Best Sharpener for Small Blades for Newbies

[wade7575]

Just a FYI: the Venev diamond stones classify their grit size using the FEPA-F system, which is very different to the Naniwa grit ratings. The Venev 800 is about equivalent to the 2000 grit Chosera, and the 1200 is more like 4000-5000.

IMHO, the Choseras would be redundant in this scenario. Both are great though.

I knew that that Chosera's are rated in Jis and the Venev's in FEPA-F I just forgot to mention that.

As far as the Chosera's being redundant is totally not true,I have a Spyderco Shaman in Rex 45 and it get a much sharper edge if I use Chosera stones after Metallic CBN or the Venev's,diamonds stones are great for sure and with the venev 400 800 and 1200 you can get really sharp edge's but followed up with a Chosera water stone depending on the steel can greatly improve the edge.

 

[chalby]

I knew that that Chosera's are rated in Jis and the Venev's in FEPA-F I just forgot to mention that.

As far as the Chosera's being redundant is totally not true,I have a Spyderco Shaman in Rex 45 and it get a much sharper edge if I use Chosera stones after Metallic CBN or the Venev's,diamonds stones are great for sure and with the venev 400 800 and 1200 you can get really sharp edge's but followed up with a Chosera water stone depending on the steel can greatly improve the edge.

I'm not saying they are redundant. They are no doubt one of the best out there.

I'm just saying, in my opinion, I wouldn't use both. If I was sharpening something with a lot of vanadium carbides I would use the diamond stones. For my lower allow steels I would just use water stones such as Choseras. If you get better edges finishing with the Choseras, I would say it is redundant to use the Venevs as you are using similar grit sizes based on your earlier post. Having said that, you know what works for you so keep doing what works.

 

[777 Edge]

It greatly depends on the generation of Venev stones you have. They changed their finer grits to a newer binder, it is listed as "OCB".

I have both the old generation and new generation Venev stones and it is chalk and cheese.

The old binder interfered with the diamonds too much in the lower grits, causing scratch patterns that was much, much rougher than they were supposed to be. The new binder has solved that problem and their finest 0/1 micron stone really does equate to a phenomenal scratch pattern.

The new generation OCB 1200 and 2000 leave an absolute superb edge, in fact, so good that I thought I would try an extreme experiment; I have started sharpening my straight razors on my Venev OCB stone, and not on my Choseras any more for a while just to see what the results would be. I've been doing this for about 5 months now and I am blown away by the results. The Venev OCB stones give my straight razors a superb edge, and as smooth of a shave as my Choseras 10K or even my Superstore 12k would give.

The OCB 0/1 Venev really ends up in the same category as a 10k+ JIS stone, no doubt in my mind about that, and my microscope images also show that evidence.

The bonus is, I can now use the se stones om my Maxamet Spyderco, as I do on my razors. Mind. Blown.

 

[b33tu5]

The Ender 3 Pro is a good printer. Seeing that you have a printer, you may as well just print yourself one of my LeadingEdge sharpening systems with all of its accessories. It works incredibly well and I think you'll be more than happy with the capability and accuracy my system will give you. With my system you can then sharpen just about anything you want, not just knives.

Pair it up with a set of Venev Centaur or Venev Dog stones and you'll have one of the best all-round sharpening systems available, and all made with your printer.

PM me on Thingiverse or here on Bladeforums if you have any questions.

That is really impressive! No matter what, I'm gonna print one of these out over the next week.

 

[777 Edge]

That is really impressive! No matter what, I'm gonna print one of these out over the next week.

Contact me any time if you have any questions on assembly or use, either a PM here or you can PM me on Thingiverse if you prefer.

 

[b33tu5]

Contact me any time if you have any questions on assembly or use, either a PM here or you can PM me on Thingiverse if you prefer.

How the heck do you even PM on this forum? Do you have to have a paid subscription? What's the best place to get all the M4 pieces for building the LeadingEdge sharpener? I can get the 8mm rod and magnets, but my local hardware stores don't seem to carry those sizes.

 

[777 Edge]

Y

How the heck do you even PM on this forum? Do you have to have a paid subscription? What's the best place to get all the M4 pieces for building the LeadingEdge sharpener? I can get the 8mm rod and magnets, but my local hardware stores don't seem to carry those sizes.

Yea, I also struggled with that before getting a paid membership. Seems like it's a paid subscription benefit.

On Thingiverse, where my free designs are available, you can create an account and PM me there for free.

Amazon has a good selection of all the brass inserts, screws and thumb screws you need.

Generally hardware stores won't sell the brass inserts you can use to melt into the plastic for 3D printing, but those are on Amazon too.

 

[Syafi]

....
If you have a 3D printer, you can print yourself a fine tuning adapter from my designs. See links below in my signature.

Any change those of us not having access to 3D printer getting a piece of your designed sharpener?

 

[777 Edge]

Any change those of us not having access to 3D printer getting a piece of your designed sharpener?

At this stage I don't have the manufacturing capability to produce my sharpeners on a large scale, so I'm just offering my free printable / CNC machinable designs for any enthusiast to make for themselves. Maybe at a later stage I will look into manufacturing them but for now they are still available for free.

Perhaps try and find a service that provides 3D printing where you are, just make sure they print the design very accurately and with 100% infill, so its a solid unit.

 

[c7m2p3]

With the retail Sharpmaker system, yes completely agree. However, you can buy coarse (80, 120, 150, etc) add-on silicon carbide rods that cost around $10 a pair, that let you reprofile blades a lot faster than the ceramic. Sharpmaker can work if a user really wants to use it, but you have to upgrade the base model which lately runs around $70, either by adding these SiC rods (Congress Tools Moldmaster stones, the 1/2" x 6" triangle ones) for around $10, or by adding the more spendy Spyderco cbn or diamond rods (around $60 for the pair). Obviously if you're gonna' go that far, you're about $130 into it for Sharpmaker with the Spyderco add-on rods, and that's already about half the cost of an Edge Pro Apex 4 kit with a set of Aluminum oxide stones--which is far more capable than Sharpmaker. But either way, Sharpmaker with some SiC add-ons for around $80 total, or an Edge Pro Apex around $250, OP has 2 solid choices there for dealing with small knives if a guided system is what you're after.

Yes I actually have a few of the Mold masters for my sharpmaker and I would still advocate that one get a coarse benchstone. It is simply going to be easier and frankly more economic. Not all of my knives are small 3 inch folders, and trying to use the moldmasters to set a bevel on a 5 inch Ontario Rat 5 is going to be a chore on the small moldmasters even with the softer 1095 they run. Getting a 15$ Manticore benchstone will make fast work of any knife to set your bevel at 15-17 degrees and from there on out you can use the sharpmaker to run a small microbevel to keep it sharp. If you are absolutely wedded to the idea of the sharpmaker to do it all the moldmasters will technically do the job but they are going to dish out a lot faster than the 8 inch manticore and while they are cheap, buying new ones at 10$ a pop every 6 months gets far more expensive very quickly when compared to the 15$ manticore or something similar.