Our garden is producing deliciously sweet Early Girl tomatoes, and what could be better than BLT sandwiches. Proceeding to slice a tomato with a Victorinox Fibrox 5” chef’s knife, I noticed that the knife seemed a bit dull as I actually had to apply more pressure than just the weight of the knife. Can’t have that. Even though the slicing experience was a bit lacking in joy, I experienced a warm giddiness in the realization that one of my knives actually needed sharpening!
The blade didn’t seem super dull. I didn’t mash the tomato but required more slicing motion and pressure than I enjoy so I was curious as to its sharpness. I took four measurements with the PT50B from tip to heel and was befuddled and surprised by the results which were: 500, 580, 995 and 755. It didn’t seem like it had been that long since I last sharpened that knife, but those are the numbers. When I tested the 995 part of the blade, I thought I might have to stick a cheater pipe on the handle to get enough leverage to force it through the test media.
It’s a bit of a head scratcher to me that the knife performed as well as it did. Methinks it cut as well as it did because it’s a light weight and thin blade sharpened to a fairly acute 15°. Nonetheless, I would have thought a knife that dull would have not cut so well.
I sharpened the blade with a Cubitron 150 grit belt on my Kally 1SM with an adjustable knife rest. It only took one light pass to raise a tiny burr over 80% of the edge. I couldn’t see a burr in a couple of small sections, but after gently touching those areas again to the belt there was a fine, even, barely visible burr the length of the blade. Doing the other side of the blade was about the same process. About 1.5 passes per side. It took a minute or two to complete.
Deburring was done using a very fine Scotch-Brite belt. Two light passes each side. I noticed a bit of burr remained in a couple of small sections of the edge, so I dragged my fingernail along the edge of those areas. Most of the burr fell away like snowflakes, and a couple of quick light to touches to the belt on those areas finished the job.
I finished with two light passes on each side of the blade using the rough side of a Surgi-Sharp leather belt. The belt was treated with a bit of oil a long time ago, but no secret sauce or compound. Basically just plain leather. The blade seemed sharp to me, so I took four readings: 165, 115, 105, 95. Just for grins I touched each side of blade around the tip where it had measured 165 to the leather belt one more time. This time: 110, 115, 105, 95. Done! Now I don’t even have to slice tomatoes. They just cleave themselves into neat slices when they see the knife coming.
The 150 grit Cubitron produces a nice toothy edge. The Scotch-Brite belt deburrs quickly and easily without smoothing the toothy edge. The two very light pressure passes on the leather, as far as I can tell, just finishes and cleans up the edge a bit and does not burnish or smooth the edge due to the extremely light pressure used and only two passes each side.
After years of experimenting with sharpening, that’s the process I currently use. It’s very quick and easy with repeatable results. Producing a polished edge is a bit different, but rarely do I desire a polished edge.
Here is a picture of the knife and the Kally setup.
I am looking to buy the PT50B tester plus consumables and would like to find out if there are any resellers based in the European Union.
If there are none I'd be grateful if one of the EU-based forum members could advise the appropriate EU TARIC code to be used in calculating import duties if I were to buy the tester via sharpeningsupplies.com
After well over a year of wanting and waiting, I finally ordered and received a Viel 1x42" belt sander, from Steve Bottorff. I also order and received the variable speed motor from Penn State Industries. With all the work Ken S and others put into designing and building this combination, with the adapter plate to mount the motor to the sander frame, I thought I'd be up and running in no time. Didn't really work out that way.
I did not receive the pre-made adapter plate from Steve, so I embarked on making my own. That was not particularly difficult, but I sure didn't like it. I didn't like how the motor is mounted by its face to the vertical part of the frame. And since the motor is so long and heavy, I was concerned about vibrations. I also didn't like the lack of adjustments for locating the motor and tracking, and how long the shaft was that stuck out beyond the drive pulley. So, I started thinking of other ways of mounting the motor.
You can buy mounting brackets for a lot of motors where the motor rests on two partial arc pedestals where the bracket mounts to the floor of a frame or table top. I liked this method as it fully supports the motor and it can be moved around a bit for alignment. It would also allow locating the motor a little back from the vertical face of the sander frame to allow less of the shaft to protrude.
With a little reverse engineering, layout and CAD work, I came up with a design that I liked and proceeded to fabricate it. It all went fairly well, except on the base plate, I put the flat head screw countersinks on the wrong side, so had to flip it over and put in another four mounting hole for securing the base plate to the sander frame.
For the arced pedestals, I took a piece of 3/8" aluminum plate and trepanned out the center and then bored it to size, giving me a square plate with a 3+" dia. hole in the middle. I drilled and tapped the mounting hole locations and then spit it into two piece and trimmed them to size.
Putting it all together went better than I expected. It all just bolted up clean. It should, if the design work was done right, but often it doesn't, most often because I missed something about the design. This time it worked. The motor is mounted very rigidly and as desired can be located so there is almost no shaft protruding. Tracking was a little odd at first, but after figuring it out, the belt rides clean and smooth without wandering or fluttering. I have not yet cleaned up the parting lines on the belt pulleys, so if that is done, it may smooth out the belt more.
Setting up the stock platen and tool rest was delightfully easy as they went together and adjusted easily. It will take some getting used to keeping the work piece down on the tool rest if I'm going to use the tool rest as it is set up now (perpendicular to the belt). It will be interesting to see how the tool rest works when angled upwards for sharpening blades, etc.
