tcmeyer

I tried to post a comment on this earlier, but apparently had a brain fart and it somehow didn’t show up.  I bought a collection of antique wooden hand planes last year, hoping to restore ’em and give ’em away as gifts.  They all were rusted to some degree, but two of them had fairly deep specks along the edge.  After tons of stoning, I finally di…[Read more]

Ever since I began, I standardized on 20 dps, unless there was a reason not to.  In any case, I keep an Excel sharpening logbook on the computer running my microscope, on which I record everything about each knife;  owner, description, type of steel, which vise I used, high or low key position, distance from tip to vise, the original angle, c…[Read more]

That’s really interesting.  I’ve never had to try the high end of the angle range.  I’ll have to check mine out.  I would think the WE-manufactured parts would have a similar problem, but it stands to reason that they would have tested the full range of angles.

Technically, that’s not the cam lobe, which is part of the shaft that rotates with the crank arm.  I’m not sure what WE calls it, but mechanically, it would be a “wedge.”  It pushes up on the lower end of the jaw extensions, pushing them apart and forcing the jaw faces together.

I think the wear you are seeing on the wedge is pretty much to be e…[Read more]

That really does sound like the finer strops are rounding the edge a bit.   If you like the polish you get with the finer grits, drop them down one or two degrees to see if you still get the polish you want without reducing the keenness of the edge.

Looks really good, NorCalQ!

I’ve been thinking about replacing the scales with something less bulky-looking.  I’ve got lots of handle material stashed away, including a lot of Honduran Rosewood.  When and if I ever do it, I’ll be sure to post it.  Gonna lose the pocket clip for sure.

Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and sharpened the Firebird knife over the weekend.  I tried to use the mounting position I proposed above, but found that it’d only work if I disassembled the knife.  The thick G10 scales get in the way of stoning the heels section.

So I did it in two sections: one with the heel section mounted h…[Read more]

Could be.  The few times I’ve made the trip, I75 put me right on the Florida Turnpike, which took me to the ocean side.

There’s another facet to this that flips my theory upside down.  After spending almost all of my life within 20 miles of Lake Michigan, the compass in my brain is burned in with east being toward a large body of water.  So, wh…[Read more]

My sister and her husband have a condo on the ocean side, just south of Canaveral and we have several friends on the gulf side.  I used to frequently visit the West Palm area on business.  We figured out that most of the snowbirds on the ocean side are from the northeast, while most on the gulf side are midwesterners.  I think part of the re…[Read more]

As an oddball comment, I thought I’d mention recently seeing a fellow on TV filleting fish with a serrated fillet knife.  Has anyone here seen one?

Dumb question.  Google shows a bunch of them, including Rapala, Bubba, BergHOFF and all of the electric filleting knives.

Organic and Marc are two of our best resources here on the forum and you can count on them for great info.  I would add that the angle number engraved on the WE sharpeners are for reference only and you will get different readings for every blade, depending on its width and which key position you use for clamping in the vise.  I believe WE has s…[Read more]

After looking at the FH61 for a while, I couldn’t resist and bought one from Amazon, $25, the blue-gray one.  Mostly because of the D2 steel, which is what I use to make knives.  You can’t buy much D2 for$25.

First observation?  The only knife that ever drew blood on opening.  My fault of course, as the knife is too short for my mitts and my rin…[Read more]

I use the same rubber stick on my belt sander –  works incredibly well in removing the resin and wood that tends to plug up the belts.  I’ve never tried it on diamond stones because they simply don’t tend to load up like ceramics or natural stones.  I do use the “Superaser” to clean my ceramic stones.

I’ve been using Wicked Edge diamond stones si…[Read more]

Yup, like Organic says.  Spend more time on the side with the wider bevel – for example, do seven strokes on one side and three on the other.  You’ll get approximately the 70/30 ratio you’re looking for.

By the way, the narrow bevel should be on the side opposite of the hand you use to hold the knife.  For a right-handed user, the narrow bevel sh…[Read more]

I’ve sharpened it and my sister’s twin to it several times each.  With the LAA on my WE130, I can get down to the 8 dps range, but I’ve been staying in the 10 – 12 dps range to reduce chipping.  They sharpen beautifully and very easily do the trick of slicing off a paper-thin section of tomato without touching it, as in this video.  On my Gen 1…[Read more]

I’m not suggesting that it’s the equal of the Shun knives, but of the dozen or so knives in my kitchen drawer, my favorite is a Zhen chef’s knife in Damascus with a VG10 core.  I bought it as a blank, which only needed scales to complete it.  I added rosewood for the handle, which I worried was probably too small for my XL hands.  No problem th…[Read more]

I posted a micro video of an Aritsugu chef’s knife I received as a gift from my sister, who bought several knives at their shop in Kobe.  The video is of the edge as new out-of-the-box.  The video shows me sliding along the edge and rocking from side to side to show the edge geometry.  I estimated the angle at the very edge as about 6 dps, 12 in…[Read more]

I’ve really got no idea as to the hardness of these knives, but they seem pretty similar to other knives I’m doing.  I looked at the edge really closely before I started sharpening and there were quite a few small chips, but I know she’s been using this knife for at least three years, and the original edge didn’t look all that bad.  It was e…[Read more]