A friend at work had a brilliant thought.

Bastid

Bastid

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This is a bench type grinder for light work.


Never thought of this before and the price seems great.

Any thoughts pro or con?
 
They have this at my local Sears&Roebuck. I almost bought that instead of my current belt grinder. I'm still tossing it around in my head. But for $30, it seems like a great opportunity to try it out.
-KC
 
Bastid
"Life is too short to carry an ugly knife" - Calvin Cooledge

I thought life was too short to hunt with an ugly gun??



"Honey, when I die, sell my guns/knives for what they're worth and not what I told you I paid for them."
 
It seems like a nice unit, but...

I've sharpened a lot of other people's knives and looked at thousands of used knives and the most common cause of wrecked blades is misuse of grinders. You need to be careful not to remove extra material, bugger-up the blade contours or the finish, and possibly damage the heat treatment. When you start out put some tape on the side of your blade except for a narrow strip adjacent to the edge. This will protect the finish of your blade. Always work bare-handed and feel how hot you are getting your blade as you work. If you can't hold the blade you are getting too hot.

A grinder like this will give you a slightly hollow ground edge. This can be a bit weak. You can learn to avoid this, but you should use a flat manual hone after the grinder to flatten out your bevel (unless you want a hollow ground edge). In general a belt sander/grinder is more appropriate. I still might get one of these. Thanks for the link.
 
Hey Guys...

The caption says it all I Quote:

"Large footpads dampen vibrations and increase stability during operation"

Any vibration that would make the knife chatter during sharpening,, and you'll have a big mess on your hands....

Something like that has got to run true and smooth as silk.

If your reprofiling a knife and plan on cleaning it up later,, then maybe.. But for putting an edge on it,,unless you REALLY,,and do mean Really,,know what you are doing,, your headed for problems...

You'd be better off with a good ole norton bench stone,, than that..

Chisels, scrapers, lawnmower blades Yes,, good expensive knives... No...

Just my opinion..

ttyle

Eric...
 
I agree with Eric. Any kind of power sharpening stone (which that looks like it has) can end up ruining a good blade. For tools like chisels, shears, hedge clippers and the like, that would be fine. Expensive knives.....I wouldn't risk it. That reminds me of the old can opener type sharpeners. The double stones on the electric can opener. :D Also with this type of sharpener, as Jeff pointed out, you're only getting the one type of edge which has a high chance of chipping out. The 1" belt sanders are a better choice. Using power tools for sharpening needs care because of overheating the blade.
Scott
 
I wouldn't use this on any of my chisels. None of them are hollow ground, and with this kind of setup, it'd be hard not to mess them up.
 
Hey, my chisels are VERY nice. And I dun wanna screw up my parallel ground flat head screwdrivers either. Is there anything wrong with the water cooled, flat running "sharpeners"? (you place the tool on something thats like a lazy susan)
 
I didn't read the specs on this but I wonder if you could remove the stone wheel and replace it with a cardboard wheel with the silicon carbide grit?
 
I have one. Haven't used it much yet but found it easy to use and pretty effective. Stone runs relatively slowly and sits in a water bath which keeps it and the knife cool. Having spent 12 hours reprofiling several bolo-type knives using a very course waterstone, this seems to offer a useful alternative to stones, double cut bastard files, and 40 grit zirconium oxide belts (as once suggested by Cliff). I too wouldn't use it on a very expensive knife for normal sharpening but for reprofiling it's good, reasonably fast, and cheap
 
I bought it, then returned it. The tool rests are very cheap and the adjusters are horrible. The stone is very coarse and it is better for the lawnmower blades and such. It's heavy and messy, the unit has to be turned upside down to change the water bath. I personally did not like it. The motor was very weak, the stone would sometimes just stop turning, but the motor was still making noise, like it was going to overheat. If I grabbed the stone it would just stop the motor quite easily. (Just did it once or twice to see how durable it was.) I had it for less than a day and returned it. Usually Sears has a great return policy, but the lady hassled me on this one. It was clean and new looking too.
 
Thanks gang, when my friend told me about it, I was tempted (especially at that price.) I'll just stick to my stones, Sharpmaker, Apex and sandpaper for now :D.
 
The local Sears had these for $25.99. I thought it might be good for sharpening carving tools. Unfortunately, the wheel was not exactly round and this did not make for a good sharpener. I returned it. Alan
 
Well, the more knives that I make, the more knowledge I gain on what I do and do not like for the different tasks reguired.
For sharpening, I wouldn't want to use a stone grinder of that type. As a previous post points out, the round shape of the stone will give a hollow-ground edge. Even if it's water cooled, I'd still be somewhat concerned about over-heating the steel. Finally, it would take a lot of practice to master sharpening with that thing. And, to top that off, it's not going to give a very fine edge - you'll still want to clean up the edge with a finer sharpener.

On the flip side of this, I have read a post by Jerry Hossom (a knifemaker) saying that he uses his belt grinder to put edges on knives. This, I can see, and I intend to try it. A belt sander/grinder is made to use numerous different grits of belts, from 36 to several hundred. I have read of knife makers putting both the initial edge and the fine-tuning of the edge using their belt grinder. Usually, they will use a 400 grit belt for the final edge. Of course, one has to be super careful to not overheat the steel, but it is possible. The key is lots of practice with CHEAP knives or plain steel.

You can get a decent entry-level belt grinder at Lowe's for $70.

So, that's my story on the stone grinder :)
 
I have one of those, though mine looks a little differnet and seems to have a larger diameter wheel. I only use it on machetes, shovels, hoes, lawnmower blades, and the like. It will never touch a knife unless it is POS that I want to use for some abusive purpose. I like it for what I use it for because it makes it hard to over heat the blade due to the water bath. I paid $20 for mine about 5 years ago.
 
I looked at and strongly considered getting one of these, but then I came across mention of this inexpensive 1"x30" Belt Sander for $30 at Harbor Freight, so I ended up going for that.

And I have to say, I've been *really* happy with it. I've reprofiled a couple of blades, and sharpened a handful more. Much better results than I expected.

I like the ease and flexibility it gives me over a grinder, with more available options for belt grit, the ability to put a hollow grind by grinding near the wheel, a flat grind by using the backplate, or a convex grind by using the unsupported 'slack' area (the convex edge in particular has been working really well for me).

Also, you can pick up a leather belt from Hand America and charge it with some ultra-fine grit stropping compound for a truly scary sharp edge.
 
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