Worksharp Ken Onion Impressions and Discussion

banksy said:
Brian, I notice that your technique is to apply knife to belt about 1" from the heel, then back towards the handle, then along the full length of the blade. This means that the heel receives 2x the number of passes compared to the rest of the blade. One of the problems I found with the original WS is that the heel can acquire a divot over time. Have you found this to be a problem?
Thanks
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The idea of me doing that is so I don't grind down the bolster at the heel of the blade, or any other non-sharpenable surface (like the handle of a folder or something). In practice I haven't noticed any real deformation of the edge near the heel doing this technique.

But, I have to say that the vast majority of blades that I have seen, *especially* kitchen cutlery, have geometry problems near the heel anyway. These problems include wider or narrower bevels, bevels at different angles than the rest of the blade, and just plain blunt areas in the last 1/4" to 1/2" near the heel. In these cases, I'm only making the blade better by grinding it to a sharp apex, and certainly not making the bad cosmetics any worse. :)

Now this gets a little strange, but I'll try to explain it properly. I find that in nearly all the sharpening I've done, the middle of the blade gets the most attention. This is particularly true on bench stones, as the middle is almost always touching the stone. But both ends of the blade get the *least* amount of contact time on the abrasive. If you think about what area of the blade is touching the abrasive at any given time, the last 1/4" to 1/2" of the blade at the heel and the front 1/4" to 1/2" at the tip get the least amount of contact time. I find that in at least 3/4 of the blades I sharpen, I need to spend extra time at the heel, the tip, or both, in order to grind to an apex and get a burr on the full length of the blade. This is actually one of the *great* things about using the WSKO freehand: I can spend extra time very easily on any part of the blade, and not overgrind the rest of it!

Finally, I *theorize* that I'm using less pressure against the belt than someone would when using the guides. I'm not noticing any real deformation of the edge bevels and I'm definitely not grinding anywhere near enough to make a "divot" in the heel. Perhaps it has more to do with how the original WS instructs the user to put the heel in the machine with it off, then turn it on and start moving it then? I'm only guessing.

On the other hand, I "made up" this technique of starting the grinding slightly away from the heel of the blade. I wonder if someone who's used a belt sander to sharpen a lot of blades would think it was a good or bad idea? I'm open to suggestion and criticism.

Brian.
 
Dan at Darex (Work Sharp) got back to me and said that the Ken Onion accessory belts are not on the website yet but are now available by calling their customer service dept. at 1-800-418-1439.

Here are some charts showing what they have. The large middle chart has the 3/4 x 12 belts for the KO (the diamond are 1/2 x 12). (The very small top chart is for the tool grinder accessory. The bottom chart has the 1 x 18 size for the blade grinder accessory.)

Andrew

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I can now verify that the ceramic belts and the stiff precision belts are available and shipping. I just ordered some of each via phone with Darex. I won't have them for about a week, but once I get them and use them I'll post some impressions here. I'm guessing everything on the chart is now available, but I was only interested in the low grit ceramics and a selection of stiff belts. I'm very curious how they will work out.

Thanks,

Brian.
 
I use mine in a similar way- belt always going away from the edge and no guard. It works great! I am also seeing the same problem you are about the burr removal. I have a little trouble with being consistent between grits at times, so I use a sharpie between every belt to keep myself on track. I enjoy using it on kitchen knives and yard tools, but still use my wicked edge on most pocket knives. One other advantage for the work sharp: it can sharpen small blades that a WE can't.
 
New belts just arrived and MUCH faster than I expected. Oregon to Florida in 3 days via USPS first class! ...and they shipped same day I ordered, despite me calling at around 3PM local time (the phones close at 3:30). Quite impressive.

The belts look great: I think the 60 grit ceramic is going to be a beast. The x200 stiff Norax belt seems just as abrasive as the 60 grit. I think it's going to shed abrasive more quickly though, as it already seems to be falling off (just little tiny bits). We'll see once I get around to doing a blade with these. That should be no more than a few more days from now. I don't currently have anything around that's beaten up enough to require 60 grit or x200! :)

I'll post impressions of using them soon.

Brian.
 
Today I decided to give the new belts a test run, so I went through my box of flea market knives and found a candidate. I think I paid $1.25 for it. Decent construction actually, with a full tang. It's a 5" utility knife with a single bevel, though it's lightly hollow ground on the back (flat) side. What drew me to this for today's work was the waves in the bevel near the point. I don't mean an uneven bevel. I mean it almost looked serrated because it had this odd set of undulating dents. Not very deep at all, just bad enough that it would take a while with the P120 belt.

