Howdy, y’all!
I live in the Wallowa Valley of far NE Oregon, nestled between the 10,000′ Wallowa mountains and the 6,000′ deep abyss of the Hell’s Canyon of the Snake complex. We’re at 3,000-4,400 feet ASL, so we don’t have the same seasons as most folks.
I work at Terminal Gravity Brewing, building and maintaining things. Beer is good!
I just received my WE Gen 3 Pro on Thursday. I’m just getting started with it, so please bear with me. I have read everything I could here, but will still have some questions that may seem stupid.
I’m in my sixth decade and have been sharpening, using and treasuring knives and tools since the late ’60s. I grew up using hand stones–of which I have a pretty good collection, including DMT Diasharps, ceramic razor hone, Arkansas stones, waterstones, etc. I’ve been the go-to knife sharpening guy for a large group of friends for many years now and probably sharpen at least a few dozen a year. Less often, I do tools such as chisels, plane irons, mower blades, hatchets and such.
I’ve been very happy with the results I get from the hand stones over the years, as have my friends. Unfortunately, somewhere in my ’50s, my vision and fine manual dexterity started to decline to the point I’m NOT happy with my hand-held results any longer. While this may cut down on the number of folks expecting me to sharpen their abused blades, it hurts my pride and reduces the usefulness of my knives and tools.
So I went shopping for a guided sharpening system. I’ve been researching these for a few months now. I looked at power options–and may still have to get one to start those abused blades–I wasn’t happy with any one that I felt I could afford. When I moved to rod-guided systems, it was a confusing morass of choices! Finally, I stumbled across a video of a knife-maker using the WE Pro 3 and knew it was what I wanted. I looked at some of the lower-priced WE systems, but, after adding the various stones and accessories I’d want, the cost worked out about the same, so I dropped the dimes.
So, for my first dumb question: I don’t see any category in this forum for tool sharpening. Is there a preferred place for this?
I’ve spent the last few days preparing for spring–still a ways off here–by sharpening my pruning tools and it would have been handy to have some pointers specific to these short, curved, single-bevel blades. I feel I did a fairly good job after studying some of the general tutorials–like How To Find The Sweet Spot–and am pretty happy with my results. Now to move on to some knives!
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