a fine India (aluminum oxide) stone.

Then I send it to Darrel and he runs it through his can opener.
 
When the crank on mine broke, I welded on a 4" pully, replaced the cutting wheel with one from a 6" pipe cutter, hooked up a 1/2 HP motor and now can sharpen about 8 knives a minuet.

Polock
 
severtecher said:
NOTE TO SELF: Scrutinize next D. Ralph purchase very carefully! :p
Click to expand...

Darn it I bought the $39.00 one! I figured it would do a good job!;)


I use a belt "320 grit", Arkansas stone and a leather strop.:eek:
 
I use some coarsness (seems to eat metal metal pretty rapidly, though.) of diamond stone (dunno which, it's Gerber brand, found it for 2 bucks. It has a red liner), then a piece of leather to strop.
 
basicly I sharpen on the grinder befor finishing, some where around 400 grit finish and test the edge. If heat treat and everything is OK I go ahead and finish finishing and use a leather backed stick to roll the edge to get a nice thin convex edge. After finish I lightly sharpen on a Norton fine india stone and strope it on a fine arkansaw stone for that scary sharp edge. Not quite as sharp as the buffer, but still has enough teeth to dig into the work.
 
I set the edge with 80 then finish it off with 120 and strop. This leaves a nice "Toothy" edge that seems to cut and keep cutting :)
Works for me anyway ;)

USe what you get comfortable with that seems to work for you.
 
I start with a 60 micron, then new 9 or 15 micron, then very hard sewn wheel or hard wool wheel with green chrome rouge.
I do mostly smaller knives in slipjoints, and it seems a shaving sharp edge is what most of my customers want, even over a slicing sharpened edge.

Now for contrast, I think it was Jerry Fisk who advised that he sharpens his blades with a stone so as to put the same kind of edge on his knives originally as his customers might do when they resharpen them....that is a real good point.
 
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