Carl Sauer

[Carl Sauer]

Great News! McAfee is now showing this site as a safe site!

[Carl Sauer]

McAfee Site Advisor is still showing this as malicious site. McAfee has four rating for sites. These are:

SAFE: Very low or no risk issues. (Green)

CAUTION: Minor risk issues. (Yellow)

WARNING: Serious risk issues. (Red)

UNKNOWN: Not yet rated. Use caution. (Unknown)

The rating for portions of this site is Warning (red). The Main Page is showing Safe (Green).

The links that have this rating are Products, Dealers, Forum, Sharpeners, Pro-Packages and Accessory Stones.

From McAfree :

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How Site Ratings Are Determined
Each day, thousands of times a day, McAfee visits Websites and tests them for a comprehensive set of security threats. From annoying pop-ups to back door Trojans that can steal your identity, we find the danger zones before you stumble on them. Here’s what our test computers look for.
Downloads
E-mail Practices
Browser Exploits
Phishing Sites
Web Reputation
E-Commerce Vulnerabilities
Website Annoyances
Links (Online affiliations)

Downloads
Downloadable files like screensavers, toolbars and file sharing programs can be-or may be bundled with — adware, spyware, viruses and other malicious computer code. Sometimes, the malware is added without your knowledge. Sometimes, you click “yes” or “I agree” without reading the fine print. The end result is often the same – a PC that slows to a crawl, a hidden password sniffer that is used to steal your identity, or valuable personal files destroyed or scrambled.
We download and install each file we find – we even open zip files. We then scan our test computer to see what changes have been made. If a program is determined to be a virus, Trojan, or certain other types of malware, that program will earn a red rating.

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From a business perspective this is a disaster for a reputable company that engages in ecommerce. If anyone sees this they will not be willing to enter any order type information using this site and indeed not even want to bring up the site for fear of downloading a virus.

I’m in IT and work for a large corporation. I know that if this rating was on the site for my company, it would be a matter for the board and every effort would be made to have the problem corrected immediately. This would be an incredibly serious issue since it reflects negatively on the reputation and public image of the company saying nothing of what the legal implications may be.

Whoever is hosting this site needs to have this issue investigated and have the site retested. There is a process for doing this and need to be a top priority. This is not a trivial matter for a reputable business. I know this site has been hacked and only adds to the concern.

I run virus scan (more than one) every time I now visit the site and am very hesitant to enter this site even though this is one of my favorite sites. Even as I enter this post I’m looking at a Red Warning!

Clay please have this issue corrected as soon as possible! I miss being here!

[Carl Sauer]

I keep pretty detailed sharping records even though most of the knives I sharpen are pretty low quality.
One thing I noticed is that sometimes for a particular knife the first few sharping’s turn out marginal at best. Each time I sharpen it, the better the edge becomes.

Early on I thought it was the WEPS learning curve. I was just getting better at using the tool. But it still happens after many knives and many incredible first edges. I then thought maybe it was the steel. But if it was the steel should not the edge remain marginal on every sharping? Something else must be the happening.

Like I said most knives that I have fall in the budget price category. Most people I know don’t use quality knives. If it’s good enough for Ron Propiel, it’s good enough for them. Other than my own knives, I rarely get high quality knives to sharpen. Low quality knives can still get razor sharp but just don’t stay that way for long.

I had a knife that I got from my junk box, a Farberware Chef knife. It was a dull as a board. I wanted to use it to practice the speed techniques as discussed in another tread. I started with the 80 grit stones and followed the progression to 600 grit. Eight minutes later I still had a pretty dull knife. Better but it was in no way acceptable.

