Messages

Thanks for the reply. The spyderco looks amazing.

I received one from a customer and spent nearly 3 hours trying every jig I have, and I have nearly all of them but was unable to sharpen it with the Tormek. I ended up using my Worksharp Ken Onion which sharpened it it in about 6 minutes. I wish these type of mezzaluna had screw in handles, like some of the old ones did.

Fantastic, is this available for the T8?

I have been interested in adding a paper wheel to my deburring part of my sharpening business and your thread is pushing me even further into it. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind...

1. how long do you think it typically take you to get a finish your happy with (deburring only)
2. Is the a lot of dust particles flying around during use?

I ask these questions because I am a mobile knife sharpener and picked the Tormek so I don't have to wear PPE in the van while sharpening.

Your images, by the way, are amazing and the video with the grape was an eye opener.

Thanks

In regards to the original post. I have sharpened for customers at 20, 17 and 15 degrees primarily.  I now sharpen pretty much any decent kitchen  knife to 15 degrees... They always come back to me needing sharpened.  That's to say, I can't tell if one angle held up better or not. 
All but the cheapest steel should be stable at 15%.  Wootz or Larin showed the sharper the knife is, the longer it stays sharp.  The geometry allows a sharper edge at 15°.

 In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. 90% of your customers won't know or care what angle they are sharpened to.

Great that this thread grew, It has been just over a month since I decided on 15 degrees and its serving me well. I am fully mobile with 2 T8's one with a 200 grit CBN and one with a 1000 grit CBN. Unless a customer asks for a specific angle, 15 degrees it is and up to now, no complaints. I also have a microscope I use to check some knives for chips as my eyesight, even with glasses is not too good.

The KS 123 has been invaluable as I am sharpening up to 50 knives at the farmers market (8am-1pm) and during an 8 hour day up to 70-75 knives (not every day obviously    ) I try to get my customers on an email list and check in every 3-4 weeks for feedback, not one complaint up to now and lots of compliments on edge retention. I tried a test with the KS123 by sharpening a knife, unclamping it, re-clamping it and setting the angle back to 15 degrees and before sharpening, do the sharpie test and scrape the blade as if recreating the edge for a customer, it was super close to the previous sharpening angle of 15 degrees, just a hair off, and I tested it under the microscope which made me happy.

The freely offered knowledge here has helped my start and maintain a successful mobile sharpening business and to that I an eternally thankful, I find real world findings always trump armchair opinions (no disrespect intended) and I am getting ready to add a 3rd T8 to my arsenal to speed things up a bit quicker because as the old saying goes, "time is money"

My overall goal is to give a service that the customer deems necessary if they love to cook and the feedback they get from a knife sharpened by me makes them realize that I should be the one to maintain it for them. Being a professional plant based chef, I have to keep my knives in top condition as I am predominantly dealing with dense, fibrous ingredients so my Enso's are sharpened to 12° but I was not sure if most customers would notice a difference between 15°. 17° or even 20°, I have some knives that I have been doing tests on and I definitely notice a difference in angles but I have been cooking for over 40 years and quite a control freak.

It's been an eye opener hearing other sharpeners opinions on what angle they use for their customers, 15° being the norm, I just don't want customers coming back saying the knife was sharp for a couple of weeks and now not so much but I guess I can't control how they use and abuse their knives and a "one shoe fits all" approach shouldn't drive my business, It would be nice to have a "go to angle" that's sharp enough to make a difference but durable enough the last some time and allows me to maintain a decent speed so I can move through a medium to large volume of knives while maintain quality (I use two T8's, one course grit and one fine grit). Nirvana I guess.

I learned a new word, "hysteresis". I have known about the effect of "thread slop" on adjusting screws for many years. I first encountered this with the depth adjusting screw of bench planes. For accurate measurement, the final step should be a slight tightening of the screw to leave some load on the threads. This situation occurs even with the adjustment wheels of high quality machinery such as metal lathes. Experienced machinists make this adjustment automatically.

The Tormek online classes mention this in passing, although they have never explained why this happens. The compensation necessity is not caused by the KS-123. It is caused by the threads of the microadjust. It is not a design defect with the microadjust; it is just the nature of the beast with adjustment screws. And, on a practical basis, it is not really a problem with Tormek sharpening, especially with good technique. Use the microadjust by lowering only for rough adjusting. Make the final, more precise adjustment only by raising it.

