*Portable Sharpener*
This is a belt sander that I purchased from Harbor Freight on sale for $29.95, normally $39.95 and re-made into a sharpener that will put a fine edge on many items like scissors, swords any non-serrated edged knife, tweezers, small tools, and what ever else one may want to sharpen with the original sanding belts, or the modified belts I put together. This attached site I found 2 weeks after making my sharpener and I am glad I found it after as I may have purchased one, at a much higher cost from this site http://users.ameritech.net/knives/field.htm . The 12V model is $399.00, but for $50.00 I bought an inverter for my vehicle which I needed anyways. Now I have a truly portable sharpener I can take anywhere that operates on 12V or 120V. My total costs for this sharpener is $29.95, plus $14.95 for the carry case. The belts I used I got for no cost from my work, which is used to polish crankshafts. These belts are 1" wide 15Micron belts (1200 grit). These can be purchased for about $3.00 ea and can be bought up to 8000 grit Diamond powder for about $8.00 ea. The chart below shows the conversion to Micron.
Grit - Mesh - Micron Conversion
|
American Standard (Grit) |
Mesh |
Micron |
|
100,000 |
0-0.5 |
¼ |
|
60,000 |
0-1 |
1/2 |
|
14,000 |
0-2 |
1 |
|
13,000 |
1-2 |
1.5 |
|
9,000 |
2-3 |
2.5 |
|
8,000 |
2-4 |
3 |
|
5,000 |
2-6 |
4 |
|
4,500 |
4-6 |
5 |
|
2,800 |
5-10 |
7 |
|
1,800 |
6-12 |
9 |
|
1,400 |
8-20 |
14 |
|
1,200 |
10-20 |
15 |
|
1,050 |
12-25 |
18 |
|
800 |
20-30 |
25 |
The belts that you can buy for this belt sander are too coarse for finish sharpening that is why I had to modify other belts to do the job. The belts can be cut to fit and fastened together with contact cement and they will not come apart under normal use if you pressure the seams while drying in a vice. In the picture you can see the only modification I made to give it a more stable base to operate horizontally was a piece of wood 2" square with a piece of Velcro to retain it in place when inverted to operate the sander in a horizontal position rather than in the vertical like the sander was designed. You can see in one of the pic’s the short sword that I am sharpening; all edges get polished and sharpened in one motion. I used to use a Lansky sharpening system, or a stone and I can sharpen to a razors edge 10 knives in the time I can do one on their system or with a stone
If you want a truly versatile sharpener for all types of edged items this one fits the bill and is a whole lot faster that any stone, or other system I have seen in the past and with the original coarse belts you can use it vertically for many shop duties. At $29.95 is cheaper than most other’s on the market. Hope this helps you with putting a fine edge on all your blades.
Pike
www.alpharubicon.com
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