OK I’m not doing something right. I did it again and got the same result; a little better but not good. It would not cut printer paper cleanly. Now one more time – same result (is this the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?). Now I’m thinking the knife is junk but still I should have gotten better results. I then decided to go for it and do a proper WEPS sharping. After about half an hour down to 1000 and strops, it was getting better but still struggled through printer paper. It was a lot better but nothing to write home about. I did get a burr on the course stones which accounted for most of the sharping time. The burr was weak and hard to get, but it was there. It must be the type of steel I thought and was ready to give up. The knife was just trash. Then I decided, after seeing this tread, to take a few minutes on the belt sander to see what I could do. I didn’t want to spend too much more time on this knife, but I wanted to see what would happen if I ground it down further. I had nothing to lose.

I used 80, 40 and 9 micron belts and in less than 10 minutes the knife would glide through phone book paper! I have other records of knives I started on the belt sander that were fair and after a sharping on the WEPS razor sharp. The reverse of what happened here. It’s not the tool; something else is going on. It may be the way the knife is made; maybe the way it was heat treated or the way it was sharpened at the factory that affected the steel. I think I see more of this and it may be more pronounced given the kind of knives I get to work with.

I’m not a metallurgist just a hobbyist so I don’t know. What I see lends weight to the theory that the steel at the edge is inferior to the steel further in whatever the reason. It’s a matter of how far you have to go to get to the ‘good stuff’. I must not have gone deep enough with the WEPS but must have been close. Maybe another sharping would have gotten me there. I also know for some really cheapo knives there isn’t any good stuff.

For some knives distressing the blade may have value. I have in my records where I did several passes with a file to clean up a really rough edge and the results have been very good. I can’t say that distressing caused the good final result but it sure didn’t hurt. Distressing may help in some cases get to that good steel quicker. I would not distress a blade as a matter of course, however, especially on a good knife. But it may be something to try if you are not getting the results you think you should be getting.

[Carl Sauer]

This is an interesting discussion. I usually use a belt sander when I just want to get the job done quickly. But 6+ minutes on the WEPS is impressive on a very dull knife. I think if you had to do a lot of knives at one time, a belt sander may still be quicker. But 6+ minutes is not bad at all.

Setting up a knife on the WEPS has always been time consuming. Finding the sweet spot and angle can take more than 6 minutes itself. Having a fixed setting for the angle and estimating the sweet spot based on experience can sure save a lot of time. The result for most knives would be good enough. Speed is important for someone sharping for a fee and for most customers the definition of a good job an undamaged knife that is sharp.

I tried going for speed but have not gotten the same results yet. I need enlightened. When do you go for the burr? Do you get it at the 50/80 stones or just get it real close and achieve it with the 100? I know from other posts it was not recommended to get a burr with the 50/80 stones but it would seem at the speed you are going are you may be doing just that. I know a polished edge is not your goal.

Also with the other stones from 100 on, how many strokes do you use per grit? It can’t be very many.

A lot of this is contrary of the normal way I have used the WEPS in the past. Mirror and hair splitting edges are the norm. But for most people even what I can achieve with a belt sander is good enough for many knives. It seems at 6+ minutes the same can be gotten on the WEPS without the requirement for electricity.

[Carl Sauer]

Serrated knives are a real challenge. They come in all shapes and sizes with the scallops ranging from large and defined to poorly defined and incredibly tiny. Sometimes even on the same knife! Also knives with serrations do not always have a flat bevel on the non-serrated side. If you can imagine a combination, it must exist somewhere. I can see why coming up with a design for a tool to sharpen all the combinations and permutations of serrated knives is so difficult.

Other than my personal knives, many of the knives I get to sharpen are kitchen knives from friends and from a local church kitchen. The church kitchen knives are donated knives that are low quality or just old knives that have seen better days. I have with the WE, and sometimes brute force help with a belt sander, been able to get some surprisingly good edges on these plain edged knives. Once re-profiled, they are pretty easy to maintain and provide excellent service considering the abuse they take. Just a quick touch up on the WE is all that is needed. I’m very happy with this and so are the people that are using these knives. They never used sharper knives. However, some knives just belong in the trash!

