Work sharp for flea market sharpening?

WolfSpring

WolfSpring

Joined
Feb 25, 2015
Messages
126
I sell knives and stuff at the flea market and have started doing repairs and sharpening. At first I was hesitant but after a couple where the people were asking on some of my used knives how I got them so sharp I told them how. I have a cheap smith electric that I use for a good reset on messed up knives but I do almost as much work getting rid of the marks it leaves when I use as it would take me to use a carbide and all four sharpmaker stones. So word got out I sharpen for a $1 and most pay me 2-5 for it anyway, and I have a lot of customers each day and I try to keep it by hand as much as possible but some days it gets busy and I'm sharpening for hours and some of these blades are straight jacked. So would getting the Ken Onion Work Sharp be worth using out there due to the shear number I am trying to do? I've read up on it a lot and I'm not really into electrics but this thing seems to have no real flaw minus the fact it's electric and relies on belts and moving parts as opposed to stones. The price isn't a real issue to me as I'm starting to pick up business and I do mostly used turn a rounds, trade ins so I'm sharpening them when I get them anyway, unless collectors of course. I know they make a cheaper one that doesn't do as much on angles and most my customers wouldn't know the angles of their blades to start with so I'm really liking the Ken Onion one.

As always thank you for any insight or opinions.
 
if you can freehand I would go with the veil. its a real 1x42 and made to do metal work. it and a glass platen would set you up for a long while. plus the belts wouldn't eat the profit. they aren't much more than the 2x 72 and sharpening only they last a long while. look at lee vally tools or viel direct out of Canada. I bought mine direct and it was here in 4 days. they are high for belts but the grinder is within reason and it has a lot of attachments to use as you want to add scissors or plane blades, chisels etc.
 
Love the KO WorkSharp... but it's not rated for heavy duty use... thinking you might burn it out with what you're wanting to do.

kn4wd has some good ideas. I'd also look at paper wheels... for what you're doing it would put a great edge on a knife in no time. Take a look at THIS THREAD.
 
Several guys at the gun shows around here use WS and WSKO to sharpen knives for like $5.

Gotta watch it - the WS will round off a tip in a heartbeat.
 
You should also adjust the price according to blade condition. A simple sharpening sure $5 , but a horribly jacked up blade takes considerably longer to correct and then sharpen thus a increase in price. Also maybe go by size, and steel type as well. A 9"blade made of d2 is going to take way longer than a 3"blade of 440. Just my .02¢

That said I love the ko work sharp and know many knife shops that use em for there sharpening services. Go for it.
 
Maybe I'm doing it the extra, extra slow way. I use the WSKO freehand, without guides. I normally run it at speed 7 or 8 out of 14. Doing it this way, it usually takes me 12 to 20 minutes to sharpen a typical super abused extra dull kitchen knife. It's taken me longer on some blades.

If I ran the machine full speed, I bet it would go something like 30 to 40% faster. If I pressed harder it would probably go 20% faster. I'm guessing. The way I use the WSKO, it's impractical for commercial sharpening. But I think I'm doing it the slow way.

Brian.
 
bgentry said:
Maybe I'm doing it the extra, extra slow way. I use the WSKO freehand, without guides. I normally run it at speed 7 or 8 out of 14. Doing it this way, it usually takes me 12 to 20 minutes to sharpen a typical super abused extra dull kitchen knife. It's taken me longer on some blades.

If I ran the machine full speed, I bet it would go something like 30 to 40% faster. If I pressed harder it would probably go 20% faster. I'm guessing. The way I use the WSKO, it's impractical for commercial sharpening. But I think I'm doing it the slow way.

Brian.
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Using the guides and a coarse belt on higher speed will tear thru steel fairly quick when sharpening a damaged knife or setting a new bevel. Once that's done the finer grit belts don't take much time at all, especially to produce an edge your average user will be satisfied with. A non knife nut isn't going to really appreciate a finely honed hair whittling edge anyway.

I recently sharpened a knife for a gentleman, and made it hair whittling sharp for him. When I returned it to him I warned him as to it's sharpness, to which he responded by running his thumb down the edge. He then complained it wasn't sharp enough bc it didn't snag his skin at all, to which I pointed out the blood dripping off his thumb. He had successfully sliced his thumb open, and was clean enough he didn't even feel it lol.
 
Paper wheels would be my suggestion. Mainly because they are quick, but it's also a reasonably portable system. Just don't waste your wheels on unmarked or very low quality steel. Or ceramic.

I always tell the people I sharpen for (friends and family only) "the blade is now a scalpel", even if it isn't. They seem to comprehend that, even though they don't know what sharp is or how to achieve it. This prevents unnecessary bleeding, until they forget. But that is after they've paid and left...
 
I got the worksharp after reading a lot of good reviews, I can see where it would wear out from constant sharpening and the changing belts often would be a pain in the butt, but I did a couple of my own knives only using the coarse belt and just that belt for a touch up on the cheap stuff is amazing. I sharpened one guys knife today for $5 and he was more than happy with it. I looked at the price for belts and at less than 20 for all 5 belts four sharpens gets me new belts so we'll see. It's way better than the sharpmaker for time that's for sure. I turned a pakistan fixed blade into a straight razor sharp screwing around with all the belts today to learn the thing. I like the sharpmaker for my benchmades still and I even used a DMT xtra course diamond plate today to repair a broken tip getting that skill down well.
 
