Congress Tool per Sharpmaker Triangular Rods?
- Thread starter Rhodies
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I have a set of the normal MoldMaster stones coming only because everyone that I know that use's them say's they like and they work well on most steel's,from what I'm reading more and more lately is how much people like the Spyderco Fine and Ultra Fine Ceramic stones they sell you should take a look into them as I think people are liking them more then the MoldMaster stones.I think they make the fine and Ultra Fine for the Sharpmaker as well.
Thanks Wade for your comment. I would be curious to know if the MoldMaster could handle SuperSteels such as s35vn, m390, m4 and lastly s110v all which I currently own. I don't think the m390 would be a problem, but the others? I currently have the medium and fine grit stones that came with the Sharpmaker and I am wondering (out loud) if throwing in a diamond set along with the UF Stones would be adequate for the SuperSteels or adding the MoldMaster Stones would enhance my quest?
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I've heard of some guys using the 1/2" triangle Moldmasters in their Sharpmaker with success. Others have said they were too inconsistent in size for their liking. I decided to buy the 1/2" x 6" x 1/8" stones in several grits. I clipped them to the Sharpmaker rods with small binder clips but rubber bands would probably work fine too. I've reprofiled and sharpened S110V, M4, S30V etc without much problem. It still takes awhile but an up & down motion speeds thing up.
I upgraded to a Hapstone V7 a few months ago. The versatility of the unit allows me to use those little Moldmasters to sharpen smaller blades. I have to say I do like how the Moldmaster cut but the finer grits are pretty friable.
The Venev Bonded diamonds that Wade suggested work great. The double-sided set they sell is an excellent value!
I upgraded to a Hapstone V7 a few months ago. The versatility of the unit allows me to use those little Moldmasters to sharpen smaller blades. I have to say I do like how the Moldmaster cut but the finer grits are pretty friable.
The Venev Bonded diamonds that Wade suggested work great. The double-sided set they sell is an excellent value!
I've tested the Moldmasters quite a bit in Sharpmaker to reprofile blades with high vanadium carbides, and posted frequently about it here. With the caveat that the Sharpmaker system and those small stones is really not ideal nor recommended for serious blade profiling, for anyone seriously committed to using Sharpmaker for all their sharpening and wanting to do significant edge repair, blade profiling, bevel resetting, etc., the Moldmasters are better than anything Spyderco offers and the best thing going IMO. If working with super steels, a person could use a combination of the coarse grit Moldmasters to profile/repair edges, say the 150 or 240 grit, then use the diamond or cbn stones, and then finish on a strop with diamond or cbn compound, and get pretty good results. The one thing missing from the equation--and I hope Spyderco is listening--is a higher grit diamond or CBN stone to refine and finish edges, as the existing ones are only around 400 mesh.
Personally, I'd recommend going freehand for all your sharpening as Sharpmaker has too many limitations. But...Sharpmaker is still a great tool, and is the ONLY manual guided sharpening system of any kind that I would recommend. For those who've decided to use it for whatever reason, the Moldmasters enable a significant capability (fast blade profiling) that you otherwise would not have.
https://bladeforums.com/threads/using-sharpmaker-with-no-diamonds-to-full-profile-m390.1543331/
https://bladeforums.com/threads/using-congress-tools-sic-stones-with-sharpmaker.1529283/
Personally, I'd recommend going freehand for all your sharpening as Sharpmaker has too many limitations. But...Sharpmaker is still a great tool, and is the ONLY manual guided sharpening system of any kind that I would recommend. For those who've decided to use it for whatever reason, the Moldmasters enable a significant capability (fast blade profiling) that you otherwise would not have.
https://bladeforums.com/threads/using-sharpmaker-with-no-diamonds-to-full-profile-m390.1543331/
https://bladeforums.com/threads/using-congress-tools-sic-stones-with-sharpmaker.1529283/
I have some of the Congress triangular prisms. The are 1 inch shorter than the S/M prisms. They are also a little fatter than the S/M rods and stand up a little straighter in the S/M holes. This will not hurt anything (a steeper angle on coarse grits will not effect the final polish at a more slack angle.I cannot agree that SiC is useful for abrading Vanadium Carbides. VC is harder than SiC or Al2O3. See chart above. I sharpen my VC knives on Venev bonded Diamond stones and my non-VC knives on Shapton water stones (Al2O3) on my homemade jig over the “Pond”.
I have several Sharpmakers and use them for touch up work on non-VC knives.
Who said anything about 'abrading vanadium carbides'? Not mwa. 
In the setup I suggested to OP, the role of a moldmaster sic stone in Sharpmaker is ONLY for coarse profiling where you're just hogging off metal. They work great for that, but for optimal sharpness, you definitely want to apex and finish on diamonds or cbn.
In the setup I suggested to OP, the role of a moldmaster sic stone in Sharpmaker is ONLY for coarse profiling where you're just hogging off metal. They work great for that, but for optimal sharpness, you definitely want to apex and finish on diamonds or cbn.
My concern would be that VC particles that could not be shaped by the SiC “stone” would be yanked out by the roots rendering a snaggle toothed edge. I agree that finishing with Diamonds would help, but at what grit size would you switch from not shaping VC to actually abrading VC? Wouldn’t hogging off (coarse profiling) the edge lead to excessive wear?Who said anything about 'abrading vanadium carbides'? Not mwa.
If I overwork the scratch pattern and reset with the higher-grit diamond stone which CAN abrade the VC, I have a hard time seeing much impact of using the coarse SiC stone to profile. And haven't observed that to be the case. Where I DID observe an impact was if I tried to use straight Sic all the way thru to sharpen super steels, say 150/400/600, then finish on strop. There, the resulting edge could be gotten sharp, but I consistently got better results using diamonds to finish. Of course, the BEST way is to sharpen freehand and use diamonds all the way thru the progression, as we've all discussed in other threads, probably too many times. Here, I'm responding to the OP about using moldmaster with sharpmaker. For those committed to sharpmaker, I DO see moldmasters adding some value, namely, the ability to profile reasonably fast (considering sharpmaker).
I agree completely, but would add, Congress “stones” are great for non VC blades. Reprofiling on the Sharpmaker is an uphill struggle, but the Congress “stones” are faster than the S/M M, F, and XF. Sometimes cheaper stones make up for the sacrifice of blade life. Back when the Sharpmaker was developed, the high Vanadium steel was BG-42 at 1.2%V.
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Vanadium carbides are super tiny. When using SiC on high vanadium steels, you're abrading the steel matrix, not the carbides. In the coarse grits, you're just scooping out the vanadium carbides along with the steel. It's only as the grit size becomes finer than you start running into problems.