Ken

I have noticed this the more I use my T8, I have gotten into the habit of making my final adjustment when raising the universal support.

Thanks everyone, I think I will start using 15° as my base going forward. The KS 123 does make it easy to set this angle and since I attend a farmers market every Saturday, I can get quite busy and looking up specific manufacturers recommended angle takes time, this will help.

For my customers I do 15dps. No one knows the difference between 15 and 20 and the edge lasts longer for them.

Thanks

I used to sharpen @20dps a long time ago. Then I came across Wootz's litterature and decided to give 15dps a try.

It has been my standard since. I made comparisons using the same knife model sharpened at 20 dps and 15dps, the 20 dps got dull significantly faster. I have not noticed 15dps being too fragile for standard to fairly high quality knives.

That's interesting, I am currently doing some tests between 18�° 16° to see how long the knife edge lasts. My main concern is that the knife stays sharp for a decent period of time (a couple of months with daily use) value for money is my goal as I want the customers to keep coming back and feel they got their moneys worth.

I used to sharpen @20dps a long time ago. Then I came across Wootz's litterature and decided to give 15dps a try.

It has been my standard since. I made comparisons using the same knife model sharpened at 20 dps and 15dps, the 20 dps got dull significantly faster. I have not noticed 15dps being too fragile for standard to fairly high quality knives.

So do you feel your customers knives keep their sharpness long enough to their satisfaction? 

May i make a suggestion,

I'm probably going to get some stick for this but this is what I do.

When I hone freehand on the tormek I don't hone at the top of the wheel,

I hone if you imagine the honing wheel a clock,

I hone at the 3oclock position, that way I can see directly when the edge meets the honing wheel and ever so slightly tilt the apex so the very tip gets more of the honing,

I should also mention that when I get to honing I do own a t1 and a t8,

I use the t1 composite wheel to do the initial rough removal of the burr ( say 2/3 passes each side using medium to light pressure)

After then checking to see how much burr is left that I can feel on my thumbnail I'll then do the same again but literally light to just touching pressure on the t8 leather wheel and do again maybe another 2-3 passes with green compound.

If I still need to do more passes I'll do little to next to no pressure until I cant feel any burr.

I'll then wipe the edge clean and do a couple of again next to no pressure on a paddle strop.

I'll then test the edge on thin paper like phone book paper/thin till receipt paper and then rizzla green.

I sharpen my knives to 17 dps on the SG stone,

I don't have expensive knives atm ( I own knives from ikea ( vőrda range),

I have sharpened  family global knives the same  and have achieved the same results for what my 50p is worth

That's really helpful and I never thought of deburring that way, it makes sense to me so I'll give it a try. Always willing to learn.

I have had my business up and running for just over 2 months now and although its doing quite well, I have a question for the forum that I know docent have a absolute answer but I will ask it anyway for guidance. I get a lot of knives that are in bad shape and although I have been looking up the website of the knife maker or Googling the answer, I try to put the factory recommended angle on it or a default 18° and was wondering if anyone who sharpens for the public chooses a different angle?

In all honesty, I would like to have a more "standard" angle to sharpen customers knives except for very specific knives that require a specific angle (As an ex chef, I use Japanese knives and sharpen most of them at 15° and have some as low as 12°) and I am wondering if the standard 18°  should be lower, possibly 15°? I understand that this may leave less material behind the edge and most cheap knives wont stay sharp for long  so is there a compromise edge angle? Any input would be most welcome.

sorry it's taken so long to reply, been very busy. I don't have the box but took a picture of the back so maybe you can find it online.

I apologize if this is a stupid question but, I was wondering if anyone knows the degree difference on the angle master setting of 250mm to the middle scale of 10"?

It's not stupid at all. If you play with the model here, you'll see that for a given setup (USB height set, projection distance set), the difference in angle when the stone diameter varies from 250 to 254mm is about 1 degree. So for a given position of the WM-200 on the wheel while resting on the flat of the blade, the angle read on the WM-200 should be off by the same amount.

Thanks for the info and link