Meat Plant Research

[Mike Brubacher]

"These guys are the most demanding customers of ours... and the least paying tight arses."

Hey! Let's not be so hard on us "least paying tight areses" KG! I grew up in a German community where everybody was so tight we didn't have hymnals in the church. Everyone was waiting for them to come out in paperback. We almost lost the entire Los Angeles branch of the congregation when they heard that someone had  scattered a whole roll of pennies on the freeway.

Constant preoccupation with the expenditure of money  can be worrisome and filled with anxious moments. Especially if you're waiting for the price of Xanax to drop. So please have a little pity KG!

[Bud]

Those are good ones. My granddad refused to oil the hinges on the back door of their house even though my grandma rode him hard to do it. He told me he liked to hear the squeak when she went in or out because it reminded him of how much money he was saving on oil.

[Mike Brubacher]

You're going to have to let us in on your secret KG. If we read correctly your ceramic knives were sharpened to BESS 100 when your ceramic knife SET test began. We had trouble trouble breaking 300. We purchased some 1 X 30" diamond belts and a top-of-the-line Harbor Freight ($55.00) belt sander to run them on and went to work. It seems to us that ceramic blades like small diamonds. We couldn't get below 400 with the 30 micron and but then did get below 300 (288) when we switched to the 20 micron and very light pressure. Any suggestions for how we "all thumbs" Arizonans might up our game?

[Mark Reich]

Sounds like KG is edge leading with extremely fine abrasive. Can you do that, Mike?

Doesn't give me a lot of hope for sharpening my double sintered Kyocera....

[Mike Brubacher]

I know how to take the edge off if I'm sitting in a bar Mark but have yet to figure out how to put one on. Edge leading is definitely not my forte. I have a strong suspicion that 100 ceramic edges are likely an exercise in futility from a practical standpoint so am unlikely to make an attempt at acquiring  the skill set necessary to produce them. If 300 ceramic edges are prone to chipping then 100 edges can't be any better and, it would seem, worse.

Whether edge leading or trailing, most indicators are that little diamonds are the ticket.

[KnifeGrinders]

Not all that hopeless.
In this video we see them finishing ceramic knives on a felt buffer with what looks like a Green Rouge compound. Chromium and aluminium oxide cannot grind ceramic, but obviously they know what they do at Kyocera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqn7vcByIgo

[EOU]

Well it looks like we published this in the wrong forum the first time but that's OK. This work deserves to be published in two forums so here we go again!

Congratulations and thanks to KnifeGrinders for their fine and extensive work with the meat processing industry in Australia and New Zealand. Here, in part, is some of the evidence of that work with publication of a great article in "Australian Meat News".

                                                                                       


Great work and thank you very much KG!

[Bud]

That is really good stuff Mr. Knifegrinders! When you write the book can I buy a signed copy?

[KnifeGrinders]

That is really good stuff Mr. Knifegrinders! When you write the book can I buy a signed copy?

Appreciate the compliment, but I should not grab the credit for somebody else's work - I didn't write that article, it was written by the editor of the Australian Meat News on the materials released by the plant after he spoke to the plant operations and me.
It is a good factual article, but to my liking is heavy reading.

[EOU]

You made it happen though KG so thank you much for that.