Profiling With Wet Low Speed 10" Jet Sharpener

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When I profile a blade with my Jet 10" wet sharpener, I cannot seem to figure out the correct movement of the tip of the blade.

My tip is always jacked up.

I have watched every video I can find.

Any tips?
 
I would assume how I use a belt sander for the tip would work. Never let the tip go more than halfway across the belt (stone), best to give it a wrist turn (so the cutting edge is always parallel to the grinding surface), and keep your angle nice and steady. I butchered quite a few tips before I perfected my technique, either from rounding or over grinding (which also kind of rounds it, or at least makes the tip less acute). Don't be afraid to grind a junker down to a nub to learn, or you can do like I did and jump right to working on your favorite knife, forcing you to do it right or else you ruin your baby. OK... Don't do the second one, I can't believe I didn't ruin the knife since it was my first time using the belt sander.
 
I struggle with the tendency to swing the blade to follow the point profile. Results are not good. However, holding the same sharpening line and lifting the handle to keep the edge on the wheel works good. I have to really focus to be sure I don't screw up. I should mention that I use the Tormek Knife Jig. Are you using a jig? Take a look at the Tormek Knife Sharpening video. I bet that will help. Rgds, Jeff
 
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I run a JET system with a Tormek jig. JET seems to be out of knife jigs. They are almost exact copies of each other.

I have watched every video I can find, and it still messes up the tip. I will get a photo. (hate photographing failures lol)
 
I haven't used the knife jigs for quite awhile. For knives I use the Tormek for reshaping if a tip is broken or removing large chips when need be. Then go to the belt grinder or stones, depending on the knife, to actually sharpen. You could try going freehand with the stone rotating away from you. Thats what I do anyway. I understand your frustration using the jigs. Using the jigs if your working from the top of the unit running your edge into the rotation of the stone you may have better luck working from the front with the stone running away from you. It may be more intuitive and controllable for you.
 
I think this is a remnant from the original factory edge? Or is this something I created?

Whatever it is, I cannot accept this.

I think I am going to sharpen one, with no water, so I can better see what is going on.

This was done with the wheel, turning into the knife. Would I get less aggressive cutting if I worked with the stone turning away from the edge?


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pjwoolw said:
I haven't used the knife jigs for quite awhile. For knives I use the Tormek for reshaping if a tip is broken or removing large chips when need be. Then go to the belt grinder or stones, depending on the knife, to actually sharpen. You could try going freehand with the stone rotating away from you. Thats what I do anyway. I understand your frustration using the jigs. Using the jigs if your working from the top of the unit running your edge into the rotation of the stone you may have better luck working from the front with the stone running away from you. It may be more intuitive and controllable for you.
Click to expand...

My brain, cannot wrap around the notion of sharpening without a jig. I go to great lengths to use jigs, even making my own, when the need presents itself.
 
You aren't getting the whole edge off when grinding. You just need to work on the tip more. Sadly, since most knives are hand sharpened, most of the tips are rather obtuse because of how most people sharpen. It looks like your tip is like 5° or more obtuse than the rest of the edge.
 
First, you will have better results working from the horizontal rest with the wheel moving away from the knife edge. The finish will be finer also, as the cut isn't quite as aggressive with the wheel turning away. In the picture attached you can see that the problem gets started back away from the tip by what looks like 3/4". See the scalloping getting started? If the direction of the scratch marks move around the curve towards the very tip, you are swinging the handle of the knife to make the curve instead of raising it straight up. Two things that I believe will help. 1.) Move the tool rest to the horizontal position. Set a knife up as you normally would in the jig. 2.) With the machine off, move through the grinding pass. When you are getting into the curve, begin to raise the handle of the knife so the curve stays in contact with the wheel. Keep moving and raising until you're up to the tip. Be sure that you keep the plastic knob tight against the bar, and the jig at 90 degrees to the bar. Don't swing the jig to make the curve. If you do a couple of dry runs you will soon see how this works. When it is done correctly the scratch pattern at the tip will be going the same direction from butt to tip. Sorry to mention the Tormek knife video again but, the section in the video that addresses the point of the knife isn't very long. It's easy to miss. But if you see it, this will all become crystal clear to you. Good luck.
 
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I have watched the tormec video, and I hear what he is saying, just not sure my hands are listening to my brain, that is seeing a video with my eyes.


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Some jigs, you set them up, and a low trained monkey can sharpen. Other jigs, still need a bunch of coaxing to get the correct results.

[video=youtube;fYURcwkKGPs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYURcwkKGPs[/video]
 
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Look at the video still above. Notice how the jig is no where near the apex of the blade edge as it curves to a point?

Would it not be better to have the jig near the curve in the blade? Then rather than raising your knife handle, you just turn the knife, keeping the blade in the same area of the 10" wheel.
 
Here is one of the few close ups of this guy sharpening this knife at the tip.

This is a screen capture at exactly 5:00 into the video.

That tip never entered the water, and it never touched the grinding wheel.

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Oh man, that tip is horrible!

This is why I freehand. My only limitation is how surgeon steady or crackhead shaky my hands are that day.
 
You have to watch the video, what could be mistaken as bad sharpening, is water on the blade. The dark shadow under the tip, is the shadow area, where the tip never touched the grinding wheel.
 
I watched the whole video. That jig takes quite some time to set up. Yeah, what I thought was mangled steel was water, but I do see the very tip with a different angle in the picture. Not sure how to use that jig and get the very tip. I freehand, so I can't help much with that jig.
 
Maybe moving the jig a bit closer to the tip would improve results. Just a thought I haven't tried this myself. Might be a good experiment.
 
pjwoolw said:
Maybe moving the jig a bit closer to the tip would improve results. Just a thought I haven't tried this myself. Might be a good experiment.
Click to expand...

I will try this,

along with a separate test of reversing the wheel movement in relation to the blade. This should do less material removal, so I can better see what is going on.
 
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