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.