Yesterday I was helping my wife and grandchildren prepare Thanksgiving dinner. My wife asked me to measure seven ounces of flour. Alas, my trusty scale was AWOL. Before panicing, I asked myself what would my super hero, Mr. Mike, do?

In a flash, I knew. Mr. Mike would reach for the most dependable thing in his shop, his ever trusty 
KN-100. I did the same. I removed the superstructure. Using my razor sharp calculator brain, I changed the mode from grams to ounces. The corn bread was rescued!

Thanks, Mr. Mike. Once again you saved the day!

Ken

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We think the title of this thread says it all. Thank you all and best wishes to you all for this upcoming holiday.
Travel safe, be safe and stay away from any instrument that measures force or mass in excess of 2000 grams.

You have to a heartless monster to actually use these toothy edges.
   

Just an idea. I know a lot of folks use old treadmill motors for making homemade belt sanders and motor speed controllers are available n eBay, Amazon etc. for low cost.  Penn State is not the only source for motors.  I actually spoke with a guy at PS  and they just order the motors from China.  There are lots of inexpensive DC electric motors.

I don't know enough about DC electric motors to recommend one, but a bit of research or a trip to your local electric motor store should be able to come up with an alternative to the PS stuff.  You might even be able to come up with something more powerful. 

Or... just put a longer shaft on the pulley and stick another pulley on the other end.  Then you could grab a belt and hook it up to the PTO on a tractor!  Now that would be some POWER!

The idea is that there are lots of options.  Check out some of this stuff:
 http://straightrazorplace.com/workshop/1...inder.html

I think you will enjoy this little video.  Belt sander from start to finish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oSTMGmMKWw

http://www.ibuildit.ca/Workshop%20Projec...der-4.html

BTW, that little video is a blast to watch.  I got a good chuckle of out some parts. He is an excellent hammer user!

These are the two parts that are required from Penn Industries for the Viel/Penn Combo.

ZTCLVS-70  MOTOR $50

ZTCL-MCB  CONTROLLER $45

These are two items from Penn that are required for the Viel/Penn Combo.  No pulley to remove, none included. 

https://www.pennstateind.com/blast_email...en+Turners

Mr. Grepper:   I just got off the phone with Mike Brubacker, and he suggested that I contact you.    He said that you are producing very sharp edges, very quickly, and very simply.  

 A bit about me:        Retired chef, sharpening once a week at a local farmers market.
                               Using a 4-step belt sander system to sharpen.
                               Taking 2-3 minutes to sharpen and remove the burr (problematic).
                               Edges test at 230-270.  OK sharp, but not much tooth.

OK, I'm frustrated.  I want sharper, toothier edges.  Could you share your technique for sharpening?  
Thanks so much.................Dan

Super fast and easy.  I have it installed.  It works.

Unless you are on XP, choose the Windows 7/8/10 option:

https://www.digitalred.com/support/windo...-resizing/


After you install it, all you have to do is right click on an image in Windows Explorer and select Resize Pictures.  Or you can highlight multiple image files and do the same.

The first time you do it, press the Advanced button.  There you can manually enter a dimension.  If you only choose the horizontal dimension, say 640, it will automatically adjust the vertical dimension for you.  Same will work if you only select the vertical dimension.

The resized image will be saved in the same folder but with a different name.

Bread knives are all but defined by their large, scalloped serrations. Even the newest type of bread knife serrations are nothing special at best, and they are still sharpener friendly chisel grinds.

I've been spending some time sharpening bread knives and cutting nice, sharp, custom serrations on everything I've tried so far. 

I just sharpened a Vintage Gerber "Lord Sandwich", which is a Fabulous wider bodied bread knife, with excellent 440C steel. Gerber normally ran their stuff on the harder side of RHC 58-60, and it's far better than your average German stainless.

This knife was probably manufactured around 1970, and it's never been sharpened. It's been well cared for, but it's about 50 years old! In this condition, it averaged 700gf.

Using the 3/4" contact wheel and a used 150 grit belt on a TW90, I hit every serration until the tips were defined and sharp. I deburred the flat side on a 1k Shapton and distressed the edge as normal... in about 30 seconds.

Measuring in the middle of the serration, I was down to 270gf, but it felt sharper because the points are Very pointy!

Refined with a 400 grit belt, the second deburring and distressing is a little quicker. The teeth are like needles (that you sharpen before using as usual), and the scallops measure a surprising 130gf.

Chisel grind wins again!    

And we have unbound overkill of tooth, which is about right.

Let's share technicalities on the method from our own experience. Concrete examples or conceptual approach, all good.

My 2 cents on honing.
Keep honing while the sharpness score keeps improving (i.e. lowering), and stop when the reading has stopped changing.
At this point, should you continue honing - you will lose the edge sharpness you've just achieved.
At this point the right thing to do is either to change to a finer hone, or just enjoy the best attainable sharpness you've already got.

Want your edge to shave - hone it to 150 BESS, but want it to split a hair - change to a finer grit and continue honing to about 120-90 BESS, and then change again to the finest grit  and go on honing to 70-50 BESS.

The edge sharpness tester indicates those breaking points in the sharpening sequence, where you have to change to a finer grit, and not to ruin the edge by overhoning.
You know you are overhoning the edge when the BESS reading increases.
When I see this, not only I change to a finer grit, but may also take a shallower honing angle.

The scores the tester gives aren't equally informative, some are more important than others.
I've noticed again and again something special about the 90 BESS. It indicates some crucial events happening at the very edge.
For example, microbevelling improves sharpness of edges that initially had a BESS score of over 90, i.e. of an edge thicker than 0.2 micron at the apex.
But microbevelling has no effect on edges that are already in the 80-90 BESS range, unless of very hard steel.