Disappointed with Sharpmaker 204

H

hd2k_va

Joined
Dec 27, 2001
Messages
108
I got one about two years ago. One of the stones was warped, NIB. Bought one for my dad. His had a warped stone too. We both had to get replacement stones from the dealer.

My kids were playing in my office the other day and decided to sharpen some butterknives. They banged the stones together and broke them. So, I ordered four replacement stones. All four were badly warped. Sent them back to the dealer and got four more. One was warped. Sent it back. Finally, I have a set of sharpmaker stones that aren't warped.

I will never buy another Spyderco sharpening product. And to tell the truth, the experience kind of put my off their knives too.
 
I love my Sharpmaker. All four of the rods were perfect, and the system make sharpening any of my knives a breeze. I have noticed that the corners of the rods will chip if your not carfull though.
 
I notice that those kind of system are quite prone to have rods that are warped.
I got this cheapie ceramid "steel" that is actually a fine hone for a copycat system. And I found that it's slightly warped on one end... so I just avoid using it.
 
I just bought one about a week ago on advice from these forums.. all my stones are fine. I was able to bring all my knives to razor sharpness with little effort on my part.
 
Rod breaking. Excuse me please, but what do you think they are made of? It is fine ceramic, some kind of porcelain in somewhat simplified form. Try to bang your porcelain eating plates one against another and see what will occur. All such things are hard but way brittle, especially in long thin rod form. GATCO, Lansky or any other manufacturer’s rods would break exactly the same way, so I do not see any reason to be disappointed with SPYDERCO ceramic.

Rod warping. I’ll skip the discussion how much they are warped and what it is important for. One of my fine (white) rods is very slightly warped too (about 0,5 – 0,7 mm at the middle putting it against ruler) but it influences nothing in real life sharpening. My hand is far less accurate...
OK, you have sent them back and they were replaced, right?
I would see some reasons for disappointment if they wouldn’t...
 
After all this trouble and it has lasted 2 years? Sounds good to me. Spyderco has the best system in it's class. Good luck with whatever you use instead.
 
Sergiusz Mitin :

OK, you have sent them back and they were replaced, right?
I would see some reasons for disappointment if they wouldn?t...
Click to expand...

I would not be pleased if I had to return rods for replacement with the frequency that hd2k_va noted. It isn't the expected, or accepted behavior, of NIB products to need servicing, regardless of the quality of said service. That being said, I have owned two Sharpmakers with no such problems. Maybe Sal could comment on the frequency of significantly flawed stones.

-Cliff
 
I would be put off by that much trouble with warped stones, too. I'm sorry you had trouble with them. Fortunately my 204 was perfect and now I don't know what I would do without it. It's quite a system.
 
Cliff,
I would not be pleased if I had to return rods for replacement...
Click to expand...
It is pretty big space between my pleasure and disappointment.
Maybe because I do not get enchanted so easily...
 
Sergiusz, it is the part of the quote which you ignored that is the critical portion. All products have a return rate, no one can claim or expect 100% unless they are doing individual QC checks, which isn't practical for production pieces. However take a look at how many rods in this case were bought and how many had to be returned. There is a failure rate of 7 out of 16 or 43%, hardly acceptable.

-Cliff
 
Cliff,
I have skipped the rest only because it is not essential for what I would like to say. Sometimes people use the terms and analogies pretty unsuitable for discussed item. For ex. someone claims that he hate or detest any manufacturer or particular model. Excuse me please, but I could detest the enemy who murdered my family...
If we all will use so silly exaggerations greatly probably we soon will not differ right hand from left one...

The same with disappointment. To be disappointed someone should get enchanted or should expect unreal things first. Usually I don’t fall into enchantment nor expect unreal things, so I have less reasons to be disappointed. At least I can like or dislike something...
Claim me biased if you want but I consider my single slightly warped rod too insignificant reason to cry in public about my disappointment on all SPYDERCO (or each other company’s) products.

You could say - it is not single rod, we are talking about quite high percentage you have mentioned. Maybe...
But liking percentages and scientific approach as you probably do you should know what means if something runs as far, far from average as here (should I mention lots and lots of fully satisfied Sharpmaker users?)
One reason could be extremely – but really extremely – bad luck. I can feel sorry for fellow if I would believe him about so fantastically bad luck...
Another reason could be hysteria when a needle seems like archangel’s sword...
Or maybe evenly extreme bias?
Is it completely unknown for you?
 
