Wire Edge Prevention

[KnifeGrinders]

Thanks for the report KG. We have a question; your post says "While his own knives last through 4-5 steer carcasses (with steeling), our test knives lasted for 2 carcasses and performed well, though for a shorter period." Did he steel the knives provided by you as well?

Yes.
The knives I gave him are the same as his, only new, and he steeled them as he usually does, using his polished and fine-cut steels after approx. every 10 cuts.
His steeling reflexes are set to a different edge angle though, and with our low angle of 12 dps he must have been oversteeling the apex on our knives, and this might be contributing to them wearing quicker.

Anyway, I know I have to shorten the time the edge contacts the felt wheel rotating at high RPM, and seem to have found a solution by a small modification to the horizontal platform.

We are lucky we met this butcher as he can clearly explain what is wrong and what is good, and we've improved our sharpening working with him.
The very first knives we sharpened for him he discarded in the beginning of a boning session because of the wire edge and started me thinking about it 

So for the next boning our butcher will get 2 identical knives from us: one deburred on a felt wheel run on the half-speed grinder at ~1400 RPM, and the second deburred on the same felt wheel run on Tormek at 90 RPM, not knowing which is what - if the knives show no difference between themselves but dull quicker than his own knives, then it must be due to his steeling.

Thinking of steeling, it poses a significant effect on any change to knives one may plan in an established meat processing environment.
We know that their knives will perform better at 12 dps than the 20 dps they sharpen their knives at now, but suppose one day we sharpen all knives at a meat plant at 12 dps. Because they've been steeling their 20 dps knives for years, all operators will continue steeling the new 12 dps knives at the same 20 degrees angle as their muscle memory and reflexes can not change in one day. This steeling may kill edge in all available knives and cause a disruption to the production.
Another example - and this one is not a hypothetical supposition, but a real situation we've encountered - to improve edge holding, a pilot group of operators were given knives made of a harder steel. These knives were sharpened at the same edge angle as all knives in the plant. But because the operators use frequent grooved steeling on their softer steel knives, they continued it on the new harder knives - and the wear of the edge from the grooved (fine-cut) steeling zeroed advantage of the new knives. To see positives and savings from using the harder knives operators must be re-trained to increase ratio of smooth/polished steeling vs grooved on the new knives, but we all know that the most difficult change to make is behavioural.