Knife Sharpening Burr (Work Sharp Ken Onion)

[treillw]

I got a Work Sharp Ken Onion w/ blade ginder attachment. Set it up last night and in a few hours I have 5 knives that will shave hair. Pretty impressive, considering I don't think I ever sharpened a knife to shaving sharp in my life.

Sharpening 101 - you need to develop a burr on the entire length of the knife before you try to sharpen it. I'm having a little trouble figuring out when the burr is present. Obviously I'm doing something right if they shave and cut paper as well as they are, but I don't want to grind my blade down unnecessarily. I might be going past the burr point pretty well. I'm trying to look at the edge with a 10x, seemingly piece of junk, loupe and I can hardly see the burr forming. You can somewhat see it with the naked eye, somewhat feel it, but it's difficult and seems like it goes away once I start molesting it. I've tried other things like brushing the burr edge with a q-tip to see if it grabs the cotton fibers. No wonderful method for figuring things out. The guys in the work sharp video hang a fish hook off their burr; I'm no where near this. Not sharpening any super steel. Common knives - Victorinox boning knives, browning fillet knife, wusthoff kitchen knives.

The book says you should do 6-8 passes with the coarse belt to get a burr. I'm kind of assuming that means for knives that have already been sharpened with the work sharp and have the work sharp profile already established on the edge. It's taking me 15-25 passes on the same side to get a burr that I'm comfortable with. First knife took me 30 passes. Don't know if I'm going way too far.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[GSPHUNTER]

I got a Work Sharp Ken Onion w/ blade ginder attachment. Set it up last night and in a few hours I have 5 knives that will shave hair. Pretty impressive, considering I don't think I ever sharpened a knife to shaving sharp in my life.

Sharpening 101 - you need to develop a burr on the entire length of the knife before you try to sharpen it. I'm having a little trouble figuring out when the burr is present. Obviously I'm doing something right if they shave and cut paper as well as they are, but I don't want to grind my blade down unnecessarily. I might be going past the burr point pretty well. I'm trying to look at the edge with a 10x, seemingly piece of junk, loupe and I can hardly see the burr forming. You can somewhat see it with the naked eye, somewhat feel it, but it's difficult and seems like it goes away once I start molesting it. I've tried other things like brushing the burr edge with a q-tip to see if it grabs the cotton fibers. No wonderful method for figuring things out. The guys in the work sharp video hang a fish hook off their burr; I'm no where near this. Not sharpening any super steel. Common knives - Victorinox boning knives, browning fillet knife, wusthoff kitchen knives.

The book says you should do 6-8 passes with the coarse belt to get a burr. I'm kind of assuming that means for knives that have already been sharpened with the work sharp and have the work sharp profile already established on the edge. It's taking me 15-25 passes on the same side to get a burr that I'm comfortable with. First knife took me 30 passes. Don't know if I'm going way too far.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Love mine

 

[Northernpiker]

Sounds like you’re going to long. Unless the knife is really dull I don’t use the coarse. If it is dull I use it a couple swipes, then use the less coarse belts. You can usually feel the burr, I take the burr off with a leather strop. I quit using my Worksharp and use a DMT Diamond set..

 

[JTR11]

I got a Work Sharp Ken Onion w/ blade ginder attachment. Set it up last night and in a few hours I have 5 knives that will shave hair. Pretty impressive, considering I don't think I ever sharpened a knife to shaving sharp in my life.

Sharpening 101 - you need to develop a burr on the entire length of the knife before you try to sharpen it. I'm having a little trouble figuring out when the burr is present. Obviously I'm doing something right if they shave and cut paper as well as they are, but I don't want to grind my blade down unnecessarily. I might be going past the burr point pretty well. I'm trying to look at the edge with a 10x, seemingly piece of junk, loupe and I can hardly see the burr forming. You can somewhat see it with the naked eye, somewhat feel it, but it's difficult and seems like it goes away once I start molesting it. I've tried other things like brushing the burr edge with a q-tip to see if it grabs the cotton fibers. No wonderful method for figuring things out. The guys in the work sharp video hang a fish hook off their burr; I'm no where near this. Not sharpening any super steel. Common knives - Victorinox boning knives, browning fillet knife, wusthoff kitchen knives.

The book says you should do 6-8 passes with the coarse belt to get a burr. I'm kind of assuming that means for knives that have already been sharpened with the work sharp and have the work sharp profile already established on the edge. It's taking me 15-25 passes on the same side to get a burr that I'm comfortable with. First knife took me 30 passes. Don't know if I'm going way too far.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

I’ve found it takes fewer passes after the initial sharpening. The first time I ran my knives through it took a while to get a burr raised. When i re sharpen now it’s much closer to what’s described in the instructions. I like to use a post it note or small piece of paper to check my burr and make sure it runs the full length of the blade (I don’t trust myself to just do it all by feel yet).