I went into this planning on setting it up with a Tormek Bench Grinder Mount (BGM) and with the "Frontal Vertical Base" (FVB) to provide a wide range of adjustments and hopefully be able to use some of the Tormek jigs. I'm particularly interested in doing the initial angle grinding on the belt sander, as a faster alternative to the Norton 3X grinding wheel I'm currently using on the Tormek, in the water trough at the slow Tormek speed.
Video of the Viel belt sander variable speed motor mount modifications in action.
I made my motor mount out of aluminum, but I think it would work fine to use a high quality plywood, like Baltic birch plywood. Cutting/sanding the arced pedestals would be lots easier in wood.
I can now turn my attention to using this sweet little belt sander.
"Due to this I suggest the initial coating covers the sharp edge resulting in a lower reading, and as the coating is worn away it exposes the sharp edge for a sharper reading. I have also had lots of feedback from people confirming they often feel like the second shave is sharper than the first for many blades."
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First day, the score of my Feather DE razor was 20 BESS but few days later it's 15 & 20 BESS.
I recently received a Viel S5 belt sander from Steve B. and through a separate order, the PSI variable speed motor. I've run into some glitches, with the adapter plate, that I posted a question on the Viel Conversion thread. I also asked some other questions as I'm not finding the "build" nearly as straightforward as I thought.
In general, I found the sander to be fairly nicely built and finished. There is something that I am wondering about, however. The ODs of the pulleys. They show the rough finish of the sand casting mold they were poured into, including the parting lines.
I thought this strange at first, but didn't think much about it. In fiddling with the unit and trying to sort out the motor mounting vagaries, my brain kept coming back to those parting lines and that rough surface. Did Viel intend for the pulleys to be so rough? Did they intend for the belts to rid over those parting lines? I haven't taken my 1x30" apart to examine the pulleys on it, but my memory tells me they are crowned but are a smooth, uniform arc across from one side to the other. My 4x36" woodworking sander, I know the pulleys are smooth and FLAT. Both have obvious means of adjusting tracking. Tracking adjustment on the Viel is not very evident, but evidently the two little funky screws on the vertical 1"x1" square tube are the tracking adjustment. I am not impressed, but since I don't have it up and running, I cannot judge whether they are funky just in appearance. I did read a post where a guy added two more screws down lower and uses all four in concert to obtain superior tracking. And I think he also added nuts in place of the springs so things stay put once the right tracking is found. This makes sense to me, as it seems two screws pushing on surfaces that can spring away aren't going to be particularly effective or stable.
So, here are my questions.
1) Should the parting lines be smoothed out and blended with what appear to be the straight inclined surfaces on either side of center?
2) Should the pulley crown be "crowned"? Or should the surface on which the belts ride be smooth and flat, like my woodworking sander?
I have other questions, but let this be enough for now.
Before the main intro, the review featured in this post, includes SET testing results. Might this be the first ever review of its type to include these?...
This thread is a new approach for me regarding sharing my reviews. Forums are where I came from, and the discussion on forums is something I hope to be involved in and inspire. It has become too much work to convert the reviews published on my website into forum versions, so I need to try something else to stay in touch with the forums.
I am only including a headline introduction and link to the review - please return to this forum to discuss the review or ask questions.
To the Moderators, there is a reciprocal link at the end of every review on Tactical Reviews. If you have any concerns over this approach please let me know.
Finding Oberland Arms’ knives was an outstanding highlight of IWA 2018, and it became a mission of mine to review them. A happy coincidence that one other IWA 2018 highlight happened to be another knife designed by Tommaso Rumici who is the designer of the Jager Sepp on review here. Everything came together nicely at […]
I was feeling odd and depleted because I had not sharpened anything for a while. So I ferreted around in the kitchen drawer knife block and found two knives that didn't hang very well on my thumbnail. For all intents and purposes they were still plenty sharp, but I declared them dull enough to be in desperate need of sharpening because it made me happy.
After sharpening and deburring I took 3 sharpness readings from handle to tip: 100, 230, 105. Now normally, seeing the wacky 230 number I would have at least taken another reading as most likely the wild reading was caused because I happened to measure right on a tiny bit of burr and another reading would not have been so aberrant, but I felt along the edge with my educated thumb and the whole thing felt very sharp. Also, I only used a 150 grit Cubitron belt so of course it was nice and toothy and I knew it would do a fine job slicing onions or whatever so I declared it good enough and returned it to use.
After sharpening I took three readings from handle to tip: 95, 90, 65. While I was not bothered by the strange 230 number from the last knife, I found the 65 reading most troubling. I took another reading there at the tip and got 95. Much better! I declared it good enough and returned it to use.
While writing this I got the Calphalon from the drawer knife block to see exactly what it was and placed it next to the computer. I picked it up to read the writing on the blade and clumsily bumped it into the back of the first knuckle of my index finger. Crap! Epidermal leakage. I'm finishing this with a piece of Kleenex wrapped around my finger secured with Scotch tape so as not to leak all over the keyboard. Seems to be working.
Thanks to the Mike B. SET-testing stand we've completed a research on chopping boards.
Video of our research:
Complete experimental data and discussion are in our article "Effect of the Chopping Board Material on Edge Longevity" in the Edge Stability Testing section on our website http://knifegrinders.com.au/16SET.htm (the last research in the list)
![[Image: OberlandArms-Jager-Sepp-00-feature-P1350284.jpg]](http://tacticalreviews.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/OberlandArms-Jager-Sepp-00-feature-P1350284.jpg)
