Sharpening grinder knives

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I sharpen my knife and plates on a large wetstone I have. Coarse on one side fine on the other, have never had to use the coarse side. I have a old comercial 220 volt grinder with several plates and do around 20 deer and 5 or 6 hogs a year. My uncle used to take the plates to the shop he worked at and had them run on a table grinder to flaten them out, that worked great .
 
Yep, I've sharpened mine, it seemed to help a little bit, but they were still pretty new. It cleaned up the plates more than anything.

I bought a new stone (about $5 at HD) to insure that the stone was dead flat. Some light oil and rubbed the knife and plates as evenly as I could on the stone.

The plates seem to be made of a mild steel, and the edges of the holes came out pretty sharp. My knife however feels like it's hardened and tempered stainless, and I really don't think I removed much metal at all. Didn't hurt it in any case.
 
My grinder is still new, so I haven't tried to sharpen anything. Now being a woodworker, I have to know how to sharpen things. The grinder knife should be sharpened just like a plane iron or chisel. That is, flatten the back and then hone the bevel. I would use 'float glass' (a plate glass...get at glass shops) with moistened sandpaper on it. Flatten the plates and flat side of the blade on this. Use a shaped stone to touch up the cutter bevel. Now, if any of these parts are hardened only stones will work. Or, get your wallet out, DMT diamond plates for flattening, and a diamond stick for the bevel. Whatever, don't let things get real dull before doing something.
 
The plate and the blades wear so they have to be matched to grind really well. Replacement is the only option if you want really good results but if " It doesn't hurt" is good enough then sharpen them. I grind a lot of meat in a week. Maybe thousands of pounds and a grinder plate and blade last many months. ALWAYS LUBRICATE THE PLATE AND BLADE WITH FAT BEFORE YOU START A DAY OF GRINDING. Most important rule. Buy new ones, both plate and blade and take care of them . The other problem can be movement in the worm and can be fixed by adding a spacer behind the worm to push it forward and onto the plate more securely. Good grinders have an adjustment for this and yours may have just adjusted itself.
 
I have had good success sharpening the plates using a pane of glass (very flat) with a sheet of 220 wet paper and vegetable oil. And yes it does make a different. I have also had a friend take to work and use a surface grinder, obviously easier on me. For the blade I have used the vise and file / stone method.
 
I have sharpened my plate and knife with the high grit wet sandpaper on glass trick. I think that they did get better but I am still not all that happy with their sharpness. For $19.95 I can get them sharpened professionally. That might be near the price of replacing them with cheap disposables but I think it is worth it for more expensive plates and knives. I bought mine about 13 years ago for a decent price but it looks like I might need to pay upwards of $150 to replace them now. Really need to take care of them!
 
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