Silly fun comparing WEPS w/ local pro sharpeners
- This topic has 9 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 09/27/2012 at 2:30 am by
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I was really bored this week so I decided to have some fun comparing a knife blade sharpened with the WEPS system vs local professional sharpening services here in San Diego, California. There are several of these services that have a booth outside of health food stores on various days of the week.
I used this old cheap beatup Winchester knife:
All of the following photos are at 400x on the Veho microscope.
First, I sharpened it with my WEPS at 20 degrees (up to 1000 diamond) and then put a microbevel on it at 25 degrees:
Then I distroyed the edge with a 100 diamond stone and took it to the first professional sharpener who spent about 60 seconds on his belts. He charged me $2 and here’s his result:
Then I distroyed his edge and took the knife to another professional sharpener the following day. He also only spent about 60 seconds on his belts, also charged me $2, and his result is even worse than the first one. It even left an obvious bur on one side of the blade:
Below are before and after photos of the point of the knife:
First the knife point after my sharpening with the WEPS:
And now the knife point after the first sharpener ruined it:
I know this was a silly experiment but I was curious.
Great idea, HM and incredibly sad results! Do you live in the country that still has capital punishment? 😉
On a positive note: some time ago a “professional” sharpener managed to ruin a nice (EUR 100 +) knife I owned. The edge was black when it came off of his 200 grit belt sander, which completely ruined the heat treatment. I still own the knife:
Below you can see the knife compared to a similar one I sharpened myself on the Wicked Edge:
This “professional” sharpener has retired by now, which is a good thing for everyone.
The positive note is that this got me into sharpening my own knives 🙂 .
Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge
Follow-up. I took the same knife to yet another professional sharpener at another healthfood store. The sharpener was female this time and she seemed to take great pride in her work. I made up a story and told her that a friend of mine had sharpened the knife and it felt rough on one side of the edge but I didn’t want to say anything to my friend. Could she make it better? She felt the edge and said that it must have been sharpened on a belt sander but mostly on one side. She also said that my friend didn’t hone it. She said “let me give it a try”. She put it on her belt sander and then on her ceramic hone machine. After feeling the edge, she redid it on the belt sander and honed it twice more. She spent maybe 2 minutes (twice as much time as the other two people) and charged me the usual $2. When she was happy with it, she handed it back to me and said “Check it now. That should be better”. It was.
Here is her edge:
Of course this doesn’t compare to the WEPS edge but, compared to the other two attempts, this was pretty good.
What I learned is – it matters who the sharpener is and their skill level – with those professional sharpeners. And, of course, nothing compares to the WEPS system.
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