Work Sharp Blade grinding attachment questions

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Strauss95

Joined
Dec 17, 2012
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Just got the Blade Grinding Attachment for my Work Sharp today. I was wondering for those of you that have this unit, what pulley setting do you use and for what situations? Just curious how much of a difference the upper and lower positions make on the edge? Assuming the lower position makes for a larger convex on the edge? But does the shorter position still convex the edge? And which position is closest to the results you get without the BGA?

Plan on trying this out on a fixed blade, folder, and probably a couple of my lower end kitchen knives. Just looking for some direction as to which pulley position I should use on the different knives. Sorry for all the questions, but suprisingly there isn't much out there for information on the BGA. Tons of YouTube videos for the standard Ken Onion Work Sharp, but not many with the BGA.

Thanks everyone, very excited to get started with this!
 
Strauss95 said:
Just got the Blade Grinding Attachment for my Work Sharp today. I was wondering for those of you that have this unit, what pulley setting do you use and for what situations? Just curious how much of a difference the upper and lower positions make on the edge? Assuming the lower position makes for a larger convex on the edge? But does the shorter position still convex the edge? And which position is closest to the results you get without the BGA?

Plan on trying this out on a fixed blade, folder, and probably a couple of my lower end kitchen knives. Just looking for some direction as to which pulley position I should use on the different knives. Sorry for all the questions, but suprisingly there isn't much out there for information on the BGA. Tons of YouTube videos for the standard Ken Onion Work Sharp, but not many with the BGA.

Thanks everyone, very excited to get started with this!
Click to expand...

I've found the upper position leaves a pretty flat grind (depending on the pressure used of course). I've been going back and forth between the BGA and freehand sharpening on a stone with some knives, and find it matches nicely using the upper position. The lower does produce a more obvious convex edge (again depending on pressure).

As for which to use, everyone seems to have a preference... I'd get a couple of practice knives, try both and hopefully find which you prefer. I'd try the upper first,,, usually easier to sharpen from flat to convex, than to go the other way.
 
I've been using the blade grinding attachment for awhile now and primarily keep it on the upper position with the belt tension tight unless I want a more pronounced convex then I'll lower it and slack the belt some.

Either position will convex the edge the upper position just allows you to keep it closer to a v grind with light pressure...but that also didn't remove steel very quickly so a reprofile can be time extensive unless you put a lil pressure on it.

For angles I typically keep it at 17° and adjust my approach to the belt for higher or lower angles, you'll get the feel for it thru use...this is unless I'm reprofiling with a coarse belt then I'll be a lil more precise with it.


One thing to watch for is with the pulley in the upper position and at lower angles you gotta make sure you're not letting the side of the blade hit that lower pulley...it'll scuff it up with one rub.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I swapped the pulley into the upper position and tried it out for the first time this morning. Ran my Becker BK14 on it at 17 degrees since I had previously sharpened it around that angle on my edge pro. Once again very happy with the results, especially for the very first knife off the belts. Got myself a screaming sharp edge, very quickly. Didn't bother finishing it down heavy, as it was just for practice so I first hit it with the x65, then finished with the x4 belt.

Tonight I plan on touching up my ZT801 as it's lost some bite, and this time I'm going to run through the whole progression of belts.

So far so good with the BGA! Definitely like the process better compared to the stock set up.
 
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