New Sharpener Need a ton of advise.

[travis]

My name is Travis. I’m a Meat Cutter (kinda like a butcher) for a grocery store. I just got my promotion to cutter a few months ago. so sharpening is new to me. After doing several shop knives for practice, i learned what a burr is and how to identify them. since learning about the burr unfortunately all the knives Ive done Ive only done the burr on the first diamond stone. recently Ive learned to do the burr throughout the sharpening process. I decided not to strop any of my practice knives. finally when i felt comfortable doing my own knives i tried to strop them. on my first use with the strops i completely destroyed them. As cutters we use 10 Inch curved Victorinox butcher knives. once i got to the belly it would dig into the leather hard regardless of pressure and speed of the stroke. Before i buy a new set of strops id really like to nail down a solution to my issue. Any help would be appreciated.

As a request to Mr. Allison. I noticed a good portion of the breakdown videos are on smaller pocket knifes. I will include a picture of the type of knife I and most professional meat cutters use. a detailed video on how to produce a strong and sharp edge pulling out all the stops as far as accessorizing beyond the pro pack 2 for a work utensil for everyday use.

Due to my lack of creating a burr past my first stone. My knives started out pretty freaking sharp but declined pretty quick. i believe from my reading this is due to a “wire edge” by not forming the burr throughout the sharping process i failed to remove fatigued metal. my honing steel didn’t seem to help much. should i resharpen from 600 and up or just resharpen from scratch?

Attachments:

• butcherknife.jpg

[tcmeyer]

Welcome aboard tallen408:

Using the burr is a “touch” method of detecting evidence that you have reached the apex with “that stone” on “that side.” It’s a method of “seeing” what you can’t see with your eyes. My experience with long blades is that it’s difficult to raise a burr for the full length of the edge. I suggest that you purchase a good loupe or handheld microscope, so that you can be confident that you have indeed reached the apex for the full length and on both sides, using your coarsest grit (=>400). Having done so, you can proceed, knowing that you only need to remove the scratches from the previous grit – not whether or not you continue to raise burrs. Example: Once I know I’ve reached the apex full length, I’ll make maybe 5 strokes for each inch of length on each side with each grit.

Not being a meat cutter, my best guess would be to stone a “back bevel” at 15 dps (degrees per side) to 1000 grit, polishing it with a strop with maybe 3.5 micron paste. Then, I’d put on a 1000 grit 20 dps microbevel (maybe 3-5 alternating strokes on each side). If you cut into a lot of bones, maybe you’ll want to skip the back bevel. Are there any meat cutters on this forum who could offer some real-world advise??

Oh, and when you use the leather strops, be sure to lower the angle by two degrees. This reduces the tendency of the strops to round over the edge.

[mike]

hello fellow meat cutter 🙂

i’ve asked one or two of these questions before here and this is the best way i can answer it

bare in mind i dont have a wicked edge yet….but ive been doing a lot of research and im going to purchase one soon for my work knives.

as far as sharpening the longer knife is concerned – i think you need to concentrate on getting the bevel even towards the tip. that will come by moving the knife towards you in the WEPS so that the stroke of the stone makes an even bevel. i asked already before about whether or not i should worry about the scratch pattern being even, but the consensus was when you finally get to the last stones it wont matter because it will be really sharp anyway.

with your strops i guess you just have to make sure you are making upward strokes ONLY as to not dig into the blade with them. from my understanding since the material youre stropping with is so small you dont have to worry about the direction youre stropping (unless stropping up and away or up and toward to get rid of scratches for a mirror finish).

as far as the burr is concerned? this is one that aludes me as well. after watching a few of clay allison’s videos i notice that once you use the 100 grit stones to get to the apex by feeling a burr, he just uses the rest of the stones for polishing. does the burr just go away when you use the higher grit stones??? or do we have to get a loupe or microscope to make sure we get rid of the burr? buy a felt block to run along the blade to get rid of the burr after each stone?

im getting a WEPS pro pack II soon and im wanting to clear up this stuff for myself as well. i hope this helps tallen408 with what i know so far.

[Austin Nelson]

Tbh once you know you have a burr from the 100’s, and you work the rest of the stones alternatively, you will automatically build and take away the burr as long as you don’t change the angle at all because you already got to your apex with the first stones. Sorry that’s all over the place but I hope it makes sense

Austin

[peter kovac]

I use a q-tip to feel the burr. I can feel it better than just using my fingers. Hope this helps.

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[mike]

any updates on how youre getting a long with your knives and how they do at work?

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