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After sharpening about 200 knives and also using them in a fast paced meat processing setting I still haven't reached or even gotten near my sharpening goals of below 100 bess. I have tried everything I have read about but I just can't reach below 140 bess on a the 15 dps knives. The edges cut really great for the first hour but then they need a lot of steeling to keep cutting well. I find i cant use the polished steel for very long because it doesnt have much of an effect on the edge. I was hoping to have better edge retention after reading Vadims research but still haven't made it there. On the plus side my edges are very consistent at the middle and tip of the knife which is very important on a boning knife and also I find it easy to sharpen with the Tormek

Hi Butcher your 140+ scores indicate that you probably haven't completely removed the burr. More over, the fact that your edge dulls quickly and requires steeling also indicates that you have a wire edge (a burr which although small lies on top of the apex). That wire edge though seemingly very sharp will roll over quickly, hence your need to steel it to return it to the centre. This wire edged burr really needs removing to get to the true apex. If you do that then you will not only have a sharper edge ( at most 120 Bess probably lower, ideally sub 100) but the retention will be better.
Try honing at a slightly higher angle initially, with diamonds preferably (. 5 micron or 1 micron). Maybe + 2 degrees for lower end knives, 1-1.5 degrees for main stream knives.
Then rehone at the exact angle you ground to. I know this seems counterintuitive but it works!
Refer to Vadims book, an appendix gives a whole list of honing protocols for different steels. You don't need to go down the paper wheels route or follow them exactly, it will give you a general idea of how to hone particular steels.
Hope this helps. As the o/p pointed out. Don't despair. You will get there in the end!

I recommend watching the follow up video too as he tries to address the issues raised by some of the comments in the first one.

Agree with previous 2 posts.
The felt honing wheel is designed to remove the core of the burr from the apex. After that you need to have a final clean up, usually at the exact edge angle. A hanging leather strop will also usually remove a wire or foil burr if the felt wheel has not done so.

Sounds obvious and you may have tried already, but have you tried the quick release method?
Have the machine in front of you, USB nearest you. Hold the stone in your left hand. Now take the honing wheel in your right hand and turn it away from you whilst holding or turning the stone towards you. This usually gets things moving.

Agree with all responses so far.
You say you don't want water.
Without water you will have dust.
Personally I'd prefer water to dust.
For me it's easier to clean up water than it is to vacuum the whole workshop.
And I'm not keen on trying to vacuum my lungs to free them of steel and diamond dust.
Wear a mask I hear you say.
I'd still prefer cleaning up water than wearing a mask......

I don't think I'm going off topic here. I have been quoted from a previous post. I stick by those comments. I sense many may be in agreement with me, whether professional sharpeners or home sharpeners. I return to my original post. How can we as a user community put positive pressure on Tormek to do the right thing with this issue?
As a professional sharpener I would gladly invest in 6-8 new jigs that catered for self centering AND adjustable stop.
I currently use 8 of the old svm jigs ( 2 milled for thicker blades) and 1 kj45(which I rarely use).
I batch sharpen.
Imagine how much more efficient it would be with a hybrid jig?
So again, how can we get Tormek to do this?

Are you using the self centring jig (kj45)?
If you are then I can only assume that the problem lies with your knife or knives. Unfortunately it is quite common for folding or fixed blade bushcraft/edc knives to have asymmetric grinds before the apex.
If you are using the old style jig (can't think off hand the model number) then it will only centre knives within a tolerance of 2-3mm spine thickness I think. Anything thinner you should increase the thickness with tape to aid centering and avoid wobble. Anything thicker requires altering (thinning) the jaws of the jig to accommodate the extra thickness and centre the knife. Knife Grinders has an informative video about this on the YouTube channel.
For those thicker knives you would probably best get the newer KJ45 self centring jig.
I tried sharpening my brother's custom made bushcraft knife and ran into the same problem. I was literally pulling my hair out trying to get even bevels but got nowhere until I realised the knife had been ground asymmetrically in the first place. Had to keep flipping and adjusting over and over til I got it right. Very frustrating!

I recently sharpened an 8" chef's knife made of AUS10.
I think it falls in the 'intermediate' category in terms of the type of burr formed.
That is using  Wootz categories of positive and negative burrs.
As such, when it comes to honing, the angle should match the grinding angle.
I realised this after I honed at +2 degrees and couldn't understand why the edge got duller.
I tried again in the following way:
Honed at exact on leather with Tormek paste.
Honed at +0.5 degrees on same wheel.
Final hone on leather wheel with chromox at exact edge angle.
Gave a Bess in the nineties.
As for grinding angle. A cop out answer would be as low as the steel can handle!
Real world, is it a general purpose hacker or more of a slicer?
For general purpose maybe 20 degrees/side.
For a slicer maybe 15 degrees/side.
I wouldn't go lower than that for a penknife.