I was so glad to see these videos using the ceramic rod and cardboard to sharpen serrated knives. I tried it (but using Spyderco Ceramic Bench Stones instead of a rod since this is what I had) and got only fair results. And yes I paid attention to the angle. I think the problem is that the going in assumption using this technique is that the knives at one point had reasonably sharp scalloped edges to start with, were not abused and you are just cleaning things up. Not a good assumption with some of the junk I deal with. This I am not happy with but I think the technique is real solid with knives following the going-in assumption. It will be the first thing I try. Is this assumption correct or do I need to further refine my technique?

I thought for the knives this doesn’t work so well on, I would re-profile the larger scallops using the DMT diamond serrated knife sharpener to recut the scallops and then use the technique outlined in the video to maintain them. In theory, this sounds reasonable. Once I get a good edge I should be able to maintain it. No different that re-profiling a plain edge knife and then just touching it up. I am at a loss, however, on how I would deal with the tiny serrations since there may be 30-35 per inch on some knives! The serrations are more rectangular than round and would seem to be too small and the wrong shape for the DMT Tool since it is tapered and conical (I don’t have one yet but planning on ordering a set). I have not found anything on YouTube or the net on how to deal with this. How do you deal with serrations so fine?

This is a hobby for me and I sharpen the knives for free. It is a challenge to take something that has been basically discarded and make it usable again. Yes, I do like getting near mirror edges and being able to split hairs with my high quality folders but this is fun too. I think I have an approach for the larger serrations, but the tiny ones I don’t know. I just don’t want to be just beating my head against a wall trying to fix something that isn’t worth fixing. Do I follow the advice of Tony Horton of P90X exercise fame – “Do your best and forget the rest!”

But I would like to understand my options. I can’t be the first to deal with this problem.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Carl Sauer]

I got the hacked screen earlier today.

[Carl Sauer]

I have basically the same setup as you. However, most of the knives that I sharpen are kitchen knives from friends or churches in the community. Needless to say many of these are no name knives made in China. I’ve handled 2X4 lumber that had a sharper edge than many of these knives. On the other hand, some are very good.

I do have the 50/80 stones but even using them on so many knives that are so dull is tedious. My breakthrough was getting a cheap 1×30 belt sander (about $30 at Harbor Freight on sale with a coupon) and some sanding belts specific to knife sharping (about another $30). This does a good job in a matter of minutes and can even repair broken tips and quickly take care of chips. Most of the time I can get very dull knives to cut phone book paper easily. Pretty close to what you would expect from a good factory edge. Not near as good as a hair whittling WEPS edge but useful enough for its purpose. A belt sander is just another tool to draw on to eliminate some of the heavy lifting.

Sometimes I use the knives as is from the belt sander, or more often then take them to the WEPS to get a great edge very quickly. The hard work has already been done. It gets you at a better starting point. Needless to say on some cheap knives, no matter what you use to sharpen them, there are limits on what can be done. A 2×4 is a 2×4. I found there is very little incremental benefit to further take knives like this to the WEPS.

Needless to say a belt sander works quickly and if not used carefully it’s a good way to ruin a knife. The advantage is speed and some additional flexibility, but with a little practice and the right belts the learning curve is pretty short and the risk small. And the cost is low.

Since I got the belt sander I don’t use the 50/80’s much anymore but I’m still glad to have them available. You can’t have too many tools. I have tried a major reprofile and repair with the 100 grit stones and it can easily become an exercise in frustration. And so can a lot of cheap dull knives. I think I’ve solved my heavy lifting problem which was my first priority. What it comes down to is what’s most important you which sounds like stones.

For me, now I can focus on other aspects of the hobby like getting that perfect mirror edge on my good personal knives. Now the priority is the new arms, Chosera stones and further refining my technique.

Did I really say I solved my heavy lifting problem? It may have only just started!

[Carl Sauer]

Interesting thought! However, even though I have the WE I still like to freehand.

[Author]

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