Topics

I'm attempting to sharpen a kitchen knife which has a plastic, sloping handle that extends all the way to the blade edge (image 🅐). Grinding one edge of the blade is OK (image 🅑), but grinding the other edge (image 🅒) the plastic handle touches on the stone wheel when the knife is positioned at the start of the blade. I'm not quite sure why this is - maybe the plastic handle is thicker on that edge? Theoretically it should be symmetric, so more investigation is needed.

So I am wondering if there is a "best practice" for this style of knife. I played around with grinding it with a pivoted jig (image 🅓), which may also be better done by clamping the knife in the jig at a severe angle so the jig stop runs parallel with the USB, but it doesn't feel right.

Any thoughts?

I've got a few beautiful carbon steel Chinese cleavers that I love to use in the kitchen. The blade on the big one is about 21cm / 8¼", and the small one, 18cm / 7". Both have almost perfectly straight edges with the slightest of arcs, and they are both quite heavy.

I'll "cut" straight to the point  Sharpening these blades on my T8 seems to require a lot of practice to get perfect. Even though there is no lifting or pivoting needed at the tips like normal kitchen knives, the narrow width of the wheel compared to the long length (and weight) of the blades makes it challenging to do perfectly level (i.e. flat) pass along the entire length of the blade. I inevitable tilt the blade a fraction of a degree along the pass, and it leaves a tiny groove in the blade that then takes a lot of time to smooth out.

Apart from more practice practice practice, is there any advice on how I can improve my technique?

I wonder if my stance is off, or I should be using a different type of jig that helps to keep the blade perfectly flat against the wheel? (I use the SVM & KJ knife jigs).

Any tips appreciated!

Apologies if this is a naive or obvious question. I don't have accurate enough tools to measure this for myself to find the answer.

The T8 has 2 attachment bases or sleeves for the USB. One allows a vertical attachment, the other a horizontal attachment towards the front of the machine.

My query is, suppose you have a blade clamped in a jig, and you have set the appropriate angle using your favourite method, and have locked the USB into let's say the top binding sleeves. If you then remove the USB from those sleeves - and carefully - so the adjustment nut does not move, re-insert the USB into the other binding sleves, and lock it - and change nothing else - will the angle of the blade against the same wheel be exactly the same as before? Or you cannot assume this.

I currently use my T8 in a standing position. It's located on my workbench in my workshop, but because the bench is high, I use an old palette (approx 220mm high) to stand on while using it.

But it's a fatiguing work position and doesn't feel right. It seems I am always bending my back and leaning too far over the machine. So I am looking into making a low stand which allows me to sharpen in the siting down position. The esteemed (sadly departed) Wootz is often seen sharpening sitting down in his videos, I'd also like to try that position.

I know everyone is different, and I will certainly experiment for myself, but to get me started, I'd like to ask the community members who sharpen sitting down, what stand height works best for them? Foot stools or 5 gallon plastic buckets have been mentioned but I'm curious to learn more.

Did something boneheaded the other day and accidentally damaged my Japanese Waterstone.

It'd been a while, and I'd forgotten that you're supposed to use this stone edge-trailing. I was polishing the blade into the wheel and the inevitable happened: as I lifted the blade off the stone, the edge caught the wheel and dug into it, creating a small gouge.

I am hoping (praying) that this can be repaired somehow, maybe with something like the TT-50 Truing Tool?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Greetings to the community. I recently purchased a T-8 and started my knife sharpening journey! I've read the handbook cover-to-cover, watched many instructional videos on the Tormek YouTube channel including the excellent Tormek Live Sharpening Classes on Knife Sharpening with Wolfgang and Sèbastian. I've sharpened about 20 knives so far.

On the practice of honing my knives on the leather wheel, I've come up with a few difficulties. As a beginner I want to hone with the knife in the jig using the Universal Support, at least until I'm more experienced to do it freehand. Wolfgang discusses honing with the Support in the advanced sharpening class, and recommends it for special knives to preserve the coatings or finish on the sides of blades.

So first issue is, with honing long knives using the support, the tip or handle hits the grinding wheel. So the stroke is interrupted. I tried removing the grinding wheel, but it seems the T-8 won't work like that - the honing wheel slips off the drive shaft - oops! Is there another position or jig orientation I can use to hone without the knife hitting the grinding wheel?

The second issue concerns the honing edge angle. Since the honing wheel diameter is smaller than the grinding wheel, doesn't that mean to hone at the same angle you must adjust the Universal Support? In his video Wolfgang does not make any adjustments - he just moves the Universal Support to the horizontal position then starts honing. This of course could be intentional, if the best practice for honing on the support is to use a slightly steeper edge angle. Just not sure.

What do people think?