03-25-2017, 09:48 PM
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/i...?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.
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/i...?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.