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+--- Thread: Toothy vs Polished Edge (/showthread.php?tid=19)
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - Bobbo - 03-18-2017
Got to do this on my phone and typing is a challenge grepper. Thank you so much for the detailed information and explanation. My electric is a counter model purchased on Amazon three stages but not home to see the make or model. I'm going to go with the Ken Onion because I have limited space and it looks like a shorter learning curve. Next upgrade? A sharpening space in my garage and a big Kalamazoo.
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - grepper - 03-18-2017
Bobbo-
I hope the Onion works well for you. Please keep in mind that I have never used it and am not recommending it per se. It's just another option available to choose from.
The Kzoo is not exactly big and does not take that much space, but it is bigger and heavier than the Onion. In the image I posted of mine, you can see a knife sitting next to it for comparison. The Onion is more more electric hand drill size. Lightweight and very portable.
So, like the rest of us has many times, you are experimenting with a new sharpening device. No doubt there will be some thing you like and some you don't. Either way, no doubt you will learn something.
If you decide to go with it, please keep us informed and give us a review of what you think of it!
BTW, scroll down this page. Do you currently have one of these?
http://tinyurl.com/ky7gmb2
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - MaxtheKnife - 03-21-2017
Bobbo
Grepper has given you much great informative info.
for normal household knives......yard tools.....etc. a small belt sander should fill your needs.
harbor fright makes one for 40 bucks.........1 x 30"..........many grit belts available........cheaply made fast rpm's.......Viel inc ananda make both 1 x30" for like 99 bucks.........and 1 x 42 for around 220. bucks......much nicer than harbor job............the kalamazoo and viel turn about 1/2 the rpm's as the harbor job.
belts.......omg many vendors for these..........look at Pops knife supply.......SuperGrit..........Trugrit are just a few.
.
the 1 x 42 Viel has many options available also if you want to upgrade to scissors, chisels, etc.......Youtube has many many many videos on both kalamazoo and viels.
have fun.......go to thrift store and buy cheap knives for learning.
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - grepper - 03-21-2017
Yeah, and just to be clear, for knife sharpening the faster speed of the HF sander is not an advantage. The slower speed of the Kally or the Viel is better because the faster speed of the HF can cause overheating of the blade if your are not careful.
I've never had a heat issue with my Kally.
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - Bobbo - 03-23-2017
Got the Onion but haven't opened the box. I will head to the thrift store after work tomorrow to pick up some practice knives. This is to keep my wife from having a breakdown. I don't know what she's so nervous about. A couple of minor house fires and a vacuum cleaner that will never suck again and she gets all nervous.
Hopefully I'll have a good report this weekend. 
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - grepper - 03-23-2017
(03-23-2017, 02:33 PM)Bobbo Wrote: Got the Onion but haven't opened the box. I will head to the thrift store after work tomorrow to pick up some practice knives. This is to keep my wife from having a breakdown. I don't know what she's so nervous about. A couple of minor house fires and a vacuum cleaner that will never suck again and she gets all nervous.
Sounds like fun! Nothing like a new toy!
You have not even opened the box? Does that mean that we are going to be treated to the obligatory un-boxing video? 
I'm at a loss of why your wife should be so sensitive about things like a minor house fire every so often! Geeze!
I suspect like everything there will be a learning curve. You will get to play with different grit and composition belts, etc. Keep in mind that it's a powered sharpener, so take it easy to start with and see how it performs.
Hope it works out well for you and I'm really looking FW to your review(s)!
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - Bobbo - 03-25-2017
Here’s the report and the unboxing video fell by the wayside for certain:
Well I ordered an Onion and got a radish.
Don’t know for sure yet what went wrong with my order but I received the cheaper unit as well as an extra box of belts that I didn’t order either. The extra belts turned out to be a good thing though. I reached a satisfactory agreement with my supplier and just decided to go with the less expensive model because I was anxious to get started.I went to the local thrift and picked up three knives to practice on out of a big box. $1.75 each and accidentally managed to hit them on half-price day. I told them that $1.75 each was already cheap enough. Here’s the three knives and the sharpener. From top to bottom, let’s call the knives A,B and C.
