Belt sander sharpener starter kit

Jmoser

Jmoser

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Finally thinking of adding a budget belt sander knife sharpening setup - are the Harbor Freight 1" machines utter garbage or good enough?
Thinking assorted belt grits 180-800 are more than enough to get started; get fancy with ultra fine >1000 and leather strop belt later.

Anything to absolutely avoid? Not knife making - just sharpening.
 
Several of us here use that setup, including me, and it works exactly like it should for my light duty needs. Ive not ran into any issues.
@BigWaylon @yard mongrel and @pinkbunny use similar setups more extensively than I do, maybe they have a more pointed response for you.
 
I have the HF sander and it does what it's supposed to do. I would definitely get the high grit and stropping belts though. I use those more often than the low grit belts. Once a blade is re-profiled to use the belts, you'll only need to strop it every so often to keep it sharp.

I've cooked a blade or two with it by letting them get too hot, and I rounded the tip on a nice pocket knife. Practice on junk knives more than you think you need to. They'll get scary sharp and you'll think you got this, but there are more mistakes to be made.
 
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Be prepared to be shocked (literally) if you buy cheap belts. 😁

Here’s my 4-page info/intro thread when I got started:

Beginner blade sharpening thread

I’ve watched enough videos that I’m going to give knife sharpening a shot. I’m going with the 1x30 belt sander method, and am going to use this thread to ask all my questions as I go. At this point I’ve bought nothing, but have the sander, belts, leather strop and compound in various carts...
carolinafirearmsforum.com carolinafirearmsforum.com

I’m on the north side of Charlotte. If you wanna stop by sometime and try it out, let me know. I’m not any kind of professional sharpener at all, but so far I have a 100% success rate on making them sharper than they were before I started. 🤣
 
Swing by Goodwill on the way home, they almost always have an assortment of bad kitchen knives.
 
Don't get the aluminum oxide belts, spend extra and get ceramic.
The AO build up a ton of static, and you'll start getting shocks while sharpening, which can cause you to mess up your blade.

I like :
80-120 - coarse reprofiling, like fixing chip
400 - setting profile
800 - refining profile
1200 - Final profiling, you should see 'feathers' on the edge when you're done if everything went well

Leather strop with jewlers rouge - Knock off burr, polish, get scary sharp.
 
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I don't bolt mine down, too easy to apply too much pressure. I actually prop mine up in the front so I can better see my edge angle.

Take all the safety crap off so you can change belts easier. pinkbunny taught me that.

Do not pull the tip of the knife past the lateral median of the belt or you'll lose the tip of the knife.
 
Jmoser said:
Finally thinking of adding a budget belt sander knife sharpening setup - are the Harbor Freight 1" machines utter garbage or good enough?
Thinking assorted belt grits 180-800 are more than enough to get started; get fancy with ultra fine >1000 and leather strop belt later.

Anything to absolutely avoid? Not knife making - just sharpening.
Click to expand...
Should be fine
 
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