08-03-2020, 10:17 PM
(07-17-2020, 01:14 PM)blgentry Wrote: Come on Case Peanut, tell us how you are doing with the new sander! Have you turned any knives into toothpicks yet? :Hopefully you still have all of your fingers intact.
The Rikon is so much more fun the Worksharp! I'm having a blast with the additional speed and control. I've been experimenting with lots of different belts. I don't get along with the Trizact belts. Plain 'ole AO belts seem to work best with the regular stainless and carbon steel kitchen knives I usually sharpen, although I just got some SiC belts to try out too.
I've mostly been sharpening edge up with a sugi-sharp angle jig at 15 degrees. 120 AO belt to remove any chips and lightly apex, then refine at 220, 400 (if necessary), deburr on fine scotchbrite or leather belt. I seem to get best results if I lightly deburr first with the fine scotchbrite, then a little bit on a leather belt with white compound and then a few finishing swipes on a handheld strop with green compound. I still need to build the box for the grinder so I can easily turn it on its back for horizontal edge trailing deburring.
I did burn one tip a tiny amount on a small, super thin paring knife. I was doing too many passes at high speed. Since then I've been dipping the knives in water every few passes and it makes a huge difference in keeping the heat down. Once I have the grinder in a box I'll look into mounting a small drip system.
The Bess PT50B has been a revelation. I'm still working on getting my numbers down, but its interesting to see how important full burr removal is to the sharpness of the edge. I always test my edges on thin newsprint, but the BESS scores will show you when you have a sharpened burr or other defects that won't be very clear from slicing newsprint.
The next thing I need is more knives to practice! I've reached the point where I think I might want to try putting up a website to try and find a steadier stream of knives for practice. I've been getting a few a week, but would love to have a way to sharpen 10+ knives a week to keep improving.
I've also been working on garden tools and scissors. Not something I ever expected to enjoy, but I've been using the scotchbrite belts and some of the large rust erasers to clean up the tools a bit and then but a coarse working edge on trimmers, pruners and hedge clippers. The Trugrit Special stone and the Baryonyx American Mutt pocket stone have been a really easy way to sharpen the handheld garden tools. I did one electric trimmer by hand and it took all night! I'm going to try a Dremel next time I need to sharpen one of those.
More to come as I dive into the deep end...