So I grabbed the 60 grit ceramic and went to it. I had the bevel re-established in just a couple of passes. The wavy look mostly disappeared in maybe 5 or 6 passes. By about 5 minutes in, I thought I was mostly done, so I deburred the back side with another new belt: The stiff X22. No problem. I then progressed through the stiff X100, stiff X22, and stiff X5. It was very, very sharp, but I noticed it wanted to hang in phonebook paper. Looking at it again, the waves were still there. Back to the 60 grit belt for some more attention. This time in about 5 minutes I really did have the waves gone. Going through the other belts is very quick. You really only need maybe 2 or 3 passes on the X100, then 4 or 5 on the X22, and another 4 or 5 on the X5. After deburring again, it was smooth in phoneboook paper and wickedly sharp, absolutely mowing hair off of my leg. It also cross cuts phone book paper.

I noticed that I could really see the change in scratch pattern in every belt. The X22 made this particular steel seem very smooth. The X5 then made it very shiny and almost a mirror polish.

I did another 4 knives. A few touchups and a few full sharpennings. I decided to stick to the stiff belts because I *REALLY* liked the way they felt and worked on the first blade. I was not disappointed. Previously, with the stock belts, I noticed that as I got to the last belt in the progression, I seemed to have a hard time raising a burr. In my video, you see that I spent a bunch of extra passes on the X4 belt. With the stiff belts, I think I'm forming more of a V edge, and am deflecting the belt less. Or said the other way, I think with the stock belts, I was deflecting the belts a lot in the lower grits, and as I progressed to the finer ones, they were hitting the apex less unless I pressed harder or changed the angle of the blade slightly.

This time I also decided to stop most of the kitchen blades I was working on at X22, as they are just German steel and aren't used for anything very fine. I hope they will bite really well and hold up for longer than if I put on a finer finish.

The last blade was a really cheap old paring knife. I can't remember the culinary name for it, but it's a recurved blade. This one previously had it's tip broken. I had made an attempt at restoring it's tip with bench stones about 1.5 years ago. I got it sort of back again, but it was very uneven (really wide on one side) and not at all pointy. I could drag it over my palm point first and not get cut.

I decided to use another new belt, the stiff X200. I ran it pretty slow: Speed 3. Still it cut really fast and I had the point restored in just a few minutes. Since it's a really short blade (about 2.5") sharpening it overall was very quick. SX200, SX100, SX22, SX5 was the progression. I decided to go finer on this one because it's for push cutting: Paring. :) It too mows hair off my leg with very, very little resistance. The point now cuts phonebook paper, and the bevels are even, so it's definitely fully restored.

Some notes on the stiff belts: They shed grit when new. Just turning on the machine they spewed grit. I ran them each full speed for a few seconds with my head out of the way and watched it fly. The SX200 (Stiff X200) also shed grit noticeably on the first few passes of the blade. The SX200 is a beast like I thought it would be. Even the SX100 is very very abrasive. As it should be!

At this point, after a few blades, I'm not sure I'll ever use the stock belts again. I'm SUPER happy with the Stiff belts and the 60 grit is the answer I think I was looking for in a belt that I can run at middle speeds and really hog off the metal on blades that need it. This was money very well spent!

Brian.
 
Nice write up Brian, thanks for posting it. You're still using the KO and not the BGA, right?
 
^ Yes I'm using the regular cassette on the WSKO not the BGA. I still can't justify the added expense of the BGA, though it does look very nice. :)

Brian.
 
^I, on the other hand, have trouble holding a knife blade vertical and moving it horizontally as opposed to holding and moving it horizontally (if that makes sense). So, as soon as I finish saving up my lunch money I'll be picking up a BGA.

Ya just gotta love versatility. ;)
 
Brian,

Thanks for your excellent report. I have a set of the stiff belts but haven't really given them a decent trial yet. May have to do that soon....

Andrew
 
Bimjo said:
^I, on the other hand, have trouble holding a knife blade vertical and moving it horizontally as opposed to holding and moving it horizontally (if that makes sense). So, as soon as I finish saving up my lunch money I'll be picking up a BGA.

Ya just gotta love versatility. ;)
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In the meantime, if you don't have a problem sharpening with the belt turning into the edge (I don't), you can do this...

imagejpg2_zps79452dd4.jpg


I did 3 or 4 knives, just to try it out... works great!
(BGA is nice though...)

It is versatile! (Ask me how I trim my dog's nails...) :eek:

Nice review of the belts bgentry... thanks.
 
This system will also let the belt travel be the same on both sides of the knife blade. An advantage, IMHO
 
Today I sharpened a couple of fairly beat up knives: A Cutco chef and a Chicago Cutlery santoku. The Cutco had a number of narrow, but sort of deep chips in it. I resorted to using the 60 grit belt to remove them, which took a fair bit of grinding, and went WAY beyond when a burr formed. I got almost all of them completely out, but I think one is still there just a little. I may come back to this one.

