Serration wheels

[3D Anvil]

Serrated knives are always troublesome to deal with.  I've tried many ways to sharpen them, with varying degrees of success.  Ultimately I reached a point where I could get them sharp ... but kind of destroy the tips and the appearance, or get them sharpER (i.e., better than before, but not great either), and maintain the tips and the appearance.  But I couldn't get them really sharp AND maintain nice tips and appearance.

That's why I was interested when someone post a link to SlipaKniven's serration wheels for Tormek.  Of course serrations come in many sizes, so no one wheel is going to work them all, but the SlipaKniven wheels seemed like they would work for a typical Wusthoff/Henckels bread knife and similar, so I decided to try them out. 

The wheels are 250x14mm and they have a 12mm bore to fit the Tormek.  They come in 160 grit and 400 grit and are sold as a pair for 99 Euros, which struck me as being quite reasonable.  The set also comes with a spacer for mounting.

I'm happy to report that they work!  At least for the aforementioned knives. Unfortunately I was so excited to try them out that I neglected to take a "before" shot of this Henckels bread knife, but trust me when I tell you that it was in BAD shape from serving as the guinea pig in my many pervious misadventures.  The tips were completely rounded, and the serrations themselves were totally uneven. 

Below is a pic of what it looks like after the SlipaKniven wheels.  Not perfect, but that's because I didn't grind quite enough on the coarse wheel to get all the tips back to 100%.  I also created a gigantic burr because so much material was removed, but I was able to remove it eventually and tested the edge at 130 BESS.  I think that's more than sufficient for a bread knife or slicer.

I attempted to show the profile of the wheels in one of the pics.  It's slightly conical, as opposed to being a straight half round, so I suspect that it will work with somewhat smaller serrations, but that's something I'll have to investigate.

The wheels are out of stock again, so if you're interested you'll have to sign up to be notified when they come back in stock.  That's what I did, and I believe the wait was 3-4 weeks.

https://slipakniven.com/product/grinding-wheel-set-for-serrations/

[Sir Amwell]

This is interesting 3D.
A couple of questions:
What are the wheels made of?
What is the burr removal process?- assuming after grinding, the burr is on the flat side. How do you remove it without flipping it over to the scalloped side?
Your original description match my experience exactly. Always dread a customer giving me a bread knife as the results are non predictable and still haven't hit on a good method. So this could be a game changer.

[3D Anvil]

Hard to say what my deburring method will turn out to be at this point.  It was so heavy that I did a series of things.  I started using the corner of a leather belt with 6 micron diamond, first on the scallops and then on the flat and so on.  Didn't get it done.  Then I used a Scotchbrite belt, which worked better.  Finally I used a hanging 'roo tail strop, which improved the result greatly. 

And after all that ... I forgot that I have a 250mm leather wheel made just for serrations.      Next time I'll start there.

[3D Anvil]

Sorry, forgot to answer your question about the wheel material.  It looks like some kind of ceramic, but that's just a guess.  I'd say they're true to their grit ratings.  The 160 is quite aggressive.

[John Hancock Sr]

What are the wheels made of?

They look suspiciously like aluminium oxide