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G'Day John,
I concur with the other knowledgeable posts and your summary of their advice.
I would like to add a few points.
- while practicing, try using a lower sharpening angle to create a burr that is easier to detect (finer, weaker and bendier) until you get the hang of it I.e. about 12deg per side for a knife. If you grind at 90deg you would never raise a burr ;-)
- use the marker method to match the grinding angle to the blade bevel. This should result in a burr in the shortest time
- listen! I have found that my T-8 sounds different when: grinding the full face of the bevel compared to only part of it (changing original bevel angle). The greatest change in the sound is when I flip the knife over and run the first pass over the burr.
- I use a 10x lense and a very bright light to inspect my edge and burr. Catching the light at different angles can tell you a lot about your work.
- But, the most reliable inspection is by feel. Run you finger pad from the side of the knife, over the bevel then across the edge on both side - if they feel different it is likely you have a burr.
- I agree that using the T-8 is very therapeutic.

Best of luck.
Cheers
Scott

The chisel 'renovation' led to breathing some new life into an old Hand Plane that the same colleague had found at a garage sale. The blade had seen a bench grinder on many occasions and had multiple bevels and blued spots from excessive heat.

Cheers Scott
PS. I realise that this is a 'chisel' thread, however it was related to my earlier chisel post ;-)

I have spent most of my time sharpening knives, however a colleague rescued a small Marples chisel from his wife's regular paint tin opening and stirring duties to see what I could do with it on the T-8.

First order of business was to grind the excess rust off using the side of the grinding wheel just so it could sit squarely in the SE-77 jig. The next step was to remove the damaged edge (about 3-4mm) then I started on the new 25deg bevel.

I was very happy with the result, my colleague has vowed to never let his wife or a paint tin lid near it again.

Cheers Scott

With any luck there will be a before and after pic attached.

G'Day Rich,
I have never found a need to move my FVB from the fully seated position. In fact, I don't remove it at all, it stays 'welded' to my T-8. Definitely the best accessory I have for the machine.

That said I have found that the shafts can contact the case preventing the support bar from being lowered to the required (calculated) height - generally when sharpening smaller knives with a short projection length using a very small dps.

That said, it is very easily fixed by increasing the projection length slightly and recalculating.

Not an issue, just a trick of the trade 

Cheers Scott

Dodgy it is.....in the time honoured tradition of 'it is easier to beg forgiveness, rather than ask permission' there should be a new FVB arriving in the mail tomorrow 😃 (thanks Vadim).

Back on topic; I will be happy to consistently produce a durable edge in the 80-100 BESS range.

Cheers Scott

How do I convince my Wife that I 'need' a FVB for Christmas....

Very interesting thread.

Seems that the right equipment with the right method produces a quality product - I know that sounds a little simplistic and really doesn't do justice to the work that Vadim and many others have done getting this art/science to the level of the mirrored knife picture. Amazing!

Well done
Scott

Despite the fact it may have been a blessing in disguise, it still makes me cry just looking at the pics.

Jan & CB,
You are both 100% correct 😀

I took my ball park figures and compared them to the calculated figures and yes, my 'crank it up' method was simply correcting my original error. The reason I looked in this thread in the first place was because my honing and burr removal was below par.

My 'method' was definitely not repeatable with any degree of accuracy.

What is the ideal amount of honing paste to use? I usual run a thin line around the leather wheel, smear it across the surface with a piece of flat metal then start honing. Occasionally I scrape off the old paste.

Thanks
Cheers Scott

Gday Jan,
I agree that it is not quite that simple.
I drew some circles and triangles, remembered some high school trigonometry and realised my method was not precise - but it wasn't off the charts out of whack either 😉.

Next time I sharpen a knife I will check for the error with the Angle Master as you suggested.

