Originally Posted by
Todd Stock
10 trips a day to the sharpening bench at a minute each = 43.5 hours of lost activity per year. At $100 per hour billable, that's $4,350 per year in lost revenue; at $10 per hour, still over $400 a year. For anyone that places any sort of monetary value on their time, and for whom sharpening thus becomes both overhead cost and opportunity lost, the acquisition and support cost difference between systems pales in comparison to the costs outside of how much to buy and how much to keep the system in use. The difference in time required to get to sharp dominates, to the point where that fancy TFWW tweaked $1,000 Baldor with CBN wheels becomes a very reasonable proposition versus slower, less expensive grinding systems. Same thing with diamond stones - sure...they do wear over time, but the cost to replace a stone every 5-10 years is more than addressed by the hours saved versus some other choices for a first step abrasive.
In summary: looking at cost of acquisition or cost of sustaining the system in terms of consumables misses other places where systems cost us time or opportunity, and for some of us, those overhead or opportunity costs should dominate in our decision making.