[attachment=62]
A and B do not have a single marking on them. Could have been worn off though. C looked like it might have some possibilities though because it at least had some kind of writing and a logo on it but very worn as well. Looks like EKOETERNA. At least someone wasn’t too embarrassed to sign their name on it. Probably the most challenging aspect of this project was getting the packing tape off the edges that the thrift store had put on them. It was as if it had been baked on and came off in a million little pieces. Knife A measured 1345 – Knife B measured 1230 and C was the worst of all at 1660. You could easily hook your finger nail on all three rolled edges up and down one side of the entire edge. I took pictures of all three but no point in putting them all up here. You get the idea.
[attachment=63]
Just for curiosity I tried straightening one of the knife edges with my sharp pad but really only succeeded in severely gouging the surface of my burr removal plate and only improved the reading a couple hundred points. These edges were just too far gone. So now to the new sharpening gizmo. I can tell you this much it is far superior in my opinion to my old three stage electric sharpener but even so knives in this poor condition are all this model seems to want. I used up two of my coarse belts raising burrs on two of the knives. I was saving knife C for another experiment. I ground so much that I began to wonder about the heat I was generating. The blades did actually feel quite warm to the touch and if that much heat is transferred to the body of the blade it does make you wonder what the temperature is at that very thin contact area.
I then switched to the medium belt and ran both knives through several times and then the fine belt. All this belt switching is a pain but if it sharpens a knife its worth it to me. I measured then. A was 385 and B was 365. That's a big improvement over where I started and a usable knife in my house but I had done better than that with my old electric after burr removal so I knew I had some work to do. Then I got out the sharp pad again and began my standard burr removal procedure. I took several measurements on each knife during this process and it was obvious to me that these knives weren’t going to give up their burrs easily. They were the worst that I have ever encountered. After two or three trips to the rubber base I finally got there. Knife A 240 and Knife B 250. That’s where I quit and called it good enough because further efforts at burr removal weren't producing better BESS numbers.
So now to Knife C. If you watch the Sharp Pad videos (don’t remember which one) you’ll see Mike talking about using a polymer plate with an abrasive sandpaper glued to it to sharpen a knife. In one of his Hub Pages articles he describes the technique he uses to grind the edge. Edge On Up doesn’t sell these as far as I know but for sure they don’t come with a sharp pad. I decided to give it a try. Went to the hardware store and bought a couple sheets of black silicon carbide 240 grit paper and a can of Super 77 spray adhesive. Sprayed one side of a burr removal plate with adhesive and stuck it to the back of the sand paper. I then trimmed it off with a scissors and then did the flip side of the plate the same way. Here’s the material I used and the abrasive plate I produced.
[attachment=64]
The technique is to use a lot of pressure to create the initial burr and then very light strokes to reduce the burr somewhat thereafter before final burr removal. So here is how it went on my worst, and by far largest, knife (knife C) from a dull perspective but I suspect maybe a little better quality knife overall. I spent probably 30 seconds on side 1 of the knife with a lot of pressure and then flipped it over to side two for about an equal amount of time. I felt for a burr, nothing. Flipped it back to side one for another 30 seconds and then felt for a burr again. Lo and behold a good burr with the exception of near the point and the very base of the blade. Flipped it again with an emphasis on those two areas and now a burr up and down the entire length of the blade. So in something around 2 minutes I had accomplished with a piece of sand paper what had just taken me at least twice that long to do with a motorized sharpener. This probably doesn’t surprise you guys much but I was totally surprised just how simple and fast that had been. I deburred the knife very thoroughly then and here’s the number I got on the very first measurement:
[attachment=65]
Got to tell you I am busting buttons over this and just plain excited. I’ve never sharpened a knife that sharp before! Next thing is back to the hardware store for experimentation with different grits. They had everything up to 2000. Then I am on to our good knives. Thank you so much for the help fellas!
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - grepper - 03-25-2017
Thanks for the most excellent review and for sharing your learning experience. Congratulations! It sounds like you are well on your way to being an accomplished freehand sharpener. 190g! That’s a nice, sharp blade. About perfect for kitchen stuff. Fun stuff, eh?
