couple Spyderco sharpener(ing) questions

E

edb

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Aug 30, 2002
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1. For those of you who have the Spyderco benchstones - do you sharpen dry, or with oil, or with water? (I see that the description says you don't need water or oil, but thought I'd ask anyway)

2. I've read that some people have wrapped sandpaper around the rods of a Sharpmaker to approximate the behavior of the diamond rods. I'd like to try that, because raising a burr with the grey rods takes a long time. SO the question is, what kind of sandpaper, and what grit(s) ?

Thanks :)
 
Wrapping sandpaper around the rods worked for me -- sort of. I held it in place with clips. It seemed pretty tight to me. I found that it gave me a slightly convex edge, which was not 30 degrees at the very edge. I also found it rounded the tip somewhat, even though I was working exclusively on the flats.

I think what was happening was the edge of the blade was pushing up the sandpaper in front of it very slightly. Kind of a small wave of sandpaper just ahead of the edge. Basically, it's similar to sharpening with sandpaper on a mouse pad, only a little more subtle. Anyway, for me, it threw the angle off. In the end, it worked okay as I finished with the 40 degree setting, but it's not the result I originally intended, which was a flat 30 degree bevel.

The effect could be avoided, I suppose, by more securely attaching the sandpaper to the rods.
 
You might try using a line of staples to secure your sandpaper to your rod. You could also use a strip of Scotch Brand double-sided tape along the front face of your ceramic rod to hold the sandpaper flatter. As you near the end of your honing on the sandpaper lighten up your honing pressure to get a flatter finish. Then make sure your bevel is true by honing along the edges of your medium grit rods until you remove the sandpaper scratches up to the edge.
 
Another question: For those of you who have the diamond rods - how durable are they? Seems like I've heard about diamond stones wearing out quickly, but I don't know if that was necessarily applicable to the Spyderco diamond rods (i.e. for the Sharpmaker) :confused:
 
About the benchstones - I have the medium, fine, and extra fines and they all work about the same with water as they do dry. (I know this because I occasionally wash the stones in between knives).

About the diamond rods - I can't speak for the Spyderco's, but I have a set of DMT diamond benchstones, and they're going strong after years of use. A friend of mine who runs a knife store/sharpening service gave them to me, and Lord only knows how often he used them. The key to longevity is a light touch - I imagine that the Spyderco diamond rods would be of about the same quality as the DMTs, but I'm not sure about that.
 
I haven't found water to really help much with ceramic hones. The thing is that they really don't "load" if you don't use a lubricant like water or oil, the pores do fill with fine metal particles, but they're easily removed with a swipe of a damp cotton towel. So just keep a damp cloth or paper towel nearby and wipe the surface of the stone down whenever the stone starts not cutting like it should.
 
For the sandpaper, I found a simple solution:

Cut a strip of sandpaper 4cm wide (sorry, I'm so used to metric, that I'm not sure exactly how much that is in inches :confused: ). Actually, it has to be just wide enough to wrap exactly around the triangular stone. Then, simply stick half the width of a length of scotch tape along the back of one edge of the sandpaper, then wrap the sandpaper around the stone, and stick the other back edge to the remaining half length of scotch tape, and press hard to make it stick. No sandpaper is wasted and you can use all three sides of the triangle.

You need good scotch tape and about the length of the stone (minus the part that goes into the base) to make it stick enough.

Guy
 
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