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I think a good place to start is to be very clear on the standard(s) that you're aiming for, and the general trend in knives you receive.

About 99% of customer knives I receive are the end product of numerous botched sharpening attempts, and hatchet jobs by other sharpening businesses.

I just reprofile all knives I get with the SG-250, sharpen with the DF-250, then strop. BESS testing is only for my top tier service (for high end knives and/or professional chefs), and for this service I go through all diamond grindstones, the SJ-250, and strop.

But my motivation may be different from yours, because my business is still relatively new, and I'm more focused on social media outreach and generating customer to customer chatter.

But yeah, I'd recommend establishing what "good enough" is, to be very clear about it, then the workflow will pretty much create itself.

I'm waiting for my 1x30 belt sander to supplement my bench polisher.

I plan to use it for deep scratch removal, before blending everything together with my bench polisher and radial bristle discs/muslin wheels. (I do it because I have an optional component of knife polishing, in addition to my sharpening package)

In future, I plan to use the belt sander to do heavy reprofiling/material removal and polishing, but still use my Tormek T8 for sharpening. My business selling point is precision edges, and not speed + quantity at low-low prices.

It's really your call on how you plan to position your sharpening business. What I can say, is if you position yourself similarly to the majority businesses in your area, then you run a tough race where you've started very late, and everyone races to the bottom. But if you position yourself differently (like how I provide precision sharpening, repairs and refurbishing) then you may very well end up running a race where there's much fewer people. If you're trusted by people as a good sharpener, then nobody will care about price.

I've been using the T8 for a bit over a year now, and I have all 3 diamond grindstones, SG-250, SJ-250, MB-102, a third party front vertical base, both knife jigs, a scissor jig, the standard and extended support bar, small knife jig, the platform, and axe jig.

No regrets at all as I've used almost all the items in my sharpening business, less the axe jig. The equipment really is a sound investment that does have the longevity and precision.

I have a 1x30 belt sander on the way to be used mostly to supplement my bench polisher, and maybe some large scale reprofiling.

But long story short, the biggest hurdle to overcome would probably be the business aspect. How you create your pricing and standards framework, and how you do your own quality management.

Customers would never cease to "amaze" you. Just today, a customer claimed a knife sharpened by me had poor edge retention, and wanted me to do a resharpening for free.

I checked my records and I sharpened his knife FIVE MONTHS AGO

I think a good place to start, would be how the diamonds are attached to the steel hub.

If I'm not wrong, the diamonds are suspended in a solution that has a metal dissolved in it, then the steel hub and solution are electrified, drawing the dissolved metal out of the solution and onto the hub. The diamonds that are suspended in this constantly agitated solution get caught up in this electroplating process, and are "glued" onto the hub.

Long story short, diamond dust is glued to steel using another metal (nickel)

If the scissor blade manages to scrape off some of that metal, then your diamond grindstone is pretty much BER (Beyond Economical Repair)

The SG-250 is much more forgiving as any gouges/dents can be graded down to flat again. It's also great for practice and doing any experimentation on.

$300 may feel like a lot to add to your toolkit, but it's good to consider what you risk by saving that $300.

I don't have thousands of knives sharpened on the T8 under my belt, but I can confidently say that almost 99% of my customer knives needed reprofiling and repairs. (they are animals)

And once your business picks up, you won't regret having a 220 grit grindstone to power through more knives quickly.

Also, I sharpen scissors entirely on the SG-250. I use it at 220 grit to reprofile/repair, then use it at 1000 grit to smoothen the peaks the 220 grit creates, leaving a somewhat micro serrated edge. (I sharpen scissors mostly for tailors, so they need that consistent "bite" when sewing)

My workflow for majority of customer knives is to reprofile them with the SG-250 graded coarse, then the DF-250, then LA-220.

To date, I've sharpened about... 140 customer knives, and only 6-8 knives did not require reprofiling and repairs.

Where I'm at, almost all customer knives have been "sharpened" with $5 pull through sharpeners, a $2 mystery whetstone, or handed to a "professional" who uses a wonky grindstone on a bench grinder.

Long story short, if you're planning to start your sharpening business, I highly recommend adding a SG-250 to do the majority of heavy lifting, and to speed up your workflow.

Most of my customers are like animals with knives. And they keep surprising me with damage never thought possible.

No worries at all.

I'm always glad to share encounters with the "special people" that are somehow drawn to me, and anything about my workflow as well.

No problem, I'm open to share.

I used to measure sharpness before and after (PT50A), but once I started explaining to customers what the numbers meant, it just went over their heads. They just ended up running their fingers across the blade, lifting it up to "inspect the apex", and a stranger one would drag his thumbnail perpendicular across the bevel, scraping his thumbnail to do some sort of "testing".

But back to your question. For my $40 higher service tier pricing, I do sharpening, blade polishing, minor repairs and ultrasonic cleaning. Typically for very acute angle Japanese knives, or ceramic ones.