One trick you may find helpful is to paint the side of the bevel with a marker pen. When you sharpen it will rub off the marker and you can see how well you are hitting the existing bevel angle. You can easily remove the marker ink with a little alcohol.
FWIW, when it comes to belt grinders the width of the belt and motor size has some significance. The one you ended up with is a ½”x12” belt. The Onion is a ¾”x12”, the Kally I have is a 1”x30”. They go up from there, 2”x72”, 4” wide, etc. Bigger motors + bigger belts = the ability to do bigger, more demanding jobs like hogging off more metal.
My Kalamazoo (Kally) 1SM, 1”x30” has a 1/3 hp Baldor industrial motor and is great for sharpening, but for really hogging off a lot of metal like Mark does as a bladesmith, it would be underpowered. You could do it, but it would slow and arduous. Right tool for the task kind of thing.
At one point my finger was quivering over the trigger to get one of these. But then, sadly, common sense prevailed. I just couldn’t/can’t justify it for what I do. Sure is a sexy thing though:
http://www.beaumontmetalworks.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=64
Even if you don’t end up using your Work Sharp for sharpening, it’s still handy to have around. You can pull the knife rest part off and use it as small belt grinder for getting into small spaces. I’ve found that there are many times where that is very useful. You might also find that it works well now that your knives are basically sharp and you are not trying to reform the bevels.
I have a variable speed bench grinder with regular wheels and paper wheels, a crappy little Edge Pro wanna be, diamond plates, stones, a Tormek T7 and a Kally. Now I’m thinking about shelling out for a CBN wheel for the Tormek. It never ends. Sort of a glorious sickness.
I am extremely impressed by how well you did freehand sharpening! Keep us informed of your progress and experiences. Sounds like you are hooked! The next thing you can experiment with are various ways of removing large quantities of cash from your wallet quickly and painlessly.
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - Rupert Lucius - 03-26-2017
Sir
In your post # 19 you refer to (Kally) 1 SM 1x30.
My thoughts were that Rupert was the only person to neck (shorten) several SM 1's into 1x30's.
Rupert
RE: Toothy vs Polished Edge - Bobbo - 03-26-2017
Thank you grepper for the encouragement and advice and also very happy to see that my report was well received. My mouse arrow was poised over the post button for sometime before I had the courage to click it
I don't think that I can accept all of your praise though. I don't think that I am a "freehand" sharpener although I understand where your comment comes from. Like I said in a previous post I tried sharpening with stones and my edge tester proved that I didn't know what I was doing. I think the difference in my case is that with stones you are pushing the edge and with the technique I used you are pulling the edge. This seemed to make all the difference in my case. I think that it all has to do with this sharpening angle thing. What gave me the courage to try this is the thread started by Thomas in Sweden. He doesn't worry about sharpening angle very much. He worries about a sharp edge. Maybe if you are a chef or a butcher and you use a knife to cut and chop all day it makes a difference but what people like me really need is simply a clean sharp edge. I bring this up only because I don't know for sure what angle is on my knife C now. It could be the same or I might have changed it one way or the other. I do know that my $1.75 knife from GoodWill is now the best cutting knife in my kitchen. Maybe it was just beginners luck. I have nothing bad to say about the Worksharp. Its 5 times better than my old electric in my opinion and still glad that I own it. I'm going back to the hardware store today to buy more sandpaper. On the way I'm going to stop by my daughters house and steal one of her deburring plates from her sharp pad so that I have something to glue the new sandpaper to.
Here is something for Edge On Up if anyone there is listening. You need to make available additional burr removal plates to your customers. They get scratched and dirty with use. The visible scratches left by burrs, or not, on the plates are a great sign that a burr is present or has been mostly removed. They eventually get so scratched up though that this valuable feature is useless. Also they get dirty from burr removal but after awhile you can't tell if new burr is coming off or you are just looking at old burr from previous use. Obviously I would like to get some extras just to glue new sandpaper to because I'm going to start on our good knives this afternoon. I can't believe that I am the first guy to pick up on the technique you talk about in your video and writings.
Just went to the kitchen to warm up my coffee and caught my wife using my new $1.75 knife. She said "this is really sharp!". SCORE!