The Santoku was a different story. The blade looked almost serrated in sections, as it had so many chips, nicks, and bumps. I think the blade was ground rather unevenly from heel to tip also. I started with the 60 grit belt and worked for a while, forming a burr in maybe 8 or 10 passes. I kept working for a while, trying to remove the chips. They got better, but it seemed like I was going to have to spend a very long time to do it, even with the 60 grit belt.

I noticed something weird too: As the chips got smaller, I could see them on both sides of the blade when looking at the edge bevel. But when I'd grind on say, side A, and then check, they would still be visible on side A as you'd expect. But when I'd flip the blade over and look at side B the chips were gone! Of course I also had a HUGE burr on side B, which I think was folding over the chips or something. Because when I would then do one pass over side B on the belt, the chips came back into visibility on side B. But checking side A, they would be gone again. Anyway...

At some point I remembered when Jason B had said previously about recurves and big chips: Namely that you have to grind the edge down flat to remove all of that stuff if it's really bad. The WorkSharp isn't exactly suited to edge on grinding, as it doesn't have a tool rest or a platten. So I set the blade at about a 55 or 60 degree angle to the belt and did a few passes across it. It made a rather unpleasant noise as the belt ate the edge, but in only 4 to 6 passes on each side, I had all of the chips and divots completely removed.

Of course the edge was totally dull again and not exactly flat, but close enough to require me resetting both edge bevels. A side note: Doing this on a Santoku was a good thing to start with because the edge shape is so flat. There's some small curvature to it, but its' mostly straight. A conventional Chef's knife, for example, would have required more skill to keep even as I ground the edge away.

At this point, the edge bevels were very narrow: Probably about half the width that they should be. It took probably 12 passes per side to reset the edge bevels to the point that I started to feel a burr and the width seemed correct again. Two or three passes later I had a full length burr on one side, and then the other. I stepped through the Stiff X200, Stiff X100, and Stiff X22. After deburring it was nice and smooth through phonebook paper.

Deburring both of these blades was weird. I guess the steel is really soft and I'm using a power tool to remove lots of metal, so the burr gets big and ugly and floppy. Even carefully using the finer belts (X22) the burr was still rather large. I used a dense cork like I usually do, but this cork was more dense than the ones I usually have. I could REALLY feel the burr being stripped off, and I could see shiny metal appearing on the side as I drew the blade through. It made an enormous difference. I also did some very light quick passes on the X5 belt with the speed turned all the way down, in an effort to reduce the burr even further. It seemed to work, but didn't eliminate it completely.

I'm satisfied with the level of burr removal; I think it won't be a factor at all in kitchen cutting tasks.

I may try this "cut off the edge" technique in the future with other blades that need a lot of work. These low grit belts are really allowing me to transform blades from beaten to pretty nice much faster than before.

Brian.
 
bgentry said:
At some point I remembered when Jason B had said previously about recurves and big chips: Namely that you have to grind the edge down flat to remove all of that stuff if it's really bad. The WorkSharp isn't exactly suited to edge on grinding, as it doesn't have a tool rest or a platten. So I set the blade at about a 55 or 60 degree angle to the belt and did a few passes across it. It made a rather unpleasant noise as the belt ate the edge, but in only 4 to 6 passes on each side, I had all of the chips and divots completely removed.

Of course the edge was totally dull again and not exactly flat, but close enough to require me resetting both edge bevels.

I may try this "cut off the edge" technique in the future with other blades that need a lot of work. These low grit belts are really allowing me to transform blades from beaten to pretty nice much faster than before.

Brian.
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Thanks Brian for your experiences with the coarse belts and the edge-on grinding -

I actually did this with the WS blade grinder attachment last year when I had to remedy a crudely cut off Japanese Petty knife -

I did grinding straight on the spine - for main correction and because the shortened blade lost some of its curvature I did the edge straight on but only had to use X65 to do the work
(as I am somewhat of a coward and very timid when I'm not sure of what I am doing) -

Anyway the description is in Post #19 of my
Review - Work Sharp Knife & Tool Sharpener - Ken Onion Edition
(the review of the blade grinder attachment is in Post #2)

Thanks for the report.

--
Vincent

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om diggity said:
I also have a Work Sharp Ken Onion. I love it. While in the learning stages I rounded the tip off and put in an unintended recurve in one knife. The machine works so fast! It helps to be vigilant...
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Hello all, I have a little bit of a problem unintentionally recurving blades on this machine. Getting better at it but I notice that if I get a blade that has a slight recurve by whoever initially ground it at the factory-- (as with my fixed blade Kabar MK1 and on one of my full size Case Trappers, BOTH blades came noticeably recurved)-- whatever it is I am doing wrong tends to make the recurves worse when my intention is to restore the straight edge. What am I doing wrong? This seems to be the only user error problem I have with this machine. Are there any "common worksharp mistakes" videos out there? Thanks for the help as usual.
 
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