how to sharpen a serrated blade in 90 seconds

[paul wheaton]

Wow, that's fast.

And I had no idea that sharpening a blade could be that fast!

When I saw he was gonna just use the rag wheel buffer, I thought it was gonna be lame, but the knife went from useless to razor sharp!

I have two questions:

1) what is he talking about when he says "wire edge"?

2) what does he keep doing by running the blade on the wood every ten seconds or so?

http://www.youtube.com/paulwheaton12#p/u/0/SOFcnP79bBU

Please forward to folks that might be interested in this sort of thing.

Many thanks!

[keydl]

The 'wire edge' is metal that won't hold against the wear of the grinding wheel and turns back ( folds from lack of rigidity).

The buffing wheel is 'charged' with grit so that it acts like a flexible grinding wheel - with less heat. Stroking the wood folds the edge that is not thick enough to be self supporting under pressure and the resulting edge is a radius like a good axe - with a steeper angle. Excellent working edge, a good sharp wire wheel will do almost as well. Sharpen the ends of the wires and shape a stone at the same time.

I use a stack of 3 buffs - non sewn, charged with 400 grit silicone carbide in wax.