How to sharpen the Eka Gut Opener and/or blade for sheep shearer

[aolsson]

We have now spent some of today sharpening on the new T-3 that my wife wanted and got for christmas.

There are two things in the collection that we do not know how to sharpen though. The first is the Eka Gut Opener where the edge is on the curved inside of a flat blade

The next is the blade for the sheep shearer. These things are expensive to send away for sharpening and should be possible to do with the Tormek. Any ideas?

[grepper]

I believe I remember Jeff saying that he can sharpen curved blades like your gut knife by rounding the edge of the grinding wheel.  I suspect this requires a bit of work to round the edge of the wheel, and probably some practice to be any good at it.  You have to remember that Jeff has an amazing wealth of experience with the Tormek.  At least I'm always amazed.

I could do a passable job of it using a ½" or 1" belt grinder with a flexible, somewhat loose belt.  You just have to be smooth in your motion across the blade to get a smooth, consistent bevel.

The sheep shear blades require a special convex disk sharpener, as the blade itself I concave.  To do it correctly you need something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0UA_Z5uZqI

If you look carefully you can see the convexity of the disk so that you get the hollow grind.  You can buy machines new for $1,000.00 - $1,500.00 US.  If you search around there are many different models and price ranges.

[Herman Trivilino]

We have now spent some of today sharpening on the new T-3 that my wife wanted and got for christmas.

Congrats to your wife!  I wouldn't try sharpening either of those items on the Tormek.
 

[jeffs55]

I am with Grepper on this. I once said that it was not possible to sharpen serrated knife blades and Jeff Farris said he has done it for years using the rounded edge of the grinding wheel. You have to round over the edge yourself. In this case it would be very destructive to the wheel in that the amount of rounding necessary is very excessive and would render the flat part of the wheel that was left so narrow as to be useless for most other applications. I am going out on a limb again and say that this is not possible on the Tormek unless you dedicate the grinding wheel to this one job. I would suggest finding the arc of the curve of the blade and turning on a lathe a piece of material such as wood and matching that curve. Then, attaching some fine grade of sandpaper to same and stroking with this abrasive coated rod to sharpen the blade. Finish on the curved leather wheel that Tormek makes for rounded tools. The curve of this wheel is really too tight but would work in a pinch. Merry Christmas.