I was really bored this week so I decided to have some fun comparing a knife blade sharpened with the WEPS system vs local professional sharpening services here in San Diego, California. There are several of these services that have a booth outside of health food stores on various days of the week.

I used this old cheap beatup Winchester knife:


All of the following photos are at 400x on the Veho microscope.

First, I sharpened it with my WEPS at 20 degrees (up to 1000 diamond) and then put a microbevel on it at 25 degrees:


Then I distroyed the edge with a 100 diamond stone and took it to the first professional sharpener who spent about 60 seconds on his belts. He charged me $2 and here's his result:



Then I distroyed his edge and took the knife to another professional sharpener the following day. He also only spent about 60 seconds on his belts, also charged me $2, and his result is even worse than the first one. It even left an obvious bur on one side of the blade:



Below are before and after photos of the point of the knife:

First the knife point after my sharpening with the WEPS:


And now the knife point after the first sharpener ruined it:


I know this was a silly experiment but I was curious.

Not silly at all! It just proves that the WEPS is ready and able to act as a professional sharpening machine...a little slower but with amazing results.
Well done!

Leo

Hey HM,

Great shots!

I preach this exact subject all the time (hand vs. belt). It is amazing the friction you get from people on this subject.

Well done holymolar, two dollars "not" well spent.

Would be an eyeopener for many customers if they could see this.

Thanks.

Great idea, holymolar, and may I add, your initial edge looks awesome! I like how you changed direction for the microbevel.

Did you by chance notice what belt or belts they used to sharpen? Did they make any effort to remove the burr?

Great post... not silly at all!

Great idea, HM and incredibly sad results! Do you live in the country that still has capital punishment?

On a positive note: some time ago a "professional" sharpener managed to ruin a nice (EUR 100 +) knife I owned. The edge was black when it came off of his 200 grit belt sander, which completely ruined the heat treatment. I still own the knife:



Below you can see the knife compared to a similar one I sharpened myself on the Wicked Edge:



This "professional" sharpener has retired by now, which is a good thing for everyone.

The positive note is that this got me into sharpening my own knives .

Follow-up. I took the same knife to yet another professional sharpener at another healthfood store. The sharpener was female this time and she seemed to take great pride in her work. I made up a story and told her that a friend of mine had sharpened the knife and it felt rough on one side of the edge but I didn't want to say anything to my friend. Could she make it better? She felt the edge and said that it must have been sharpened on a belt sander but mostly on one side. She also said that my friend didn't hone it. She said "let me give it a try". She put it on her belt sander and then on her ceramic hone machine. After feeling the edge, she redid it on the belt sander and honed it twice more. She spent maybe 2 minutes (twice as much time as the other two people) and charged me the usual $2. When she was happy with it, she handed it back to me and said "Check it now. That should be better". It was.

Here is her edge:


Of course this doesn't compare to the WEPS edge but, compared to the other two attempts, this was pretty good.

What I learned is - it matters who the sharpener is and their skill level - with those professional sharpeners. And, of course, nothing compares to the WEPS system.

holymolar wrote:


Yup... and maybe that they spend a bit more than 60 seconds.

Nice follow up!

I guess throwing a knife against a belt sander makes you a sharpener about as much as changing a couple springs makes you a gunsmith, eh?

I suppose that sounds a bit crass, but this sort of thing grinds my gears since there's so much of it in the gun world. It reflects badly on those of us who dedicated ourselves to the trade every time some guy sets up a fly by night outfit and does shoddy work. Anyway, rant mode disengaged!

It's good to see one diamond in the rough taking pride in her work, and not just making a quick minute rice job out of it to collect a couple dollars.

Great proofs HM!

Better, maybe? But, better than what?

IMHO that is still a very rough edge definition (especially if a high end knife), even if the sharpener took their time. If I saw that on a Masamoto I would have to go change my underware.