Messages

Jan 18, 2023:
Last week the owner of the scissors (17-years old) dropped by my house with my nephew for a cup of tea, and informed me that she is still using them every working day.
According to her they're still very sharp and perfectly usable.

This seems to imply that my sharpening/polishing method is working, both for initial keenness and edge longevity.
Next i need to improve a bit in the speed department, while trying to maintain edge quality.

Sep 20, 2022:
Got word from the owner, and she said that the shears are very sharp and they perform very well.
So far so good, now we wait and see how long these new edges will last in her use.

Posted on Fri Aug 26, 2022 on a few other forums.
---------------------------------------------

My nephews girlfriend is a hairdresser, and she asked me if i would try to sharpen her oldest pair of shears.
Years ago she had gotten it as a gift from her teacher, all this time had never been sharpened, and as a result it was so blunt that she didn't use it anymore.
Through Google i found that for 120 US dollars these shears seem to have a good price to quality ratio, so i thought that an attempt at sharpening might be worth it.

The edges were really quite bad, and as i had never done convex shears before i first had to think up a sharpening/polishing protocol that might work.
In the end i settled on 1000 grit SiC paper used with WD40 oil on glass, 15 micron diamond paste on the back of a narrow strip of SiC paper on glass, followed by 6 micron and 1 micron used the same way.
The hone line was repolished using only 1.0 micron diamond paste.

Just reassembled the shears again and the edges seem to work as they should, effortlessly cutting hair all the way to the point, but the real proof of the pudding is of course what the owner will think of it.
Will report back if i know more...

Sometimes i do work on auto's, but so far i've done only a couple of regrinds on these.
Mostly it's sharpening, disassembly / cleaning, and sometimes making a new spring.

Restoring older knives is one of my hobbies, and i think this one came out rather well.
No Tormek involved, all regrinding/sharpening was done by hand on a bench stone and refining on wet & dry paper.
The knife is a made in Sweden Pontus Holmberg first model survival knife for the Swedish Air Force, made between 1948 and 1952.

This is how the knife looked when i bought it:





And this is how the knife looks now.
Blade has been hand reground/reshaped to it's original full convex shape, and in the handle the rotted leather midsection was replaced with new leather.
Sheath was also hand restitched and waxed.





















Full thread with pictures here:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/2-swedish-air-force-survival-knives.1776249/

Cleavers can be sharpened very well using a small knife rest.
Problem is that at this time you would have to make one yourself, as Tormek still doesn't offer such an item.

Edit: for thicker bladed cleaver a convex edge would be a better option, but you can't make these correctly with a Tormek.
In general i do these by hand on wet & dry paper on glass and/or benchstones.

Original first model French paratrooper dagger from the 1950's and/or 1960's.
On the steel guard it reads "Poignard de Combat" and "Special Beret Rouge", which translates into something like: "combat poniard for red berets"

Most likely the main reason this Red Beret dagger looks like it was never used or even carried is the fact that it had only rudimentary edge bevels that weren't even apexed, and it also only had a narrow rounded section where originally a sharp point is supposed to be.
My guess is that it must have slipped the final quality control, or the worker just didn't care enough.

I used my Tormek T7 wet sharpener and a home made small knife rest to create what looks like narrow factory bevels nicely coming together in a symmetric and needlesharp point, making it fully functional again while at the same time preserving that untouched appearance so it looks like nothing was done to the dagger.
Taping the (disassembled) blade is also essential to avoid any faint surface scratching
















Specs:

Overall length: 11.89 inches (30.2 cm)
Blade length: 7.08 inches (18.0 cm)
Max blade thickness: 4.82 mm
Steel type: drop-forged carbon steel
Handle materials: steel guard with blackened brass handle (can be disassembled & weighted)
Sheath: black leather
Weight without sheath: 261.7 grams
Weight with sheath: 300 grams

Instead of spinning the rectangular stones around on a carousel, it would be great if there was some sort of machine that would spin a round-shape stone against the knife instead.

Add an electric motor and some sort of holder to attach knives to during sharpening, and I think it'll be a winning combination.

I think a sharpening stone somewhere between 249mm and 251mm in diameter may work well.

Mmm, you might be on to something here,

From your post i would say that it's the overly large edge angle, although the type of plastic the cutting boards are made from could also play a role.

