Any strong opinions on either one of these?

Please don't make me spend 4 figures.

Whaddya gonna do wid 'em, Ken? (That's my contractor dialect.)

Initially? Sharpen my lawnmower blade (obviously not at the same time.)

Vise would just be generally useful. The bench grinder might theoretically let me sharpen kitchen knives and all that, but I think the vise is going to be more immediately important.

The best vice for my money is made by Record. You want to make sure you get the made in England model. Great quality.

Greg

You will not sharpen your kitchen knives on a bench grinder. Verboten. Use a Chefs Choice sharpener. Horrors.

I got a perfectly nice vice at Harbor Freight.

Ken.C

The bench grinder might theoretically let me sharpen kitchen knives

Ken you might want to hurry up and retract that line, especially with what you have written under your signature line. I mean I wouldn't want any under covered police detectives showing up at your home, trying to solve an unsolved crime.

Ditto the kitchen knives nay-nay, Ken. Tom's our resident kitchen metro, so listen to him.

As for the vice, there are good one$ that come from the continent of mo$t of our forefather$, and then there are perfectly acceptable ones for very small $$. It only needs to do two things well, screw in and out and stay parallel. Ha! That makes it a missionary tool. Ha! Missionary tool!

I would attach it to a bench, lock in those mower blades, and, with a $20 angle grinder from Tom's friends at HF, go for it.

n.b. the second paragraph contains no attempts at humor.

If you want a vise for woodworking, Record and Jorgenson make good choices. For just general vising(?), any heavy anvil type would be fine.

My bench grinder is a no-name model, just a motor with a shaft on both ends that cost about $25 used. I use it very infrequently but it works just fine for sharpening the lawnmower blades. DO NOT use a bench grinder for kitchen knives or fine chisels. They will get too hot and lose temper.

Geez, guys. I kinda wanted to visit Ken's house and use his exquisitely sharp kitchen nubs.

Y'alls are no fun.

For the time being, I clamped the blade to my table saw and wrapped some sandpaper around the table saw blade and just waved the lawnmower blade around that went at it with a file and my dremel. Finally, a use for the dremel.

OK, so I don't need an in$ane vi$e, most likely. I'm not doing crazy woodworking stuff just yet, but it would come in handy in a number of cases.

Thanks for the advice yet again, guys.

You don't need to sharpen you blades that often, and if you think they need sharpening, just run them up to a local hardware store or mower repair shop. They will do a correct job in sharpening the blades. I've got the same Zero Turn Commercial mower for about 7-8 yrs now, and have only had to sharpen them 4-5 times. Push mowers are pretty cheap, you might just get a new one.

I let my lawn guy worry about keeping his lawnmower blades sharp, I use my Harbor Freight vise and cheap Task Force bench grinder for stuff I actually enjoy messing around with. If you are going to have a work bench a vise is great tool to have, you'll probably use it more then you may initially think. The bench grinder, not so much.

Wilton is the staple for bench vises (metal type). Wood working is a different animal altogether. There is a very good knife sharpening system that uses a wheel on a bench grinder, and different compounds along with a polishing wheel. I tried it and it works amazingly. Kinda spooky to use though. I'd probably look for a system with a holder, verse the type where you hold the knife by hand.

I just bought a 4.5" vise from Home Despot. Cheap, but it'll do the job for now.

Oh irony of ironies.

After I spent that time sharpening the blade and cleaning the mower and changing the oil, etc, etc, I was mowing the strop near the street, slipped off the curb, and bent the blade.

Talent.

Consider it practice for the next blade. The sharpening part, not the bending part.

Yeah, I couldn't help but notice that the blade I bought was substantially less sharp than the one I bent.

I'm not touching it.

Ken, i have a vice and a bench grinder from harbor freight.

this is the vice i have
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-inch-swivel-vise-with-anvil-67039.html

this is the bench grinder
http://www.harborfreight.com/8-inch-bench-grinder-39798.html

If your going to sharpen your lawnmower blade on your own Ken, you should also invest in one of these....
http://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Mower-Blade...3312&sr=1-1


The harbor freight vice and grinder that i linked you to work very well for the money, I do a decent amount of metal work.. These two items get used quite regularly at my house. For the money you can't go wrong... Are they as "high quality" as other options... No, but they do the job just fine, and cost a fraction of what the premium product does...

I end up sharpening every new blade before I put it on the mower.

Hey Ken,

You will find your vice super handy for tons of things. Nothing like having a third arm sometimes.

Here are some other good things to know when you tackle sharpening a lawn mower blade. I learned at least one of them the hard way so I thought I would share.

If you are just honing the fine edge, I personally think a large hand file is a better tool. It's easier to not change the correct angle and easier to keep things in balance. If you can hand file it twice a season or at least every season, you may never need to go back to the extra steel stealing of a grinder. It doesn't actually take much longer either if you have a good file. It's really amazing what a good file can do.

Angle. Be careful to keep the same angle when using a grinder. It's easy to change the angle when you can take off so much steel so quickly. My push and tractor are 40 and 45 degrees respectively. A flatter angle might seem better but it will chip easier. Also, remember your grinding disk is round. You need to keep things even or the roundness will give you too thin an edge which may be sharper but is more prone to chipping.