 

[GSPHUNTER]

I found that using the course belt is only in worst cases. Now that my knives are where I want then, I only use fine belt to matin edge, and I don't have to do that to often. Forget what the guys in the video do, If your knives are sharp enough to shave hair, what more do you want.

 

[Finch]

I just bought one myself a couple days back. Your initial passes, are they the same side or are you alternating?

I've only sharpened 2 knives so far but I had a noticeable burr on my boning knife doing the initial pass on the same side.

 

[treillw]

So most of my knives were pretty dull. By coarse belt, I mean the second coarsest belt in the package (X65 grit).

 

[treillw]

I’ve found it takes fewer passes after the initial sharpening. The first time I ran my knives through it took a while to get a burr raised. When i re sharpen now it’s much closer to what’s described in the instructions. I like to use a post it note or small piece of paper to check my burr and make sure it runs the full length of the blade (I don’t trust myself to just do it all by feel yet).

How do you use a paper to check the burr?

 

[treillw]

I just bought one myself a couple days back. Your initial passes, are they the same side or are you alternating?

I've only sharpened 2 knives so far but I had a noticeable burr on my boning knife doing the initial pass on the same side.

For my initial passes with the X65, I'm doing them all on the same side. Counting the passes and then doing the same number on the opposite side.

 

[treillw]

I found that using the course belt is only in worst cases. Now that my knives are where I want then, I only use fine belt to matin edge, and I don't have to do that to often. Forget what the guys in the video do, If your knives are sharp enough to shave hair, what more do you want.

I want to learn how to detect the burr better and not over grind my knives

 

[treillw]

I'm not expecting to need anywhere near that number of passes after the initial edge setting on the work sharp.

I'm going to try just stropping them every now and then. I'll go to the X4 honing belt only if they need a little more love.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

I find it easy to feel the burr with my thumb. But, before I got my work sharp, I used only Arkansas stone to sharpen my knives and every step was by feel. Of course I would check the blade either by shaving hair or checking it on my thumb nail, my wife hates it when I do that.

 

[dieselchessy]

I either feel for a burr with my finger or just look at the edge of the knife with naked eye.
A dull virgin blade should take about 30 passes total.
Usually 5 or 6 passes per side of x65 gets a virgin blade ready for the x22 and then x4.
After that touch ups are 5 or 6 passes on the x4, or if dull then 3 or 4 passes on the x22, then to the x4.

 

[Wrench]

You should be able to feel the burr. You can check with your finger or a toothpick on the side the burr should have rolled to. If you're worried about over working the edge, dye it with a sharpie. Once the color is wiped off to the edge, you are there.... or at least within a pass.

I don't like to make more than a pass or two on one side before swapping. If you get all the way to the edge working one side only, you are going to be lopsided OR you are wasting blade material as you square up the grind.

 

[JTR11]

How do you use a paper to check the burr?

If you take a thin piece of paper you can watch/feel it catch on the burr. If it glides right over the edge you know to keep going and raise the burr a little more.

 

[mattflint]

I only use my work sharp these days with a leather belt w/ dia emulsion and polishing belts for tanto tipped broad heads.
You can order pretty well any belt under the sun for them. If I am grinding on a stone or belt for any significant time and not creating a burr. Im going to go to a lower grit. Especially on a belt system. Higher grit belts create heat(all do, just the higher the grit the hotter it gets faster). The time my blade is contacting the belt is critical in not over heating the apex.
The burr should be easy to feel just dragging your thumb from spine to edge across the edge. If in question I use my fingernail.

 

[Blackdog317]

Recently did all the kitchen knives (12-15). It took longer than expected to convert the flat ground factory edge to the convex edge you get from the workshop. I check for the burr with my thumbnail.

It took some practice to get used to that sharpener. Still learning actually. But it is getting easier and the blades shouldn't take as long next time.

 

[TILLER]

Having to take a lot of passes with the course belt likely just means that you are hitting a shallower angle with the work sharp than the previous angle; more metal to take off. You’ll notice the height of the start edge moving higher up on the blade.
I feel for a burr with my thumb or fingernail. I think it helps to flip the burr from side to side and feel it flip over. You don’t need a big burr, but you also don’t want to miss a section of the blade and have to come back for it later in sharpening.

 

[TonySkyline]

Is their am angled ramp piece that helps you get the right angle? I'm nervous to try one of those types of sharpeners but I desperately need a good one. The small compact ones suck and my kitchen one is about beat

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

 

[Blackdog317]

There is a dial you can turn to adjust the angle.