The ice auger is one of the most common devices to help fishermen during winter fishing. But sometimes, after entering the pond, anglers are faced with the problem of blunt knives, which can lead to all fishing in a bad direction. Therefore, it is worth taking care of this problem in advance and understanding how to sharpen ice screw knives correctly at home, while using only available tools.
At first glance, such a process may seem rather complicated, although in reality it is not. Any angler can sharpen, regardless of his skills and knowledge in the field of metalworking. This also does not require additional tools – everything you need can be found in your own garage.
Correct sharpening at home
The speed of drilling the hole and the effort required depend on the angles of inclination and attack of the knives. By changing them, the angler can change the working properties of the drill. This is accomplished by installing various washers or blade pads.
But these angles are not the only ones that determine the quality of drilling. Undoubtedly, the sharpening of knives has a great influence on the speed and the effort expended on the passage of the hole, since it will be difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to drill ice with blunt blades.
An easy way to have sharp knives that are always sharpened is to constantly buy new ones as soon as the old ones become dull. But you can save money and learn how to sharpen the blades for an ice screw with your own hands.
To do this, a seemingly simple process will require some kind of abrasive element – a sharpener or sandpaper. The very shape of the stone does not really matter. It is much more important to have flat surfaces in it. It is better to use a fine or medium-grained abrasive, it is undesirable to use a rough one, otherwise you can easily spoil the cutting surface.
The abrasive element must be fixed to a table or workbench. After that, we go directly to sharpening the ice screw. First, you need to correct the non-working surface to remove burrs and other minor defects. Usually a few circular movements in any direction are sufficient.
Next, we start sharpening the cutting edge. The knives should be held at an angle so that the cutting edge is parallel to the abrasive. If you allow distortions, then the sharpness of the blades will be uneven, and this will not lead to the desired effect, which will appear on the first fishing trip.
Periodically it is necessary to carry out a visual inspection of the sharpening of the surfaces. The marks from the abrasive element must be evenly distributed over the entire cutting edge. For the convenience of controlling this, it is advisable at the end of the process to change circular movements to movements in one direction.
Possible defects that must not be tolerated:
- chamfering of the cutting surface;
- irregular chamfer shape (oval or flawed);
- burrs and other small defects on the edge.
Correctly sharpened knives should pass the simplest test with ease. To do this, a blade is taken in the right hand, and in the left sheet of the newspaper. A well-sharpened edge should easily cut across the paper without tearing it.
If the test is successful, then sharpened blades can be safely installed on the ice screw. It is advisable to pre-wrap the screws for fastening the knives with fum tape or tape so that they do not spontaneously unwind. Can also be replaced with oversized bolts and locked with a nut.
Sharpening the spherical blades of an ice screw is much more difficult. Someone uses special devices for straightening and shaping the cutting surface. You can try to sharpen the blades with a needle file or other simple abrasive elements.
To improve the operating parameters of the drill in specific conditions, you can change the angles of inclination and attack of the knives in simple ways. But this is the topic of the next article.
Icebore Mora
Ice screw of the Swedish company MORA is rightfully considered one of the best. On winter fishing, it fully allows you to feel all the ease of drilling holes. The knives of this tool are very high quality, but over time they dull too. Such blades are not cheap, their price can go up to forty percent of the cost of the entire product. Usually such knives are cut using special devices. But sharpening the knives of Mora’s ice screw at home is also possible, although the procedure will require some skill.
These blades have a bulge and a spherical cutting edge, so they need to be sharpened on a convex surface. Usually for this they use a glass jar and fine sandpaper, the so-called zero.
Like any other knives, you can also sharpen the blades of the mora with a hand tool. The simplest sharpener for ice screw knives is a diamond file. If a dremel with a fine-grained cutter is available, it can also be used. It is good if at this time there is a factory-sharpened knife in front of your eyes, so that in the process of work you can compare the result obtained.
We sharpen knives on the machine
One way is with an electric sharpener. Naturally, for this, you must have experience working on it. Otherwise, this method is unacceptable, as you can simply ruin the cutting edge. For those who are familiar with this equipment firsthand, consider the main steps.
First of all, there must be a special device (angle stand) available to install the sharpened part at a certain angle. This will remove the minimum amount of metal and avoid skewing the bevel of the cutting edge:
- Manually, using a file or an abrasive stone, we remove small chips formed during the drilling process. If the chip depth is more than 2 mm, it should be cut into a tooth shape and sharpened.
- We fix the knife, with its long, working side, in a corner stand and set an angle equal to 30 °. We carefully bring it to the desired state.
- Turn the part over with a short cutting edge. The angle between these two edges should be close to 90 °. Due to this, the biting factor during drilling will be reduced.
- During processing, the part should be periodically cooled by immersion in water or oil.
- After the main processing, the knife should be polished with a felt wheel and GOI paste. This is required for faster and cleaner drilling. The rotation speed should be about 3000 rpm.
- First, we polish the surface of the knife towards the ice.
- Next, we polish the upper part, with the obligatory approach to the cutting edge. This will improve the cutting angle and extend the service life.
- Knives prepared in this way are very easy to sharpen by hand, right while fishing.
Polishing
In general, the polishing of the working surfaces of an ice screw is very important for the cleanliness and speed of drilling. Polishing is best done on a felt disc, which must be installed on an electric grinder instead of an abrasive wheel. The disc itself must be carefully rubbed with this GOI paste. If the rotation speed of the wheel is at least 3000 rpm, then polishing takes a couple of minutes. True, here you need to know that the knife must be pressed against the felt circle with the tip and only during the rotation of the disk.
In this case, first of all, the wide surface of the knife, which is directed towards the ice, is subject to polishing. In this case, you must try not to capture the narrow strip along the cutting edge. It is also impossible to fill up the cutting edge, which will certainly lead to damage to the knife blade.
After this procedure, you can start machining the upper cutting plane, on which there is a groove. It is necessary to polish it with an approach to the cutting edge. This method of processing can significantly improve the cutting angle, which will certainly lead to an increase in the life of the knife as a whole. By the way, if the surface is not just sharpened, but also polished, but it will not rust for a long time. And polished knives drill ice better, and in the process of drilling they do not grind it into small crumbs.
The second edge, which is not fully used for cutting, must be polished and processed in the same way. So, if the knives are properly prepared for cutting, then their service life will increase significantly. And if necessary, such knives can be easily sharpened literally on the knee, standing on the ice of the reservoir.
By the way, if there are chips or potholes in the very center of the blade, the depth of which reaches 2 mm, then they cannot have any negative effect on drilling. It is enough to simply remove burrs or burrs from such blades with the help of a bar. But in the event that the chip has a depth of more than 2 mm, then it must be cut in the shape of a tooth, and then sharpened. After such repairs, all knives must be fastened on the storm in pairs. Those. either new or repaired knives should be on the storm.
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