10-26-2018, 07:12 AM
Ken,
There are several ironies in all of this.
1) I never wanted to have a business of any kind.
2) I never wanted to be doing sharpening at farmers markets. I was doing it to help my daughter with her struggling market and my sense of it before their location change was that having knife sharpening wasn't attracting any new customers. After their location change, their traffic was hugely increased but again, I don't think I was drawing anyone to the market that wasn't already there. The one, repeat customer came only for the sharpening and returned to their restaurant and did not do any other market shopping.
3) I never used the SJ stone at the market. It was there as an option, so at the very least it should have been left in the milk crate on the ground. And I didn't really use it on things I brought home to sharpen.
4) I really have not been using the SJ wheel much at all, even for my own sharpening. I was already moving in the direction of paper wheels. I did like it when I did use it, however.
5) My real mistake was in not checking to be sure the little ring that locks the leg support hinge of the folding table was in place. The table is a very cheap, plastic thing and I'd noticed the rings tended to lodge up the support arm and did not slide down to lock the joint. That is what failed, causing the table to collapse. My bad.
So much for my whining.
I can appreciate your dilemma with the photography business. If I were to try to run a business such as sharpening or photography (which I was into in the late 70s), I would likely have done it the same as you. I have the habit of consistently overbuying expensive tools for my machining and woodworking hobbies, but I don't mind as I am not trying to make them a business (oh, there it is again
). (I changed wording from "problem" to "habit" as I don't regard it as a problem.)
I agree with your thoughts on the Tormek/paper wheel combination for efficiency. My preferred combination at the markets was to use the SB stone and leather wheel honing. I did use the SG wheel graded fine when I wanted to refine the bevel more. While I had my diamond wheels there, I preferred not to use them and only did so when working on someone's higher end knives such as the Japanese knives (and they stayed in the milk carton, on the ground until and unless I needed to use them).
I did learn quite a bit about knife sharpening as a result, particularly that the leather wheel really does work when used as Mr. KnifeGrinders has shown us about guided honing at a higher angle. It also did lead to me learning how to free-hand hone as I developed enough of a feel from the guided honing. I believe I would not have, at least for a long time, learned to use the leather wheel not having done it at the markets. I also used the Norton 3X wheel you gave me for creating new bevels on really dull knives (and nearly all were), say rather than going to the coarse diamond wheel. I still feel like that much coarser grindstone removes metal faster than the Tormek DC wheel. I want one in 10" diameter! That is also why I am more interested in the belt grinder at this point.
Whew. Sorry for the verbosity. I'm trying to give Ken a run for it
.
Rick
There are several ironies in all of this.
1) I never wanted to have a business of any kind.
2) I never wanted to be doing sharpening at farmers markets. I was doing it to help my daughter with her struggling market and my sense of it before their location change was that having knife sharpening wasn't attracting any new customers. After their location change, their traffic was hugely increased but again, I don't think I was drawing anyone to the market that wasn't already there. The one, repeat customer came only for the sharpening and returned to their restaurant and did not do any other market shopping.
3) I never used the SJ stone at the market. It was there as an option, so at the very least it should have been left in the milk crate on the ground. And I didn't really use it on things I brought home to sharpen.
4) I really have not been using the SJ wheel much at all, even for my own sharpening. I was already moving in the direction of paper wheels. I did like it when I did use it, however.
5) My real mistake was in not checking to be sure the little ring that locks the leg support hinge of the folding table was in place. The table is a very cheap, plastic thing and I'd noticed the rings tended to lodge up the support arm and did not slide down to lock the joint. That is what failed, causing the table to collapse. My bad.
So much for my whining.
I can appreciate your dilemma with the photography business. If I were to try to run a business such as sharpening or photography (which I was into in the late 70s), I would likely have done it the same as you. I have the habit of consistently overbuying expensive tools for my machining and woodworking hobbies, but I don't mind as I am not trying to make them a business (oh, there it is again
). (I changed wording from "problem" to "habit" as I don't regard it as a problem.)I agree with your thoughts on the Tormek/paper wheel combination for efficiency. My preferred combination at the markets was to use the SB stone and leather wheel honing. I did use the SG wheel graded fine when I wanted to refine the bevel more. While I had my diamond wheels there, I preferred not to use them and only did so when working on someone's higher end knives such as the Japanese knives (and they stayed in the milk carton, on the ground until and unless I needed to use them).
I did learn quite a bit about knife sharpening as a result, particularly that the leather wheel really does work when used as Mr. KnifeGrinders has shown us about guided honing at a higher angle. It also did lead to me learning how to free-hand hone as I developed enough of a feel from the guided honing. I believe I would not have, at least for a long time, learned to use the leather wheel not having done it at the markets. I also used the Norton 3X wheel you gave me for creating new bevels on really dull knives (and nearly all were), say rather than going to the coarse diamond wheel. I still feel like that much coarser grindstone removes metal faster than the Tormek DC wheel. I want one in 10" diameter! That is also why I am more interested in the belt grinder at this point.
Whew. Sorry for the verbosity. I'm trying to give Ken a run for it
.Rick