Me: "Knife guys are weird, I don't know why they need 500 different knives they'll never use"

Also me: "How the hell did I end up with 500 different knives that I didn't even know about??"



So after yet another failed attempt at sharpening on my stones, of which I've owned many, and on which I've failed to sharpen any knives acceptably over the last 20 years (actually, I think I managed it once, which makes sense statistically), I went to Harbor Freight yesterday and bought a cheap 1x30 belt sander.

Yes, I understand that belt sanders aren't ideal. Yes, I know I should learn to sharpen on stones. Yes, I know there's a chance of damaging them with excess heat. I don't care, this is happening. Maybe one day. I'm not a knife guy, like with 3D printers I just want them to work, I don't want to tinker, I have too many hobbies for that. My more expensive knives will get sent off to professionals, most of my other stuff is low end. The most expensive of the bulk of my knives are Leatherman and SOG, nothing special, so don't worry about it

Preemptive bitching complete.

Okay, for those of you guys who have done this, any recommendations on belts and procedures? I understand HF abrasives are pretty crap, so I'd prefer to get decent quality (preferably US made) elsewhere.

Mod ideas are also welcome. I know some people have modified their sanders to drop the speed, but a casual search didn't find the thread I was looking for about it.

All info is welcome

Lansky 5 stone kits are nearly idiot proof. I thought belt sanders were only used for damaged knives.

...

Well as with most HF products, you need to function check it and fix whatever's wrong before using it, lol. With mine it was in the upper bearing assembly, the center rod the bearing rides on was too big and had mashed the bearing race into the bearings so badly the whole thing chattered like crazy at first, had to take it apart and reduce the OD of it by chucking into my HF drill press that I also had to fix before using it.

Anyhoo, practice on junk before trying to do a knife, like a lot. Then do whatever crappy kitchen knives you have first. It will remove material FAST, only takes a couple passes on a 400 grit belt and you will have a sharp toothy edge that you will need to work on just a bit with a ceramic rod to get the burr off, then strop it and should turn out okay.

It will chatter, especially with a cheap belt, if you hold it on the provided platen, it just will, so be prepared to be happy using the slack area and having a convex (appleseed) grind, this actually works great for kitchen knives as it gives the skinny blade a lot of edge support and slices very smoothly. There are mods to the platen and of course to the machine itself as you mentioned if you want a straight bevel. You can also flip the machine over so the belt is running horizontal and away from you so you see better and hold a better angle.

Just two quick passes, maybe 3 at the most. And if a knife is already pretty sharp and has a decent looking bevel don't use it at all. Diamond steels work great for just bringing back an edge, after that it's strop strop strop. Double sided paddle strop, 500 grit compound on one side, 1500-1800 on the other.

This is what works for me, your mileage may vary. I'm like you, for decades all I had was a fixed blade hunting knife and a pocket folder, and I didn't learn to sharpen, when they got dull i'd go to the monthly gun show and have the guy there do 'em for like 2 bucks. Now I find myself collecting knives and they're all over the place.

Belt sander saves a hella amount of time with the dozen cheap kitchen knives I have, once a month I take 'em all out to the garage and 20 minutes later they're all sharp again.

I'd get a p120 Cubitron and an A30 Trizact and a leather belt treated with 3 micron diamond spray, or green compound, or Tormek paste.

Watch some of Curry Custom Cutlery videos on YT for inspiration.

Just FYI, "they" make 1x30 leather belts. They will give you a nice (sharp) finish once you're done with the grit belts.

Dammit! Missed by a minute.

Ooh, leather belts, did not know about that, that would save a lot of stropping time. Thanks!

That seems pretty aggressive, is that more for creating/re-doing the bevel itself?

Slow  down the rpms if you can. However I don’t think you can slow the cheap HF belt sander.  Try not to burn the blade. You can buy angled edge guides but free hand works.

It is fairly coarse, but coarse belts cut way cooler than fine belts, and way faster. One to two passes per side for kitchen knives before a single pass on the 600 grit.

As with anything, technique matters most, pressure, speed, smoothness, not dragging tips off the belt, etc.

@Skunkeye, Thanks for that, and thanks also for the heads-up on those videos, went and watched them yesterday and learned some good info, my 1x30 is in the shop now and waiting on it to warm up a little here and i'm going to do some tweaking on it based on some of that stuff I learned yesterday.

Thank you guys for the help so far. I'm off to order some belts

I just bought nice new kitchen knives, so my old cheapo chef's knife will be the first victim.

@Skunkeye, well here we are a couple months later and it finally warmed up some, so I got out to the shop and performed the mods from those videos you recommended, and wow, what a difference, everything is so much smoother even with my cheap belts, I also took the angle grinder and cut that section on the top, so I can now do mild hollow grinds too.

So just wanted to say thanks!

Been there and done that. Started with the 1x30 and while its performance is barely adequate for making knives, the experience I leaded using it was invaluable. Red label belts are pretty good and ceramic belts run cooler and last longer. You can also buy jigs that will help you maintain the bevel angle until you get the hang of it.  I moved up to a 2x42 (big improvement) and used that for a few years and then I sucked it up and bought an Ameribrade 2x72: Expensive but sooo much better

This is useful as you learn about bevel angles. Eventually free hand works better. Keep in mind you can only put convex edges on with a 1x30 but it does work well the fix the primary grinds which are seldom uniform on most production knives. As pointed out above, leather strops are amazing: Just don’t leave them on the belt sander or they will stretch to the point of no longer fitting

This.

I am a hopeless idiot with stones, got a worhttps://www.worksharptools.com/shop/benchtop/powered/knife-tool-sharpener-mk2/

Start out with a blade that has no serrations and that is pretty straight and use low RPMs. Get a feel for it.

You can’t slow down the harbor freight one very well but to be honest, it’s not that fast. I attempted to use a router speed control and it didn’t work well. Learning when to duck the blade in a bucket of water is part of the learning process

I have a Kalamazoo 1X42 belt sander that I have been using for close to 10 years for sharpening.

When I bought mine I went to Goodwill and bought a handful of cheap kitchen knives to practice with.

You can definitely get one super hot if you are not careful and you can also round off a tip pretty easily.

Watch some videos and then practice.

See how long it takes to get a blade hot and round off a tip on purpose to see how that happens.

The biggest reason for getting a blade too hot is not using a coarse enough grit to start with.

If you are not getting a burr after a reasonable number of passes either you need a coarser grit or you are not sanding all the way to the edge.

Use a sharpie to blacken the edge and that way you can tell if you are sharpening all the way to the edge.

There are devices to help you hold an angle but I suggest learning to freehand. It will take some practice but after a while gets pretty easy.

Walter Sorrels videos are very informative. He is a master but he does a wonderful job dumbing stuff down and explaining how to use entry grade equipment

No problem. Have fun!

Once you get the hang of it, a good way to practice is to sharpen knives for people. I do quite a bit for folks from church.  Most of their knives are cheap, and so dull that any attempt at sharpening is a dramatic improvement. They are so happy when you fix a tip or get rid of a recurve that prevents a clean cut on the chopping board. Scissors from the sewing ladies might follow.

It is funny when your customers (I don't charge anything) gradually get more accustomed to using a sharp knife, they'll start having them sharpened more frequently and you can teach them to use honing rods and to stop using glass cutting boards.