In contrast to what most people think a narrower edge angle lasts longer (within reason)

What i've found is that many generic stainless steel kitchen knives can handle a sharpening angle of ~25 degrees inclusive (when used with care for some time on a reasonable quality cutting board), which if then deburred on the Tormek leather wheel their apex will come out at ~30 degrees inclusive due to the "give" in the leather wheel, which will micro-convex (and thus strengthen) it just enough.
If however i find that my customer is an ignoramus/brute/Shrek/idiot then i increase my sharpening angle to ~30 inclusive,of which the apex will measure ~35 degrees inclusive after deburring.

My own rule of thumb: (the edge should be) as thin as possible, but thick enough.

The knife wielder can then use a good quality (mirror-) steel on that edge, and later maybe a good ceramic rod to prolong the knife's useful sharpness before you get a new request to perform your magic on the knives again.

The happiest customers are those that need your services the least, but most likely they will be your returning customers

The standard Paper grit Wheel using glued on ~180 to ~220 grit silicon carbide can overheat an edge only if too little wax is used while at the same time your sharpening passes are too slow.
If you avoid this i haven't experienced overheated edges, and i have a very simple process to check for that.
I've tested this on various knives (among which a few good quality Tojiro VG10 kitchen knives) well before i told Vadim about Tempilstick, which he then used to do more testing.

Pressure can also play a role; too much will be counterproductive in several ways.
I always recommend to let the Wheel do the work and use a light touch.

On my own Paper grit Wheel i later replaced the glued on silicon carbide grit with glued on diamond grit.
I have found this to work more efficiently on especially high vanadium carbide steel types, plus diamond has the added advantage of a much higher thermal conductivity compared to silicon carbide, a property which very effectively wicks heat away from the apex being sharpened and transfers it directly into the wax which dissipates it further by continuously melting & solidifying during the sharpening process.
Because diamond also has a rather low tolerance for heat you absolutely need a coolant like wax or oil.
I think CBN would be an even better choice than diamond for Paper Wheel sharpening, as it has a much higher tolerance for heat while still having a lot of thermal conductivity (though not as much as diamond)

The combination of diamond paste (which already contains oil) with certain other oils seems to combine these properties even more efficiently, especially when using progressively finer grits, which normally have a higher chance of heat build-up compared to more coarse grits.
Using Paper Wheels with diamond pastes & oil gives me highly polished edges, that also last for quite a while.

I also use my Tormek T7 fitted with an SB-250 stone quite a lot because besides being watercooled & airborne dust free it can also do a few things i can't do (as well) with Paper Wheels.

Paper Wheels with diamond paste & oil do not overheat an edge.
Vadim's research & testing also proved that.

A Paper Wheel using the standard silicon carbide grit will also not overheat an edge, provided you use enough wax on it's surface so there is  a complete coverage.
This is critical, and the wax is best applied like a crayon on a wheel that is turned by hand.

Maybe, but so far i've never felt the need to try that.

I tend to keep things fairly simple: find the current edge angle by measuring with the cut-outs in the WM200 (as close as i can anyway), destress the old edge by cutting a few times lightly into a hard silicon carbide stone (for instance the stone grader from the Tormek), color the old bevels black, and then set the small knife rest where i want to take off steel: at the exact same angle if need be, or at a somewhat smaller angle if possible.

I first talked to Wootz/Vadim when he joined this thread on Paper Wheels on the Australian Bladeforums in 2015/2016:

https://www.australianbladeforums.info/forum/have-your-say/general-blade-discussion/sharpening/24864-

Vadim was very interested in the modifications i had developed to the Paper Wheels sharpening & deburring system, and which transformed the sharpening/polishing of ceramic knives and later also high (vanadium-) carbide steel types.
Those mods involved the use of various fine diamond compounds together with certain types of dried oil to make the diamonds adhere to the Paper Wheel surface.
Vadim adopted my process to aid in his growing knife sharpening business in Australia (as did quite a few other knife people around the world), and we kept in contact over the years from time to time.

It's very sad that he departed this earth at such a relatively young age.
My impression is that if he had lived longer he would have advanced the knowledge of knife sharpening even more than he already did in the time that he had.

No,my Tormek T7 is fitted with an SB-250 Blackstone, which imo works better for various stainless steel types which also have a higher carbide content.
While D2 steel is only moderately stainless, it has quite a lot of those big & blocky chromium carbides in it's matrix, and the SB-250 stone being black silicon carbide can deal with those noticeably easier than the SG-250 stone can.
I have found the SG-250 stone to be better suited for low alloy carbon steel types.

With this home made small knife rest i only sharpen edge leading.

These vintage Artus Flex knives were resharpened on the Tormek using the home made small knife rest:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/vin ... e.1689441/