I aim for as low as possible BESS scores within reasonable effort, but my results typically hover between 80+ to 120+. Starting point for customer knives vary a lot. Highest was nearly 4000, average about 400-800.

I'm gonna guess you're thinking of how to economise the use of your ACC-150 solution?

Whenever I clean my diamond grindstones in my ultrasonic cleaner with just water and dish soap, I rinse them with water to remove all soap.

Then I mount the grindstone on my T8 and spin them for a bit in the trough filled with the ACC-150 solution. I do it just to coat it with the solution, then I let it drip dry before storing it.

If you're drying off your grindstone after using just water, you'll need to access the hollow section under the plastic cover, and that is where corrosion may form without you knowing.

Also, if you're using just water, you roll the dice if you encounter knife steel that flash rusts quickly, getting embedded in your grindstone and causing rust spots all over, no matter how fast you dry it after.

So it finally happened.

About three weeks into the start of my physical store/sharpening workshop, a lady approached us and asked what we did. We replied "We sharpen knives and scissors".

She said "I have something small... I was wondering if you could repair it". As she rummaged through her handbag, I was thinking maybe a pocket knife, a pair of scissors?

And she pulled out an analog alarm clock.


I swear you could not make this up, even if you tried in a lab.

So far, since I've started business officially this year (February), I've sharpened about 90 knives (with 3-4 repeat orders)

Only 4 knives did not have any damage
- 1 Katto santoku
- 1 Shun Santoku
- 1 Richardson Sheffield cleaver
- 1 generic cleaver (Hakkoh brand)

Common damage encountered, from most frequent to least:
- Concave blade profile
- Broken knife tips
- Chips extending beyond secondary bevel
- Severe corrosion
- Blade bent away from knife handle (out of alignment)
- Warping of blade above chipped area
- Knife tip bent to one side
- Lateral cracks on blade (parallel to spine)

So as a rough estimate, approx. 80% of knives handed to me have one or more types of damage listed.

I suspect it can be quite the cultural thing as well. Where I'm at (Singapore), disposability is the name of the game, and choosing repair over replacement is still considered a "new fad". Knife sharpening and repair is still considered menial dirty blue collar work, and people still think in 1980s prices.

My question for those of us with higher sharpening volumes than me is, How many of the knives you sharpen are "very dull or damaged"?

I think a good place to start would be to indicate the volume of knives you sharpen, to get responses from your target demographic.

When I started my sharpening business, I would tell customers my sharpening plan, how I created it, and what I planned to achieve (approx. 200 BESS and lower, sharper than brand new)

The one thing I never anticipated was how almost all customers would gauge quality and sharpness through appearance, and nothing about how the geometry was created to match their usage. So the underlying question of my initial post was to get an idea what "standards" other people in this forum work towards.

I've had a recent customer complained that I had scratched up his knife. But when he was shown the initial photo he sent to me, he then realised I had actually removed majority of scratches, and lightened the deeper ones. His only feedback about a deba knife I had sharpened for him earlier? "My wife cut her finger" 🤔🤷🏻�♂️

Customer behaviour still remains a mystery for me.

Consider a hanging leather strop as a user friendly alternative.

It's flexible, conforms to the cutting edge (especially useful for people who sharpen infrequently), and it won't change the blade geometry so much that you'll have to reprofile their knives each time they bring them over to you (saving time)

The risky part of providing an alternative (like a honing steel) is that you're not there to stop bad technique, or over sharpening.

Even though I sharpen knives for a living, I don't sell customers any sharpening tools, only a leather strop mounted on a rectangular plastic backing. That way, it's much more forgiving to bad technique, and saves me time with reprofiling the next time they visit. (I've repaired too many concave knives to trust customers)

This may be a good place to start

https://slipakniven.com/product/adapter-for-2-wheels-long-version/

I've used my DC-250 since... December last year? It still cuts very well for 360G, but for faster reprofiling, I still use my SG-250 (graded to 220G)

Every 1-2 weeks I clean all my diamond grindstones in my ultrasonic cleaner, then "rinse" them in the ACC-150 solution by mounting it on my T8, then running it through the water trough for a few minutes.

I would recommend getting a combination of SG-250, DC-250, and DF-250. These should cover almost all knives (and scissors) you can throw at it. I chose to use mainly diamond grindstones because I wanted to speed up grit progression by using the same diameter grindstones (and also to sharpen ceramic knives)

Most knives I sharpen with the DF-250 (600G), I barely see the scratch pattern after honing on the LA-220 leather wheel. If you're pursuing a mirror-like finish, then the DE-250 (1200G) would be an economical and practical choice.

I do use my DE-250 (1200G) and SJ-250 (4000G) for commercial chefs (and some customers) who request for it, but that's far and few in between.