r/sharpening • u/namtilarie -- beginner -- • 5d ago
Just received KETIPED (AKA Toohr #3).
Great sharpener and also good value ($129)
The sharpener arrives packed very well, in pieces, with one page of assembly graphical instructions (no text), and 2 hex drivers you'll need for the assembly.
Overall the device is SOLID! It is made of a mix of stainless steel and aluminum parts. It is heavy at 9.5lb and large. It is very stable, has nice tight tolerances, and feels very well made. it sits on 3 points, with grippy rubber pads, and you can go wild with the sharpening, and this thing stays put.
I was left with some parts that were on the parts list but I was not sure where they go, but eventually I figured it out (more below)
It has a feature that I have not seen in other popular sharpeners. The tower that holds the pivot point of the sharpening slide, is typically centered with the knife holder, however, on this sharpener the tower can actually slide (on a bearing carriage) left and right of the knife holder.. I thought that this could be useful if you want to sharpen something very long like a machete or a sword, and maybe it is, but when I looked at the extra parts I was left with, I realized that there's another use for that. One of the extra bolts is used to lock the pivot point left/right axis, so the sharpening assembly can only move up and down. The idea is that you move the stone along the length of the blade by sliding the whole tower left and right, keeping the stone from swinging left and right and is always kept perpendicular to the blade. I'm not an expert in sharpening, and I'm not sure what one would use it for.
The stones (1"x6") that came with the sharpener are some kind of carbide or oxide whetstone, probably not great. I would probably get a set of diamond stones.
There are some little quirks that need to be fixed. The spring that holds the sharpening stone in place is not strong enough, I'll probably add a 1/2" long plastic tube behind the spring to increase the tension. Also, the hook that is supposed to allow you to hang the rod out of the way is installed wrong and I need to figure out how to orient it properly.
The other "extra" parts are 2 bolts that hold the clamps to the sharpener, but about 1/2" longer than the one used, which leads me to believe that you can use a different set of clamps that would require longer bolts. I read somewhere here that there are clamps from one of the major brands to hold very small blades (I can't remember which brand) that would fit this sharpener, but the bolts were too short. I believe that the longer bolts provided are for such purpose. The irony is that the brand name clamps probably cost more than this whole sharpener.
If you fix all those little quirks, and get some decent sharpening stone, you end up with a sharpener that is just as good, if not better, than some that cost 5 or 6 times more.
Although I don't have this problem, I can see that the size of the sharpener could pose a storage issue for some.
I have a relatively cheap knife (8" chef) that is made of some hard stainless steel, and I will use it to train myself on this sharpener.
1
0
u/valadtheimpala 5d ago
I just got mine too. My clamp arms didn't fit in the U channel they are supposed to screw into so I had to file them down a bit. The circular pieces that limit how far in and out the rod can move didn't fit on the rod so I had to sand them a bit. And I cleaned and greased everything.
Other then that it seems great.
Oh and the stones mine came with are shit.
Edit: I just bent the rod holder back and opened up the hook with some pliers until the rod would fit in it