Sharpening Wharnies with a Belt Grinder or Work Sharp KO

AFAustin

AFAustin

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Jun 8, 2004
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I love my Work Sharp KO but am currently having a problem in one area and would appreciate any advice from Work Sharp or belt grinder users. My problem is with maintaining a straight angle at the tip area of wharncliffe blades. Even with the stiffer X wt. Norax belts, I have this problem.

I am careful when approaching the tip on my wharnies and try to maintain a light touch. But if I am too careful, the tip area never gets a proper bevel. If I am aggressive enough to get a good consistent bevel all the way to the edge, I often end up raising the tip a little, ending up with a "modified wharncliffe" rather than a straight across edge all the way to the tip.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Andrew
 
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I haven't done this with a wharncliffe, but with drop points and spear points, when I am sharpening or reprofiling on a belt sander- I was getting similar results at the tip. I found if I used my free hand (the hand not holding the handle) on the blade, about an inch from the tip, only lightly pressing on it with about 2 fingers as a guide, this was helping me get the tip portion more I also started to rotate the knife upwards with my hand holding the knife so that when I start sharpening the knife (near the handle) I am at about 0 degrees, and when I get to the tip I am about at 45 deg. This seems to work for me.
 
Make sure your pulling the tip up off the belt when you finish a pass, and not pulling all the way through until the tip "falls" off the edge of the belt.
I hope you can understand this... cant seem to word it right.
 
I can't answer your question, but I thank you for bringing this up. I've only had my WSKO for a couple weeks, and I've only sharpened one wharncliffe (CRKT Dragon). It worked just fine in this case, but this is something I'll keep an eye on in the future. :thumbup:
 
I think it talks about this in the WS KO manual. The suggestion for the wharncliff profile is to stop the machine just as the tip gets up on the belt but before it's more than halfway across. Easier said than done, I know. I have the original Work Sharp - been using it for a few years on kitchen knives. I wish I could go back in time and have a little chat with myself because I have beat the crap out of them with this thing. Most of the tips are rounded over, and I've now removed a total of around 3/16" to 1/4" of material on our most used ones. It sort of sneaks up on you so be careful with this thing. My recommendation is to get some of the finer grit belts (400+) and don't spend much time at 220 grit. *DO NOT* use 80 grit unless you are trying to reprofile... In 2 minutes I put about 20 years of wear into a good chef's knife with the 80 grit alox belt. Whoops.

However, you do have the KO edition so running it at low speed may be the key to avoid some or all of the pitfalls I have experienced with the original version.
 
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Gentlemen, thanks for your comments and suggestions. I'm collecting some more tips and will post a summary once I have them, and maybe after doing a little experimentation on my own.

Andrew
 
Just curious if you solved this?


JarrodS said:
I think it talks about this in the WS KO manual. The suggestion for the wharncliff profile is to stop the machine just as the tip gets up on the belt but before it's more than halfway across.
Click to expand...

This is what works for me... get the tip off the belt as soon as you can. Light pressure if it needs additional work. (If you press too hard, you can actually hear the belt start to grind off the tip.). Slowing the belt down also helps (big plus of the KO edition).

Just wondered what you figured out.
 
cbwx34,

No, I got a bit sidetracked and haven't followed up on this yet beyond gathering some suggestions. One gent from another forum, who is quite an expert with a full size belt grinder, had this advice for setting the bevel on wharnies: use stones (!).

Your advice per above is sound and has been repeated by other knowledgeable folks.

I still have a few simple experiments in mind and plan on posting more on this soon (I hope).

Andrew
 
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