Tormek Honing Wheel Use

[John_B]

On Tormek's Honing Wheel page https://tormek.com/en/products/honing-wheels the recommend homing between full sharpening to maintain a knife's edge. I have done this with my own knives occasionally with positive results. Customer's knives require full sharpening as they normally wait too long between visits.

Does anyone use the honing wheel in between sharpenings and if you have a BESS tester how much improvement do you see?

[tgbto]

I have done so for a time, but found it inferior to using a fine ceramics rod with an angle guide. This gives me the longest time between actual grinding sessions.

[Ken S]

I know two highly regarded Tormek experts who routinely hone between sharpening. Samuel, responding to a comment I made during the T1 online class, stated that he used his T1 in his kitchen to hone before every time he cooked. Stig has stated that he sharpens his kitchen knives once or twice a year, and hones them more frequently. Stig's cutlery are Japanese knives. His wife does the cooking, and lets him know when the knives are just starting to be off sharp. Neither Samuel nor Stig uses BESS, although I am certain that their knives are always quite sharp.

Granted, they are not your typical sharpening customers who postpone sharpening. However, I hold them up as shining examples of best practice.

Ken

[BPalv]

I hone all knives used in the kitchen weekly or every other week if I'm being negligent.  However, I find using the leather wheel only starts the process.  The wheel gets the edge to 110/120 on the BESS.  If I hit it with a 1x30 leather strop loaded with Tormek or other compound at the exact edge angle, it will take it to 100 or less.
I find the same when sharpening.  After honing on the leather wheel I'm getting to 120/110 but there's still a burr when honing at the exact angle on mainstream knives. For that I run it on the 1x30 strop after honing on the wheel.  If you mess up your score on the BESS after using the 1x30 just run it on the honing wheel again and then run the 1x30 again until you get a score you're happy with.  Of course if you mess around too much you will round your apex.
Depending on your original sharpening efforts and the quality of the steel you can achieve sub 100 scores on the BESS with this technique.

[BPalv]

The original question was do you use the honing wheel between sharpening.  I do not as I use controlled angle sharpening and honing.  To use the wheel I would need to know the angle I originally sharpened the knife at.  For this reason I use a 1x30 leather belt with a compound to strop between sharpening.  It does bring it back to the original sharpness it was sharpened to in most knives.
I test throughout the sharpening and stropping process with a BESS.  If I sharpened something to 100 stropping/honing brings the knife right back to 100 if you don't wait too long between stroppings.  Once the edge becomes damaged/rolled it's time to regrind.
I use the Tormek paste for initial honing.

[John Hancock Sr]

Does anyone use the honing wheel in between sharpenings

No for my kitchen knives since my Tormek is in a shed 30 M away from the house. However ...

I have seem tests from professional woodworkers who found that you can successfully hone a number of times to re-establish a sharp edge. They have found that beyond a certain number it becomes counter productive and you need to re-sharpen.

In my experience with leatherworking tools and woodworking tools honing between sharpens gets me back to work quickly and effectively reestablishes sharp. How often you can re-hone depends on the use. If you re-hone often and don't allow to edge to dull too far then it seems to last longer between sharpens. Also if the material does not damage the edge too much then you can re-hone more successfully. I usually use a strop between sharpens rather than the honing wheel. This way I can keep it next to me and quickly strop and get back to work without leaving my bench.