Sharpening with Belts

Hey Mike fire up that Gigantic Disc grinder you have and use it lol , The rotory platen from beaumont metal works is great for sharpening but sharping on a belt is always gonna give a convex edge rounded I dont think there is anyway around with that being said it be razor sharp.
 
Anthony, that D@rn thing scares me sometimes, especially if the knife if near completion. I've had a moment where my better judgement has lapsed and the grinder senses it, sending a knife flying hard enough to bury it into the wooden dust funnel/ collector at the bottom. I cringe at the thought of a completed knife with an edge going airborne. :biggrin:

I'm going to eventually break down and build another 9" grinder some day soon.
 
To follow up... Thank you all, your advice helped. After some practice, I'm getting edges decent enough to have the option to skip the stones. KD rocks!
 
To follow up... Thank you all, your advice helped. After some practice, I'm getting edges decent enough to have the option to skip the stones. KD rocks!

Keep at it Mike,
With practice you will learn diffrent backed belts & grits will do different things and you won't miss the stones for the vast majority of Knife sharpening jobs.

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com
 
Laurence
Do you mind sharing what grit progression you use on say a chef or butcher knife? Also do you use a strop or tapes for the finished edge?

Thanks and God Bless
Mike
 
Laurence
Do you mind sharing what grit progression you use on say a chef or butcher knife? Also do you use a strop or tapes for the finished edge?

Thanks and God Bless
Mike

Mike
Not at all!
I start with a 120 grit J weight Hermes Super flex belt, Then a 220Grit of the same, Then I use a Hermes 346 600 grit and buff with green chrome on a medium Muslin wheel.

I use a fair amount of pressure on this step, burnishing the edges and about a 1/8" further up. This produces a excellent durable cutting edge for European & Americana culinary knives.

For the Japanese cutlery I then proceed to a 9 micron 3m belt. about 2000 Grit.
I get these Hermes & 3M belts from www.trugrit.com/ Bossdog may have them?

Not everything is on their website so give them a call. I get almost all of my abrasives from these fine people.

Laurence

www.westsidesharpening.com
 
Do any of you guys use leather belts for de-burring? If so, how safe are they? I'd like to make one but sure do hate getting slapped by belts.
 
For over 20 years, I've been using the Razor Edge stones. They've been great. A few years ago, I saw a guy sharpening knives on a machine at a gun show. I stood back and watched and everyone seemed to be pleased with his work. My buddy had his pocket knife sharpened and so I gave in and had my already sharp pocket knife sharpened by him as well. I wanted to see what kind of edge this machine put on it and how well it held up. I initially scoffed at the idea that this machine could put as good of an edge on a knife as I could with my Razor Edge stones. But it did and it did it a lot quicker than I could by hand.

The next gun show I bought one of these machines and still use it today (the price has really went up over the years!). I still use my Razor Edge stones to touch up my blades but now that I make knives, the Sharp Shop Machine (here's their website) makes getting an edge on a knife simple and quick. They're basically a 1x30 vertical belt grinder with a low speed motor. For most knives, I use the 20 degree holder but for Camp knives and such, I may go as high as 30 degrees. Just depends on what the knife will be used for.

I start out with a 120 blaze and then go to 500 or 600 for the next step after raising the burr. With the guides, you put the initial 20 degree bevel on with the 120 until the burr shows up. Then the next slot in the guide deck increases the angle just a little and you run passes with the finer grit until sharp. The final step is using a felt belt with Green chrome for hair popping sharp edge. I can start to cut in the initial bevel on a finished knife with an edge of 30 thousandths and finish with a shaving sharp edge in total of about 5 minutes on this machine.
 
For over 20 years, I've been using the Razor Edge stones. They've been great. A few years ago, I saw a guy sharpening knives on a machine at a gun show. I stood back and watched and everyone seemed to be pleased with his work. My buddy had his pocket knife sharpened and so I gave in and had my already sharp pocket knife sharpened by him as well. I wanted to see what kind of edge this machine put on it and how well it held up. I initially scoffed at the idea that this machine could put as good of an edge on a knife as I could with my Razor Edge stones. But it did and it did it a lot quicker than I could by hand.

The next gun show I bought one of these machines and still use it today (the price has really went up over the years!). I still use my Razor Edge stones to touch up my blades but now that I make knives, the Sharp Shop Machine (here's their website) makes getting an edge on a knife simple and quick. They're basically a 1x30 vertical belt grinder with a low speed motor. For most knives, I use the 20 degree holder but for Camp knives and such, I may go as high as 30 degrees. Just depends on what the knife will be used for.

I start out with a 120 blaze and then go to 500 or 600 for the next step after raising the burr. With the guides, you put the initial 20 degree bevel on with the 120 until the burr shows up. Then the next slot in the guide deck increases the angle just a little and you run passes with the finer grit until sharp. The final step is using a felt belt with Green chrome for hair popping sharp edge. I can start to cut in the initial bevel on a finished knife with an edge of 30 thousandths and finish with a shaving sharp edge in total of about 5 minutes on this machine.

Thanks Don, I've seen a few variations of that machine used before. It always looked intriguing.
 
The setup for my Bader uses the same concept as the Sharp Shop Machine, in fact I was talking with the original maker of that machine at a gun show and he helped with my Bader setup, and made the blade clamp for me. I still want one of their machines, but the Bader does just as good, but I cant take it to shows.
Dale
 
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