Today at the farmers fare i got over 20 knives.

[Phil Pasteur]

So, what did you end up doing with the Victoinox blade?
How did it come out?
Customer reaction?

BTW. depending on how much you get into it, how much you charge for a critical customer… the steel information may be the most important piece of data that you can get…

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

I think I would flip out if I had to do 20 knives in one day!:ohmy: :unsure: It takes me hours to do 4
knives :blush:

With more time on the machine, you get faster, plus doing knives for customers is different than doing them for yourself or your friends. You don’t need to agonize over every last scratch. You can often just find the existing angle, match it and start with the 600# stones. From there, it’s easy to work through the 600#, 800# and 1000# diamonds and then finish with 20 or so strokes with the strops. The knife you’ll give back to your customer will be screaming sharp (depending on the angle of course) and far better than anything they’ve ever seen before. If you work the same venue often, you’ll get the knives back after a while and it’s really easy to touch them up, just a matter of a minute or two. At shows, I usually do 5-10 knives per hour if they’re not too badly damaged or wanting a major reprofile. I spend more time on knives sent in to the shop, often 20 minutes or more making sure they’re perfect.[/quote]

My set up is a little different as I live on a very popular gun range. All of my customers drop their knives off and come back a few days latter? I guess it gave me a chance to invest more time? I am going to take your suggestion to the bank! I will learn to start off with 600 and go from there.

[tuffy braithwaite]

So, what did you end up doing with the Victoinox blade?
How did it come out?
Customer reaction?

BTW. depending on how much you get into it, how much you charge for a critical customer… the steel information may be the most important piece of data that you can get…

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have all week to work on it – will return it to him next sat. at the fare…..maybe like trade for yet another skinner he has – only guessing.

i think i will give it a try on the micro, B U T is there a rule of thumb on higher after first sharpening???…….meaning if i complete at 17* where do i go from there? or say 18* – or does it make all that much difference?

say 18* and then 21* or 22*

[cbwx34]

i think i will give it a try on the micro, B U T is there a rule of thumb on higher after first sharpening???…….meaning if i complete at 17* where do i go from there? or say 18* – or does it make all that much difference?

say 18* and then 21* or 22*

My .02… depends on where I start from… for example 15 deg./side, I might go up 4-5 deg. but if I’m at 20 and want to do one, I’ll only go up 2-3 deg…. otherwise it gets too high.

[tuffy braithwaite]

it has been sharpened by someone or something and just eyeballing i would say 19*

i will set it up in the vice monday and test.

since i have all week, and if it is actually around 20*, i may move down to 18* and then back up to 21*—-does that sound resonable??

now
do to the length, should i clamp in and sharpen from one location? or maybe 2? or more?

[cbwx34]

Angles sound good to me.

If you can do it without reclamping… that’s what I would do. Since it’s just a straight edge, you can clamp it vertically in whatever position works best (middle?).

[Phil Pasteur]

I have all week to work on it – will return it to him next sat. at the fare…..maybe like trade for yet another skinner he has – only guessing.

i think i will give it a try on the micro, B U T is there a rule of thumb on higher after first sharpening???…….meaning if i complete at 17* where do i go from there? or say 18* – or does it make all that much difference?

say 18* and then 21* or 22*

Any “rules of thumb” have to be based on the type of steel as well as the intended use.
With that steel, I might use 20 degrees and leave it at that. Again.. talk to him. If he is not happy, it will only take minutes to chuck it up and ad a bit of tooth at maybe 21 or 22 degrees.
My concern is that any kind of micro bevel you will add just will not last long… From what I read… edge retention is not all that great on the X50 steel. Leave as much meat behind the edge as you can..
IMHO.

[Mikedoh]

Question here.

If one has a primary bevel at say 20/side, and makes a micro bevel at say 22/side. . . . When the 22 bevel becomes dull, does the
20 bevel shine thru?

Hope this makes sense

[tuffy braithwaite]

i just finished it up moments ago……for the night.

some strop work in the morning…..she is bad to the bone right now.

when with factory edge of 20*…… :whistel:

depth key atF was dead on….stand by

[tuffy braithwaite]

here is a short video on a few knives i sharpened monday and did some timing on.

at the end is the finished up Victorinox 11″ skinner.

video is like: 8 mins
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[cbwx34]

Question here.

If one has a primary bevel at say 20/side, and makes a micro bevel at say 22/side. . . . When the 22 bevel becomes dull, does the
20 bevel shine thru?

Hope this makes sense

No (if I understand your question), the sharpness is based on the 22 deg. edge, once it dulls, it would need to be touched up.

Knives in the video look good! I’ll admit the fix you made to the chipped knife gave me pause… I don’t grind out just the damage like that… I’ll work the whole edge to sharpen out damage.

How long did the skinner take?

[tuffy braithwaite]

Question here.

If one has a primary bevel at say 20/side, and makes a micro bevel at say 22/side. . . . When the 22 bevel becomes dull, does the
20 bevel shine thru?

Hope this makes sense

No (if I understand your question), the sharpness is based on the 22 deg. edge, once it dulls, it would need to be touched up.

Knives in the video look good! I’ll admit the fix you made to the chipped knife gave me pause… I don’t grind out just the damage like that… I’ll work the whole edge to sharpen out damage.

How long did the skinner take?[/quote]
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total time on skinner – 55 mins……..i guess the steel was not all that great, sharpened up pretty fast….30 mins of the time was stropping.

pause did you 🙂

i presume with that grade of S/S it will need sharpening again soon with any use.

it will serve him fine for a spell. i will tell him to buy a leather strop – i likem.
see you Curtis
thanks

[Eamon Mc Gowan]

Max Thank you for taking the time to post your hard work! There is really some great lessons for me to learn from you! Normally I could not let the knife with the small glitch go? Also I would STILL be grinding away on the badly gouged knife :sick: I need to take lessons from you and relax my style some (or lack of) and actually give them their monies worth in reverse. I think in my case I can’t let the OCD thing go? :unsure:
Clay also mentioned it and I need to really take it to heart and learn how to sharpen using the higher grits only. Please keep posting as I’m learning a lot from you and I get a kick out of you as well :cheer:

[cbwx34]

I think in my case I can’t let the OCD thing go? :unsure:

I hear you on this… that’s why I think just setting up a simple standard process, (especially if you’re in a position where volume matters), with as few steps as possible, might be the way to go.

Like others have said, you’ll probably hand them back a knife better than they’ve ever seen to begin with.

[Phil Pasteur]

Agreed!
With a few small caveats…

I still say for volume, get a belt grinder and a good selection of belts. NOT because it does as good a job as the WEPS, but it does a very good job (if the operator does their part) and it is very, very fast.

I get reactions along the lines of… “my knives have never been this sharp”…

I like the idea that I can also offer more. If someone wants a mirror polish and sub-micron edge refinement, I will give it to them. But, they will pay more than $8.00 for it.. much more.

I also like the idea of being able to work with regular customers to develop an edge that will suit their needs better than the “mass produced” one. Again, more time = more money though.

These last two are where the WEPS really shines…:cheer:

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