Cheers Scott

Ok, I've had a bit of a thought on the USB height and the difference between grinding and burr removal on the leather wheel.....
There are a lot of clever people doing lots of clever things with cosine, calculators and contraptions. All in search of the repeatable perfect desired angle. This all fascinates me and I will delve into it all in good time. Thanks CB for the links in your signature block.
However, while sharpening my mother-in-laws knives on the w'end I was simply matching the knives original angle using the marker method and wanted to set the same angle for burr removal then raise the angle slightly to remove the wire edge burr - thanks for the KG info RickKrung.

So thinking as simply as I could for a repeatable and accurate USB setting for the Leather wheel I did this;

Grind Diameter 248mm = Radius 124mm
Leather Diameter 215mm = Radius 107.5mm
124 - 107.5 = 16.5mm

Measured the USB grind height, subtracted 16.5mm, bingo, should now have the same angle for burr removal - as long as I don't care what the exact bevel/edge angle was in the first place this method should give me a matching angle for burr removal. Then all I do after initial burr removal is crank up the micro adjuster in line with the KG info to give me a clean edge.

Tried this on one of the knives that was proving to be difficult to cleanly remove the burr and it worked a treat - one of the sharpest knives I have produced so far.

The biggest problem I have is that I keep running out of knives to sharpen - the T-8 is too quick.
Cheers Scott

I've been having burr removal and edge longevity issues for a while and I thought it time to pose the question on the Tormek forum. Luckily I found this info from the Knife Grinders crew! Well explained and researched info with fantastic pics to help with the technical explanations.
Thanks to all contributors.
I now have a better idea of what may be wrong and what to look for. This is the first step in fixing the issue and modifying my technique.
Now all I need to do is convince the wife that I need a scanning electron microscope!

Given that the Tormek grinding wheel is almost always a different diameter to the honing wheel, what is the easiest way to ensure the grind and hone angles are the same?

Cheers Scott

Thanks CB.
150mm Petty
210mm Gyuto

Cheers
Scott

Tried to upload a photo of the knives from my iPad, but the file is too large. How do I resize the image on an iPad?
Thanks
Regards Scott

Thanks for the replies Ken & CB, very informative.

Ken: the use of a L/R handed single bevel knives makes sense, but I was surprised by the double bevel L/R knives. The use of a single bevel is very common in traditional Japanese knives - the octopus knife was very impressive.
I agree that shaping/sharpening, cutting and eating are key to understanding what you were doing in the first step. There should always be a level of feedback to facilitate improvement.
My wife is a chef and I have lost count of how many times I have marveled at her knife skills. However, we share the home cooking duties enough for me to justify the left handed knives 😉

CB: Thanks for the picture, the Assymetrical V was exactly what I was trying to describe. From what I could understand the knives were ground with the two different bevel angles so the cutting edge stayed true to the centreline of the blade. I'm sure there were more details, but the sharpening guy didn't speak English and much of what he said was lost in translation. 
The first knife I bought was from tiny knife shop in a remote back alley of Kyoto. The owner sharpened to order with a brief machine wet grind followed by waterstones (800 & 8000 grit). I have a video of him doing this - the speed and precision that he did this was amazing. I agree that the only way to  respectfully sharpen these knives is with a waterstone.
I've used the Kyoto blade with much delight, but I'm yet to use the Osaka Damascus knives

G'day All,
I have just returned from a family holiday to Japan where amongst heaps of amazing experiences I went to Tower Knives in Osaka and purchased two "left handed" knives (Petty 150mm & Gyuto 210mm, both Damascus patten).
To find the knives I liked I tried right-handed, both-handed & left-handed knives. Being left-handed the L knives provided the best feel and precision for my left handed attack on the innocent tomatoes and carrots. I had to ask, and the only difference in all the knives was how the final bevel/edge was shaped.
The both-handed knife had as you would suspect a perfectly symmetrical edge.
The L/R handed knives had to an asymmetric bevel with the long and short bevels reversed between the knives. See crude illustration below.
Has anybody seen this before and does anybody sharpen their knives like this?
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Cheers Scott