Allgonquin

[Allgonquin]

Three word advice.  Feel the burr.

[Allgonquin]

I think most would agree that it would be hard to make a living doing this.  I think pro sharpeners use belts and have multiple belt grinders set up with finer stages of belts – they do not take near the care that we do and spend only a minute or two per knife.  Like others, I do this more or less as a hobby but I have run a few ads in my local pennysaver and basically paid for my WE with paid customers.  I am an engineer as well and I don’t count my time in this case.  Also I have gotten much faster with kitchen knives, and I stop at the 1000 stones as there is not much point going sharper, IMHO.  A bit of tooth is good for a kitchen knife, I think.  If I get a name brand pocket knife I’ll go to the ceramics and a bit of stropping.

Anyway I enjoy the variety of knives I get in response to my ads, and I get a lot of satisfaction when a customer calls me and marvels at how sharp the knives are.  Especially love it when friends do this.  I have a tradition that I sharpen our friends’ knives for Thanksgiving, and we always eat at their place.  Seems like a fair trade.  If it stops being fun, I’ll stop doing it.

Glad to hear you are chugging along, Bill, I like my 1911 too, and back in the day I had a ’69.  350/350 4 speed.

[Allgonquin]

A belt grinder plus a Wicked Edge is your friend. Here are a before and after shot of a friend’s treasured “Old Timer”.

I normally draw the shape of a new tip with the sharpie and play with it a while until I’m satisfied, then use my 6 x 48 belt with a very fine grit belt on slow speed, being careful not to heat the blade more than I can touch. Of course the proportions won’t always be the best with a huge piece of the tip missing, but you do the best you can. Then finish with the WE and voila, good to go.

And I always get permission from the owner before putting on a new tip!

[Allgonquin]

I too am the carver as we have our turkey dinner at a friend’s house – a long tradition. However this year I did not stop by a couple weeks in advance to pick up their knives for sharpening – my normal “payment” for thanksgiving dinner. And boy was I sorry! It was just plain awful to carve up the bird with a dull knife. I knew I was in trouble when I checked all the knives in their block with my thumb. Chose the best of the lot and attempted to use the steel, but that was a lost cause on a dull knife. First cut into the nicely browned skin on the breast was impossible. Just would not cut. I was too far away to drive home and get one of my knives.

To make a long story short I sawed my way through that bird. It was ugly. But it still tasted good, thank goodness. Won’t happen again.

[Allgonquin]

I find that there are just some blades which chip, period. First time it happened I worked hard to remove a chip or two, and more chips formed. I’ve seen this with several knives over the last couple years. Now if I get a chip, I generally won’t try too hard to remove it. Of course there are chips and there are CHIPS and like others say, it’s your choice whether to leave a chip in the edge or not.

[Allgonquin]

Ever since I started shaving and being obsessed with knives ~40 years ago I wondered why razors dulled as quickly as they did. Think about it – whisker hair vs. steel blade. You should be able to cut a LOT of hair without dulling, it seemed to me. At some point I had decided for myself that corrosion must be one of the main factors why the edges dulled. And at some point I read something somewhere which seemed to validate my thoughts.

I had the idea to store my razor (Back in the day I settled on and still use a “Trac II” type razor, but you can’t find Gillette Trac II blades any more, only copies) in a shallow tray of some kind of oil to prevent air/oxygen from reaching the edge. In the early days of the internet I researched it and found someone was already doing it. I think they called it the “bladesaver”. That company seems to have gone under, but I just found this site right now: http://razorbladesaver.com/ which has exactly the same idea.

So yes, corrosion is key to blade life / edge sharpness. FYI I bought a new-old-stock Trac II razor off ebay a couple years ago because I lost one of mine while traveling. It came with a few cartridges blister packed. Although that razor had to have been 20+ years old those blades shaved better than the chicom imitations I can find now.

Rgds,

[Allgonquin]

Here is one vote for the thumb in the second notch. I find I get the best control and consistency with this position.

[Allgonquin]

Many times for me getting the burr on the ~1/2″ up to the tip takes as long as getting it on the whole rest of the length of the edge.

[Allgonquin]

Regarding using a marker – this is directed mostly at new folks – the best benefit of using a marker for me is when matching an existing edge bevel angle. I set up the blade mark both sides with a sharpie. I take my best guess at the angle and make a couple light passes with the 1000 grit diamond and see how the sharpie mark is getting worn off. Then I adjust the angle and/or the clamp position to try to get the worn off portion nicely matching the existing bevel. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get a good match and I often re-mark the edge after adjusting the angle and trying again.

(many of the kitchen knives I get from friends are so dull and abused that I don’t bother trying to match the angle. I just set up at 18 or 19 or 20 degrees and “nuke” the existing edge, so to speak. No need for the marker in these cases.)

But yes, the burr is the absolute key to a good edge. I made that mistake when I first got my WE. Unless you have the burr full length, you are wasting time and effort!

[Allgonquin]

Unfortunately both problems for me as well.

Rgds,

[Allgonquin]

Hi GI, did you reposition the blade in the clamp? With long blades I usually sharpen the portion closest to the handle first, then reposition to closer to the tip in the clamp, and “blend” the sharpening. If you practice this with a few knives you can generally get it quite uniform along the length of the blade, and the tip won’t have such a bevel.

Rgds,

[Allgonquin]

Hmmm. Using either Safari or Chrome I can not get the “Products” pages to load. And the home page of site is extremely slow to load.

Rgds,

[Allgonquin]

I give up. What is CBN spray?

[Allgonquin]

Tuffy,

I’m not too big a fellow to admit that you have cited several uses of “fare” in published material in a way that I have not seen before – although I would say that “farmers fare” is more a play on words rather than a correct usage, I will give you props for digging those up and a special pass from the spelling police in this case. Well done.

And yes, about “allgonquin”, I’m aware of the correct spelling of the Native American tribe(s) with a single L – but many internet sigs are not exactly dictionary words or common or proper names, eh?

Carry on and good luck with the fares.

Regards

[Allgonquin]

Tuffy, as much as I love reading your stories and watching your videos, you’re killing me with “fare”. Fare is what you pay for transportation, or how you are getting along, (How did you fare at the fair today?) or alternatively, something to eat. A _fair_ is where you go to visit and see things and do stuff like sharpening knives.

There, I feel much better now, and my elementary school English teacher can stop rolling in her grave right now…

Rgds,
The spelling police

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