$1 for 20 minutes of work? Am I reading that right?

$3 an hour? To each his own. But IMO your labor rate is jacked.
 
It takes about five minutes for an "average" knife and about 10 for a messed up one depending on what I use the work sharp is even quicker I am not talking shiny hair whittling I am talking basic factory sharp most customers don't want that super sharp they want a knife that can cut one only took a couple strokes on the ceramics to get it to paper slicing again. Tip repairs and the like are a whole nother ball game I take my time with type and probably would charge more.right now I am getting a feel for time vs what someone is willing to pay and even at 3 dollars an hour vs sitting doing nothing is 3 more than I had a happy customer who will usually buy something as well and come back but 5 seems the going rate for now maybe even free sharpen with 20 dollar purchase it's all getting it down right now and it's not a living it's flea market hobby job
 
So it's been well over a month of sharpening and I have made well over $50 and done a lot of my own knives touch up and just now wore out the coarse belt, I think I was using it a little to much and at 16 bucks for another set of belts not doing to bad on that front. I do get a lot of people who don't understand using a machine to sharpen and I explain if they send it in or when they buy it that's how it is sharpened and I've shown them some of mine I've gotten mirror finishes on and how sharp they are and they still want by hand so I charge a little more depending on how much time and work needs to go into it. An excellent investment that's for sure.
 
WolfSpring said:
So it's been well over a month of sharpening and I have made well over $50 and done a lot of my own knives touch up and just now wore out the coarse belt, I think I was using it a little to much and at 16 bucks for another set of belts not doing to bad on that front. I do get a lot of people who don't understand using a machine to sharpen and I explain if they send it in or when they buy it that's how it is sharpened and I've shown them some of mine I've gotten mirror finishes on and how sharp they are and they still want by hand so I charge a little more depending on how much time and work needs to go into it. An excellent investment that's for sure.
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So, I'm a bit confused... you still do most by hand? Any idea how many knives you've done on the WS?

Maybe you could just limit the WS for repairs and finish by hand. Also, if you do that and are just wearing out the coarse belt, I'd call WS, and see if you could get a set of just the coarse belt, or maybe find an alternative source. Just a thought.

Glad it's working for you... just curious how much it's actually getting used.
 
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If I were you I would use the coursest and sharpen it then maybe the finest just to polish it better. Chances are if they are paying a dude at a flea market to sharpen it they won't notice a difference between not being able to slice paper and being able to shave. They mostly want a working edge that's it.
 
Yeah re-reading I did kinda not explain I do most by worksharp, but a lot of people do want by hand and when I tell them it will be an hour vs 5 mins on the WS they usually walk away. They "think" they want it by hand, probably thinking they don't know how to sharpen but a guy who can do it in five minutes for 5 bucks is a steal but they think a machine will mess it up. I've sharpened probably 12 in the last month so maybe 3 a weekend for others on the WS and only 3 on the sharpmaker and/or Diamond stone(only one it was dull as hell). Sometimes I'll only use the WS to set an angle and finish up on the sharpmaker. I wore out the coarse belt because I was doing a lot of sharpening of my used knives on it then putting them on the sharpmaker real quick. And yes I can buy any one belt in a pack of 6 for the same price so I'll do that if I continue wearing the same belt, it's more me using it more than any other. I bought two variety packs when I first started not thinking I'd favor the coarse belt. I deal in a lot of used knives that are in great condition but haven't been sharpened and sometimes they just need a run down the coarse, we are talking a 5 dollar used china knife that I need a basic edge on and I don't want to spend a lot of time if I'm only selling for five bucks. I've probably touched up 25-30 of the used ones doing that. I bought one lot of 75 knives and had to sharpen almost all of them before I got the WS. Worst knife I've done so far was an old buck that someone ran on a grinder on one side like a chisel even with the work sharp took me 30 minutes but it was more trying to get it just right without doing more damage and the fact it was an old buck I wanted to get it as sharp as possible for the guy and he paid me 10 bucks to do it. For the most part they don't want razor sharp out there they just want to be able to cut things again, usually a guy with a knife he's had for 10 years and never bothered sharpening. It's making it's money worth for me. i could see how if I was doing this more often I would be going through belts, but for the money i'd be able to replace them quickly enough and still make a profit.
 
I find the P120 belt that comes with the WSKO to not be coarse enough for beat up knives. When I was doing this more, I was getting a TON of beat up blades to work on. I really like the Stiff Norax x200 and x100 belts; you can get them directly from Darex (Worksharp company). The 80 grit belt is pretty good too, but I prefer the stiff Norax belts.

Brian.
 
Thanks for the update. Makes sense now.

I'll second bgentry on the belt advice... if you're thinking of mostly repair work, the 80g belt might be the better choice... it's held up longer for me. The 120 does seem to fade quicker than most... especially for repairs.
 
Thanks bgentry I'll look into that. Most of my repair work is actually on a extra course diamond DMT plate but I'd love to have something that I can put a new tip on a blade more efficiently.
 
Pick up an abrasive belt cleaner, it's basically a big eraser to clean off the belt from what I hear and it will help extend the life of your belts greatly.
 
Bob6794 said:
Pick up an abrasive belt cleaner, it's basically a big eraser to clean off the belt from what I hear and it will help extend the life of your belts greatly.
Click to expand...

I use one religiously... still the 120g belt wears rather quickly. Belt cleaner is definitely good to have though.
 
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