Thank you very much grepper! I will forward your suggestions on to my son. You just don't know how useful a resource like this is to people like me. Since you have helped me, I would like to take this opportunity to, perhaps, help the BESS Exchange members.
While the BESS Exchange was the first forum that I worked up enough courage to post my question to it was not the first forum that I looked to for answers. When you ask someone of my limited skill set to "look for" or "feel for" indicators of one kind or another on a knife it immediately raises my anxiety level. Case in point: I have a drawer full of $10-$20 sharpening tools that don't seem to make knives any sharper. So I spent $150.00 on an electric sharpener. I read the instructions carefully and noted that I was supposed to "feel" for a burr on the knife edge. I never felt one. So, at the time, was that because the sharpener never created a burr or was it my inability to feel it? Guys like me simply lack the experience that you have in being able to answer the question. I put that knife sharpener back in it's box and that's where it stayed for almost two years until I bought a Sharp Pad and an edge tester. I watched the videos and read the sharp pad manual and armed with that new information got the electric back out of the box. I ground and ground and ground until I had a Eureka moment. The edge was rougher on one side than the other! I ran the edge through the final stages of the sharpener and then measured it. I don't remember the number but it wasn't good. I used the sharp pad then and it got much better. I used it some more and it got really good. For the first time in my life I felt as if I had actually sharpened a knife.
I have figured out since then that if you start off with really dull edges its going to take a very long time to make a burr on a knife edge when using even an expensive electric sharpener. Quite frankly, my sense of it is that I am overworking the sharpener. So now I periodically use my electric sharpener on a kind of maintenance basis. I simply never let them get too dull before I sharpen them again. The take away from this is that in my opinion people like me need edge testers more so than you do because we lack the experience that you have. I couldn't even suggest what you are supposed to do about this but I just wanted to make you aware that the problem exists out here with rank amateurs like me.
Oh yes one other problem out here that you probably never experience. Only recently has my wife stopped freaking out every time I pick up a knife to sharpen it. She's was certain that I was going to ruin it. Its hard to get better at something when someone is screaming in your ear. I doubt that you can do anything about that either. Just me venting.
While the BESS Exchange was the first forum that I worked up enough courage to post my question to it was not the first forum that I looked to for answers. When you ask someone of my limited skill set to "look for" or "feel for" indicators of one kind or another on a knife it immediately raises my anxiety level. Case in point: I have a drawer full of $10-$20 sharpening tools that don't seem to make knives any sharper. So I spent $150.00 on an electric sharpener. I read the instructions carefully and noted that I was supposed to "feel" for a burr on the knife edge. I never felt one. So, at the time, was that because the sharpener never created a burr or was it my inability to feel it? Guys like me simply lack the experience that you have in being able to answer the question. I put that knife sharpener back in it's box and that's where it stayed for almost two years until I bought a Sharp Pad and an edge tester. I watched the videos and read the sharp pad manual and armed with that new information got the electric back out of the box. I ground and ground and ground until I had a Eureka moment. The edge was rougher on one side than the other! I ran the edge through the final stages of the sharpener and then measured it. I don't remember the number but it wasn't good. I used the sharp pad then and it got much better. I used it some more and it got really good. For the first time in my life I felt as if I had actually sharpened a knife.
I have figured out since then that if you start off with really dull edges its going to take a very long time to make a burr on a knife edge when using even an expensive electric sharpener. Quite frankly, my sense of it is that I am overworking the sharpener. So now I periodically use my electric sharpener on a kind of maintenance basis. I simply never let them get too dull before I sharpen them again. The take away from this is that in my opinion people like me need edge testers more so than you do because we lack the experience that you have. I couldn't even suggest what you are supposed to do about this but I just wanted to make you aware that the problem exists out here with rank amateurs like me.
Oh yes one other problem out here that you probably never experience. Only recently has my wife stopped freaking out every time I pick up a knife to sharpen it. She's was certain that I was going to ruin it. Its hard to get better at something when someone is screaming in your ear. I doubt that you can do anything about that either. Just me venting.