Electric knife sharpeners, & what to use for serrated blades

[magnumwheelman]

been looking at the lil grinders for a while, & at this point, thinking about a Ken Onion, & a pack of belts... MRS used to work at a packing house, & can sharpen a knife better than I, using a couple steels... but tells me ours all "need" to be reground... especially my lil Boker, that I use to whack stretch wrap & such, at work... that Boker is half serrated...

anything out there that compares with these, I haven't seen, or someone who is good at sharpening knifes have another suggestion???

[magman]

Have the Ken Onion Work sharp, works well for my needs. If I was serious, I would have bought the Tormek.

[kevshell]

Not exactly what you are asking about however this is the system that I use and like.

www.edgeproinc.com/sharpening-kits/apex-kits/?gclid=CjwKCAiA9qKbBhAzEiwAS4yeDVDsYjlyMzSRyuPsHlnTXPjcPAkOF-aAaFBQi7KyYSHTBcaZBa6s7xoCGnIQAvD_BwE

[magnumwheelman]

just looked at the Tormek... 5-6 time more money... probably not "that" serious myself

[parallaxbill]

I guess I'm old school. Sharpen everything on stone.

[randyb]

I helped my brother in law process a 1000# heifer yesterday. I sharpened all my knives on a Worksharp prior to starting and did the majority of the skinning, gutting and pulled backstraps off before I needed to touch up my blade.
I'm pretty happy with the edge it produced on the knife I used yesterday.
Wednesday we start boning and packaging and I'll be using the same blade for the majority of the cut/trim operations.

[bigbrowndog]

The only issue I have with powered or belted sharpeners is they remove way more material than needed when used incorrectly or with to aggressive a belt, quick yes, easy maybe, but not for me. Much the same way a dremel is considered a poor tool choice for a trigger job.  I use a manual system that sets the angle and holds it true, once the angle is set correctly and the edge is held to that angle for its entire length a quick resharpen is easy and takes longer to clamp the knife and get ready than to actually resharpen.

Trapr

[leadhound]

Any of the pull through style with the ceramic "vee" will put on a utility edge, then maybe fine hone, but you won't have to worry about keeping angles aligned. The steel only corrects the bend in the edge for so long. When I was cutting meat we had a three sided hone that sat in an oil bath. If we let an edge go to long without touching it up we would have to start at the coarse and work our way up. But once sharpened a steel would keep you in business for a month or so as long as you kept it out of the table and off the bone. Just a plain-jane medium carborundum stone is all we had growing up and it did what was needed for home use.

[rangersedge]

The edgepro is what a lot of people who are serious about their edges swear by.

[contender]

I know it's not electric,, but I went through several types of sharpening systems before I found "Wicked Edge" systems.
I have others still, but they rarely get any serious use, and NEVER on Miss Penny's expensive kitchen knives. I am allowed to sharpen them on the Wicked Edge system.

[jeffh]

I use a little Harbor Freight 1x30 belt sander to regrind particularly obtuse profiles on new knives - if they're that bad, but that is not often.

From there, I usually defer to high-quality wet/dry abrasive papers, from 220 to 1500, backed by various substrates, depending on the grit used, harder being preferred.

Once I've achieved a mirror-finish from the very edge, continuing through any surface dragging through the material being cut, I move to a leather strop (smooth side up), charged with Mibro #2 (green) which I had to source from Canada the last time I bought it, and then to a strop charged with Dico WR1. For the final edge on wood-working tools, I use a hard maple block charged with Simichrome metal polish.

After all that, I am able to maintain the edge with no more than the strops for a very long time, a year on many of them, whereupon I may need to hit it with a 1200 grit diamond plate and then the strops.

This is for chisels, plane-irons, knives. Axes get a 1200-grit touch-up in the field occasionally, followed by the strop. Nicks sometimes necessitate going back to the abrasive papers, and on the rare, dreaded occasion, the belt sander.

Once a highly polished edge is established, it lasts longer than one with microscopic serrations - is more durable. After the initial edge-profiling, through the final polish is accomplished, minor maintenance is all that is required for quite some time. I have specific steel preferences too though, especially if properly heat-treated, which are amenable to my methods. D2, 1095, A2, O1, 12C27 and 14C28N, none of which are "boutique steels" respond well to this treatment.

[rjm52]

...as said above, most "electric" systems remove too much metal.

I used the Razor Edge System for many years and still do if I have a blade that needs to be reprofiled.

shop.razoredgesystems.com/

This company services the meat packing industry and also has commercial electric units...his book is a GREAT read on edge dynamics.

The Worksharp is great but would never use it on anything but kitchen knives. It does axes and machetes great too...

Now most of my sharpening is done with a Spyderco Sharpmaker. Puts on a thumbprint grabbing edge that lasts...and you can take it anywhere with you including out in the field.

They can be had for about $75...and they will sharpen most anything...

www.spyderco.com/catalog/details/204MF/Tri-Angle-Sharpmaker-reg-/77

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zDYzTJZT8k


I keep an old one set up in the kitchen to keep everything touched up so nothing ever has to be totally reprofiled and sharpened...

Bob

[magnumwheelman]

I really like the look of the Wicked Edge system, but I do have a couple blades with serrated portions... like my little Boker, it has a half serrated blade... assuming something like the Wicked edge system, looks like it would do a great job, on MRS smooth kitchen knifes, but would not work on the serrated sections of the few knives I have with them

[contender]

When I get to the SHOT Show, I’ll ask the folks at Wicked Edge about serrated blade sharpening.

[magnumwheelman]

Thanks