Dave M - Kick this.

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I just ordered the "KnifeRobot Built-In" model. :robot:





PS - I will charge EXTRA for fixing edges that this thing creates. :D
 
Whaaaat? Still a bit curious how they are able to pull that off! :detective:
 
So they built a chef's choice that saves you the hassle of pushing and pulling the knife to and fro. Big deal. Call me when they build a CNC scorpion.
 
Check out how it works video, it is a self-learning CNC machine:

[video=youtube;s9Ay0Cc82zk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Ay0Cc82zk[/video]
 
Welcome to the forum krobot. You're welcome to participate in accordance with the rules here. Should warn you up front this is a (mostly) civil but tough crowd.
 
Cool if you don't enjoy sharpening...may not be much more than entertainment around these parts...:biggrin:
 
Welcome to the forum krobot. You're welcome to participate in accordance with the rules here. Should warn you up front this is a (mostly) civil but tough crowd.

Hi Dave,

Nice to meet you all

Feel free to ask tough questions :)

We knew we had an incredible innovation...

We hope you’ll be a part of this journey.

Best,
Jim

Edit - Jim did you receive pm re: promotion? Promoting the product or business is limited to our advertising sponsors. After initial splash there may be some questions about your product. Pls feel free to answer them. Pls feel free to contribute to other parts of the forum but not promoting your product.
 
Hi Dave,

Nice to meet you all
Feel free to ask tough questions :)

There are just three weeks left to reserve your KnifeRobot.

We hope you’ll be a part of this journey.

Best,
Jim

I think you have to pay to say that...

BTW, all your market research and you wound up here...I hope you didn't pay too much for that research:lol2:

Best,
Jim
 
This looks like a good machine for lots of knives. You won't need this for a knife ground to zero of course. Most knives, other than thin kitchen knives, are ground down to between .010-.025 thousands at the edge.

Automated sharpening is needed. 99.99% of all knife users don't know how to sharpen knives. >50% of knife makers can't sharpen either.

Most commercial sharpeners use belts to raise a burr.

These guys will probably also build industrial sharpeners for companies who make certain quantities of knives every year.

Hoss
 
Could be me but i still fail to see how this is going to make a noticeably better edge than an electric chef's choice model. Principle of the sharpening itself seems to be the same. Which is a fine one for most knife uses, I just don't see the point of making it all much more complicated. More stuff that can break or malfunction and you have to pay for. Sure it saves you five minutes but that hardly makes any difference for a home environment.
 
The slack belt produces a convex edge.

Hoss
 
It is certainly possible to build a robotic sharpener that will do a superb job, and it would be better than most people could ever hope to achieve. I actually explored this possibility with a friend of mine who is a Ph.D roboticist. The trouble is to do it right you need a) a real industrial grade, multi axis robotic arm that costs a couple of thousand $ used and, more to the point, (b)someone who really understands the programming of robotic arms along with c)someone who is a master sharpener to provide the knowledge that gets programmed into the arm. It would take a fair amount of time and money to do it right! But if you got the right kind of arm and combination of talents and did the programming right, it would do a truly amazing job. I wouldn't be surprised if some Japanese companies do this in fact since many of the best robotic arms and roboticists are in Japan but it wouldn't cost a few hundred $: my friend thought he could buy the equipment used and get it programmed for about 50k given how expensive a roboticist's time is. (The equipment costs are actually the smallest part of this.) Angles, pressure and asymmetry would be completely programmable etc. (You could think of the result as an automated version of the Ukrainian machine: http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/s...y-what-you-want-about-Edgepro-this-kicks-butt for example but with more joints and so capable of doing an even better job. ....)
 
This is the natural, yet unfortunate, evolution that kickstarter has created. Flood the market with cheap knives, creating a demand for sharpening. Yet the R.O.I on a robot sharpening system, that is exponentially more expensive than the cheap knives it sharpens, is below zero. It will be a matter of years or even months before there is a new model or better robot system, that is how technology works. Why would someone spend more money on this then they did on their knives? Why would a company's first round of funding that is making a $5000 machine be 20,000? that shows limited growth potential and confidence. And who in their right minds would invest a quarter of the funding schedule without receiving equity?
 
$5000 "Built in for Chef's" model?! Who the **** are these clowns?!

"Yes hello, I make $13 an hour to man a controlled grease fire and think an $80 Wusthof from Bed, Bath, and Beyond is the pinnacle of knifemaking. Can I buy your robot please?"
 
Max length 10". I suppose they never heard of 270 gyutos or sujis.
No grit size mentioned anywhere...
And a boatload of failure points!
 
Banging out coarse edges that get thicker and thicker and thicker behind the edge.
I don't know why all these outdoor guys don't care about that. I guess it doesn't matter when you're only cutting rope?
 
How does it sharpen tips? One of the many advantages of learning freehand is adjusting technique to match the type of knife you are sharpening. In the industry you have to sharpen chef knives, boning, petty, cleavers. In some cases single bevel Japanese blades.

You can get a medium King stone for 25 bucks. I have found that most people of both genders can get an even burr heel to tip & remove it without messing up the edge.

Not being a purest learning freehand esp. for cooks is the most efficient way to put an edge on a knife quickly.

Not against robots. Had to make sushi for banquets & outlet buffets. Used a machine that you feed the rice in the hopper & it comes as uniform sushi rice with a little crease on the bottom. Line them up on a sheet pan. Wasabi goes on quick & then your topping that has been cut with a quality yanagiba ( no robot can sharpen). It helps to know how to make good sushi rice.
 
I don't know about how their machine can do the tip right or deal with thickness behind the edge but my friend assures me (after watching a bunch of videos of people like Jon sharpening) a roboticist could get a medium high end industrial robot arm to do most if not all of what a hand sharpener does, there simply aren't that many variables or axes of motion we use when sharpening. (You would obviously have to have slightly different programs for different kinds of knives .. .)
 
I'm a mechanical engineer myself and i'm also pretty sure it can be done. Also the techniques used to produce razorblades can be ported to a knife as well. Gets a bit more difficult since one has to allow for the curve but make a thin and razorsharp knife fully automatically can definitely be done. I don't think that matters much though. An automated process still costs money and I don't think removing the last manual steps will bring a significant cost-saving.
 
This will never replace the guy in a truck with a bench grinder who charges $3 a pop!
 
You know I've been around a lot of Europe bu I've never seen a guy with a truck sharpening knives. Am I missing something or is that a typical American phenomenon. To my surprise here where I live most shoemaker shops offer sharpening ice skates but even them none offer knife sharpening service. Needless to mention the condition i find knives in in most homes.
 
Back
Top