Balance. The other easy thing to do with a grinder is to remove a bit more on one side or the other. If the blade is not balanced, you will get bad vibrations. I know, I've done it.

Heat. Don't press down hard with the grinder or use it too long without giving the metal time to cool. If you heat the metal too much, it will lose it's temper and will chip and wear faster. If it changes colour, you created too much heat.

Wow, really?

Hitting lawnmower blades with bench grinders and Dremels?

File. Just a file. And a blade balancer, or something that works as one.

Grinders... yeesh... meatball surgery.

Bren R.

I think you said you wanted to sharpen kitchen knives too? This is what I use for that:
http://www.theedgemasters.com/Knife-Sharpening-System.html

I'm sure it would do a fantastic job on lawn mower blades, but it'd be waaay overkill.

I need to do something for sharpening kitchen knives, but I suspect I just need to get a supply of stones. I'm afraid I have not heard great things about electric sharpeners, and although I've paid to have it done by a pro once, it was pretty expensive.

I promise I'll be nice to my lawnmower blade and my kitchen knives. <contrite>

Ken, I bought one of these from Amazon. I've only used it a few times, but I'm liking it.

I like the warning on the strap:

CAUTION: YOU'RE HOLDING A KNIFE IN THE OTHER HAND

I have one of those that i use for my pocket knife.. I have a Benchmade pocket knife, and this tool works well in sharpening it.. I included the brand because Benchmade blades are some of the hardest blades around....

For our kitchen knives (we have a full set of Shun) we now only use this; the absolute best sharpener I've ever used for knives. If you want to be able to shave when you're done, you'd need the fine/x-fine, followed by stropping with leather or news paper - no kiding.

For lawn mower blades, I use an angle grinder with a 120 grit flap-disc and a bubble balancer to make sure each end is weighted evenly. If not, it starts out as a vibration, then turns into a blown bearing, then parts start to fly - it's not pretty.

You'll never get blades sharper than this system...

http://www.sharpeningwheels.com/new/

I used to take pride in putting a razor sharp edge on a hunting knife with stones, till my buddy showed me his knives where he used the wheels.... They are paper wheels, not to be confused with stone or abrasive wheels. Good idea to start out with junk knives first though, as it does take a bit of practice to figure it out, but once you get it, you can sharpen a set of kitchen knives in about ten minutes. And do not position the blade against the rotation of the wheel (yes, some people do). I recommend the 10" X 1.25" wheels, as I find it easier to keep the blade perpendicular to it.

Bren, as always, you are able to take what it took me 8 paragraphs to write and effectively summarize it in a few sentences. I wish I had that skill.

Murph, learn to do this:


"yup".

Wow. You guys are serious. And educational. I thank you.

I absolutely believe that the stone, belt-sander and Mike's Wheelie System prove outstanding, state-of-the-art edges.

We have Forschner and Henckels knives. I've been using the Chef's Choice electric sharpener for years.

Here's why: I actually USE it. A couple times a week, at least. Doing so takes no setup, no trip to the garage, and no skill.

If I tried to switch to one of those other, better systems, I would simply find them too much trouble, and would sharpen the knives less frequently.

So, this is an instance where I have decided to forsake "the perfect" for "the good".

I can't believe that I'm the guy who ISN'T taking some process to its extreme. Occasionally, you guys make my level of tense look good to my wife. Thanks for that.

Well Tom I reckon I better tell the story.... I am much like you. Unless the blade is one of my hunting blades, sharp is good enough. In a past life, I was a commercial fisherman, then I spent a great deal of time under water in the service. Fisherman and divers know that a knife is not just a tool, but something that will be needed some day to save their lives, or someone else's life. But after that life was over, I learned the value of time. Good enough is sometimes good enough. The reason I went all high tech with this is because my buddy got me into it. About ten years ago, his wife, and my then wife, now ex-wife got suckered into waterless cookware packaged with some high dollar knifes. By buddy and I got stuck with the bill (about five grand each). The damn knife sets were $1200, but bundled with the cookware, "A smokin' deal at $800!" - ya right... Excellent knives, but extremely difficult to put an edge on them, and even harder to keep an edge. I don't know what grade SS they are, or what temper, but they suck to sharpen. Over the years my bud and I would often commensurate over these G-damn knives and our G-damn wives and their G-damn 'waterless' cookware that we paid a fortune for, but yet the G-damn women would always use oil or water with the "waterless cookware" they JUST HAD TO HAVE. Then one day my bud told me to bring my G-damn kitchen knife set over and he would put an edge on them for me. Of course I thought he was full of shit, because I couldn't ever seam to do that, but I gave it a whirl. End of story, I bought a cheap 10" grinder and these wheels. I run the knives through them about every six months, or more. I use a steel on them before I use them.

Good story, except for the appalling lack of alcohol.

....I can't tell those stories on this sight.

Damn you, Mike. Now I'm looking at those Razor Sharp wheels.

I'm a man of few words, but each carries more weight... you know, like a mid-70s Elvis.

Bren R.