Understood. Sorry.
No worries! I’d roughly estimate I have more than a dozen sharpening things floating around between woodwork and knives, and you’re absolutely right that you can fool yourself with a wire edge that cuts like a razor for a very brief period. I was always interested in slack-belt sharpening and when I researched it the users were usually well beyond me, so I took a chance. I think it’s working out.
It has no place in woodworking where you need that perfect flat reference angle on chisels, but for working knives it seems like a great addition. (considering fuck it, I’m old, let’s lose some material to make this thing sharp again.)
I love this machine so much I kinda want to bring it over to family member’s and do their knives. Have grinder, will travel. Phrasing.
edit: It’s surprisingly difficult to find the angle of a pair of scissors by eyeballing a google image of a protractor.
Hold toothbrush to machine, turn on. Cleans off a lot of dust.
Man, scissors are hard. I can’t fix them perfectly whether it’s by hand or with machine. There’s got to be a trick I’m missing. Maybe the bolt that holds them together is worn out or something. The scissors I got are cheap, it’s just a bolt I hammer down to tighten.
Yeah, no help coming from me re: scissors, not something I use TBH. Probably a pretty high angle of grind.
Made a strop last night and my pocket knife is just offensively sharp, like trying to see how lightly you can hold it and still snip off small limbs and weeds sharp.
Use a sharpie to “paint” the angled part of each scissor and work your angle to match it. Coarse grit until you get a burr then finer.
I bought this for scissors and it works very well once you get the touch:
The two notches on the sides are for the scissor blades, which are at opposing angles.
I haven’t changed mine from slow setting since I bought it.
Excellent tip! Hell I’m old hat with this think and didn’t think of that.
It is VERY easy to travel with it. I bring a belt kit and spares with me when I do. I do one restaurant (I know the owner and my wife works there) and two local cooks that always seem to lose the edge on their stuff often. Those I do when they ping me. My kitchen I do about quarterly or so. The belts like you suggested make it easy to do an assembly line of knives until done. Just changing the angle if needed. Speaking of, I wipe the angle guide down between uses with a damp paper towel. Also as noted, if you have larger knives, use some blue painters tape across the top of them and fold it down close(er) to the blade but with room to run it through. This will prevent that fine metal dust from forming a polished line/scratch across your blade as you pull the larger knives through.
Remove the angle guide and free hold it. scissors only need to be run down one edge (per blade half), so it’s easy to use a sharpie along it and find the right angle as you go down them like @claybob mentioned. The same holds true for bigger items. They make better band sharpeners for that, but this will work, only after you take the angle guide off.
As for the wire edge stuff, I generally don’t go below 20 degrees on crappy knives and 15 degrees on knives that need that or are factory set as that. folding wire edges happen more when people go extremely narrow angle, or oversharpen one side versus the other, or are just horribly soft metal.
The only issue I’ve run into that the band sharpener is not good at is true chip repair. When someone really mucks up a knife you need to remove a lot of metal and that’s better done with a different tool. I use a course DMT plate. It’s more of a traditional method, just using a diamond plate to speed things up. You could probably repair small chips with the band tool but I seriously haven’t tried it.
As for the chips … Shuns are horrible for them. They hold a keen edge, but if you don’t baby them a bit, it’ll eventually happen.
Good info, I’ve done some heinous things to mine already like machetes and it still does a good job. The really nice thing is that now that my bevel is back to a proper V shape, I can take ten seconds on my Spyderco ceramic thingy and bring it back to razor.
My wife is horrible on blades, and I notice that now I just shrug it off. It’s nice to be able to get things back to a good state in a couple of minutes.
Funny aside, I dropped my kitchen knife today, and beyond the usual reaction of hopping backwards to get my footy bits out of the way, rather than my usual experience over the last 20 years of the knife hitting the hardwood floor and bouncing around, it did a movie-style thunk into the floor and stuck upright. Nice to have a sharp tip again.
Just be glad you didn’t reach out to catch it by reflex. I did that once when dropping one of our heavier kitchen knives into the sink. My hands were wet and it slipped right to the blade and cut one of my fingers pretty badly.
Been there, done that, got the scar. Sad to say but that’s a reflex you only really learn on the back end of an event.