All seems quiet on the Tormek front.
This isn't a serious question but you may find it funny.
I use the Tormek standing up, edge leading to set edges.
I have a bit of a belly but not overly.
I can't seem to stop the dreaded occurrence of the wheel sucking on to my shirt and soaking it.
Now I know this is not a real world problem and I should be wearing an apron, but it is SO annoying!
It breaks concentration and usually occurs when grinding the tip when I am trying to use precision control to match the curve and not over grind.
Any tips?
Anyone else have this problem?
I swear a cotton shirt is like a magnet to a wet CBN wheel!

Agree wholeheartedly with tgbto.
I make no apologies for asking again: why not a self centering knife jig with an adjustable stop? PLEASE!

All previous posts on this subject good and valid.
The thing is here, there's really no answers ( as yet maybe).
Sharpening stuff is one of those weird things in life.
Just when you think you've got it, it throws up something else and it escapes you again.
Real world sharpening as a business maybe: get it sharp get it out there, customer happy.
Rabbit hole chase the less Bess, facts, science, technique, angles, fractions of angles, grits, honing compounds, 0.25 microns on leather, 1 micron diamonds on rock hard felt wheels @+0.333 degrees etc.
There is science behind sharpening and there is also an art, not just technique.
Which is why it's the gift that just keeps giving, whether hobby or profession. I suppose the real innovation that Tormek offers is to provide tools to pursue that obsession.
Just some thoughts......

Unless I'm missing something I don't think it's possible to thin knives on the top of a Tormek grinding wheel : you would hollow grind it and would not be able to grind at a low enough angle if the knife is in a jig. The jig would bite into the stone.
Theoretically you could use the side of a diamond or CBN wheel but I think it would be extremely difficult, either free hand or using the MB 100(?), this would require a knife jig to hold the knife and it would still catch on the stone.
Someone else may be more enlightened than me and suggest a way to do it.
I just can't see how a Tormek can be used to thin knives.
Once I tried to flat grind a scandi knife on the side of a diamond wheel free hand. It was a disaster!

Hmmmm. I don't understand the glove concept at all. Using a Tormek to sharpen stuff is slow, relatively risk free if you have half a brain and a modicum of common sense. Things don't fly off in an uncontrolled way.
Gloves will restrict your work assessment. Unless the gloves are incredibly thin allowing for tactile assessments they will hamper your work. If they are that thin they will offer no protection from sharp edges.
To illustrate this I give the following example.
I sharpened some knives for a customer and he then complained that the knives were too sharp and he and his family cut themselves on the newly sharpened knives.
That is user error, not my fault for producing the desired result.
As a sharpener you are dealing with sharp edges. Learn to treat them in the correct way and you will not cut yourself.
Wearing gloves will only add risk in my opinion, thinking you are safe and so ignoring basic safety. Just my opinion.

This has been covered I think a few times but I don't have the savvy to link you to relevant posts. Someone will I'm sure.
Personally I have overcome this problem in a couple of ways.
Firstly, ALTERNATE.
By this I mean flip the blade over at the end of each pass rather than focusing on one side till you reach a burr. Eventually you will reach a burr by flipping ( though it seems counterintuitive) and it won't take real time any longer. By doing this you are negating the overgrind in the middle of the blade near the heel.
Secondly, as advocated by Wootz and others, grind the first heel section of the blade up to 2 inches or so, pivot up and start again at the heel and work forwards.
Personally the first method works well and in my experience I've never had problems with smiles (as I call them) when adopting this approach.
Other than that, don't overgrind. Only enough to produce the burr then concentrate on areas of the edge that haven't. Then a full pass to even things out.
I'm sure that others on the forum will give further advice soon.

" or buy 10 knife jigs like you say".....
I'm sure you will understand the following and I'm only explaining what I do.
Having 10 of the old svm knife jigs allows you to set each knife to a set projection so that you only need to set the usb once to obtain a given angle.
Grind all knives.
Now,keeping knives in jigs, remove the grinding wheel and set your honing angle on the leather wheel. It will be the same for each knife.
Hone.
So for a batch of 10 knives you've only had to remove the grinding wheel once. You've only had to adjust usb once for grinding.
If you were to use your independent honing station then you haven't removed the wheel even once. May be you would have to lower the water trough at the end though!
Seriously though I take your point that the Tormek does have limitations for knives, probably because of its original design to sharpen mostly woodworking tools.
But then knife sharpening is one of those things. To do it properly and with pride takes some patience, practice and fiddle faddle.
Unless of course you just use belt grinders to speed everything up.

Also I would not advocate you buying multiple kj45 jigs.
The old style adjustable svm jigs are much more suited to doing a batch of knives at a set projection.
Compared, the kj45s have only a tiny amount of adjustment available.
But let's not go down that route again!