I just saw this thread… my recommendation is: Amazon.com: Chef’s Choice AngleSelect Hone Electric Knife Sharpener for 15 and 20-Degree Knives 100-Percent Diamond Abrasives Stropping Precision Guides, 3-Stage, White : Tools & Home Improvement
The beauty of this device is that it will do both Japanese (15-degree) and European (20-degree) blades. It often goes on sale.
I have this version (Amazon calls it the “newer version” but I think they are different) and it is simple and works very well for my basic needs: good pocket knife and variety of kitchen knives.
Nothing wrong with those sets other than a bit of lock-in regarding angles and grit options. Bit pricey though considering how good that Worksharp system is for less money.
Nothing wrong with pull through systems if they work well. It certainly makes things easier for those who want the convenience and will keep it accessible near knives. I’ve heard of that particular brand being used in a nearby kitchen.
Sharpening is like this pit that you can fall into and suddenly realize you went way overboard. I’m about 3/4 of the way down the pit and just trying to find the ONE system I can use for everything I use. So far that’s been my Worksharp. I have other items that will give a much finer polished edge, but it’s all about how sharp you want to go, and how much time you want to spend doing it.
Amen. I think the thing about the Worksharp is that folks who take up sharpening can go down a bunch of rabbit holes chasing the Ultimate Edge, but also forget that the Ultimate Edge matters very little without the Pretty Good Bevel Profile. The things I used to do to sharpen my daily knives like pocketknives and kitchen knives lasted a week or two, but since I reset everything and reshaped the bevels, suddenly all those efforts take seconds rather than minutes and produce far sharper results.
Chisels are the great example, they have to do one thing: be flat. Sharpness is definitely a factor but without flatness the sharpness is pointless. Less. Less. Less.
Anyway, that’s not too bad to do with sandpaper or stones and a jig, but working edges for various tasks require more flexibility. I’m probably a month or more from my efforts to reset my daily blades and still enjoying the fact that I can do ten seconds and the edge is good for another several weeks at a much higher level than before. The difference being I could sharpen my knives to a shaving edge before, but in a week it wasn’t shaving, and in two it was dull. Now I can touch it up and it stays shaving for weeks and degrades much more slowly. Best sharpening money I’ve spent in a long time, maybe my chisel jig is in the same tier, but it’s iffy.
Great deal on the sharpener we rave about: https://www.amazon.com/Work-Sharp-Knife-Sharpener-Onion/dp/B00EJ9CQKA/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?tag=slicinc-20&ascsubtag=7e334d024ebd11ec9071ea10a259d0d40INT&crid=M9MFZ9IJDSAY&keywords=ken+onion&qid=1637846162&sprefix=ken+onion%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-1-s&th=1
$105.
Checking up after a year, and I have to say new things have been realized. For one, as a lefty I’ve always loved/appreciated Benchmade because it has both the strongest lock for a folding knife in the industry, so I tend to go 100% to Benchmades, that they are lefty friendly is just a bonus.
Second point is I’ve been going through some family stuff that I won’t inflict on this thread, but I’ve found that buying a nice new knife gives me a dopamine hit, so my pocketknife collection has gotten a bit silly, I think I’m around a dozen Benchmades now.
So to the point of the thread. Using the WorkSharp slack belt grinder as mentioned above, and setting my knives generally at 20 degrees a side (for some reason the out-the-front automatics are ground at a very chunky angle) I’ve arrived at what I would consider a stupidly sharp edge on my knives. Benchmade figured out how to translate their Axis lock into automatics and I’ve filled out my collection with those, best of all worlds.
A buddy started doing construction and bought some chisels, which are a different beast when it comes to sharpening vs. knives, but everything has come into sync. After setting all my knives to 20 degrees a side, I made some new strop sticks for my buddy, basically a piece of scrap wood with some leather glued to either side, and white/green honing compound rubbed into it. Holy, holy, holy moly. 30 seconds of stropping for a knife produces an edge that I would confidently put on par with a factory razor blade. It also holds up a month later as a touch-up, a few drags across the stick and the edge is as sharp as I know what sharp is. I can literally let the knife rest in my hand without any fingers on it, just the weight of the knife, and cut paper cleanly without it turning. It’s exceptional and cheap as dirt, a stick of this stuff costs less than ten bucks and will last a lifetime.
Now I gotta make me some strop sticks.