This seems weird to me. I've been reading glowing comment about Sharpmakers on these forums for 2 or 3 years and I've never heard anyone complain of warped rods. From this I would assume they are rare. This makes it really odd that one customer should be plagued with so many of them.

How much do you trust your source? Could the be selling you seconds or copies? Could they be reselling problem rods rather than scrapping them? Maybe you've been stuck with the same rods more than once.

Spyderco started out in the ceramic sharpener business rather than the knife business. They know how to do it and have a brand reputation to protect. I just wonder how you got so unlucky.
 
It is the expected behavior that this will happen on occasion. It does not imply that the person was biased and is lying, it is simple statistics. Just because something has a fail rate of X percent doesn't mean every person sees this fail rate. If you look at a large population (which is what Bladeforums spans), you are bound to see very extreme experiences of many times under and over that average fail rate. And further because the extreme situations tend to cause people to speak out more than the norms, this perception will be amplified.

This however has nothing to do with the origional post which was one persons conclusion based on his experience. How many failures should he have tolerated before he gave up. He is far more patient than I was, and I would expect the population at large, as otherwise companies would not strive for very low QC rates they do. He did not say anything like "Spyderco sucks" or "I hate all Spyderco products". Just a simple note that because of the frequency of replacements (which was huge by anyones standards), he would not be buying any more of that one specific type of product. He was in fact more generous than I was because I wouldn't buy anything from the company at all after such an experience.

Further, he doesn't even say that it implies anything bad that the stones broke, just that it happened and that was why he bought new ones, yet he is jumped on immediately because it is assumed he is making this critism (which I agree is not realistic as ceramics are by nature brittle, as are all abrasives just drop a large benchstone and see what happens). It could have at least been asked if he was making this arguement before it was assumed to be the case.

As for disappointement, it is not the expected behavior that NIB items need to be replaced, so yes, people will be disappointed when this is the case unless they actually hope to have to send the product back, which is a fairly rare inclination. So yes, if you expect product returns close to 50% of the time, then no you would not be disappointed with the above senario, I would suspect though that you are one of very few with such preferences.

-Cliff
 
I am not going into the debate other than say I have 3 different sharepening stones from Spyderco and love them all....The Sharpmaker, double pocket stone and these weird shaped rods similar in style to those on the sharpmaker but shaped differently that are great for sharpening hawkbill and to round sharp corners...all sets have white and brown stones.
 
Gotta pile on here, my 204 was ok on delivery 1 1/2 years ago and is still going great. No complaints here.

Regards,

David
 
I have a 203 and a 204, and a friend of mine just bought another 204. This is 12 stones in total, and they are all perfect.
 
Just to clear up the confusion about the stones breaking ... My sons, ages 4 and 6, got out my Sharpmaker to sharpen some butter knives. You know ceramics are brittle, and I know ceramics are brittle, and now THEY know that ceramics are brittle ;) They have their own sharpeners now, made of pieces of 204 rods varying in length from 1 to 4 inches. And where did they learn to sharpen knives? Why, from the Sharpmaker video! They love it. How can you be angry with a four year old who tells you he broke your stones "putting a 30 degree back bevel like Sal Glesser" on a butter knife? So, I'm not disappointed that their ceramics are brittle. (Actually, when I was in graduate school I wrote a paper on crack growth in concrete. I know the general rule of material properties: Hardness, Stiffness, Crack Resistance. Pick any two.)

All the stones in the bad four were obviously warped to the naked eye. Two had distinct "S" curves. The others had small kinks like they were bent while curing. If you were to use them, it would feel like driving over a speed bump. I got these from a deep discount online dealer, so maybe they were seconds.

Of those I have now, I put them on a straight edge and one of the whites is a little out of true, like Serg's. Nothing that really makes a difference. The rods I returned were not "slightly warped." They were unusable. Strangers would walk by my house and say, "Man, that's one crooked stone!" Then they would laugh at me and tell all their friends. :D

I like the Sharpmaker and use it, though not so much now as before. It was the first kit that gave me get good edges before I really knew how to sharpen. I use it less frequently now that I can sharpen freehand pretty well, and have been putting convex edges on everything. I bought two based entirely on recommendations from the guys on this forum. I would never have known about it otherwise. But that bad batch, well, it was just very disappointing.
 
I've had my 204 for awhile now, and I have NO complaints about it. My stones are perfect and I've never been able to put an edge on my knives like I have with this system.
Good luck with whatever system you choose. :D
 
I can understanf your reluctance to buy brand X after getting a series of bad apples like that. There are lots of products out there that are probably good, but I have little confidence in them so I wouldn't buy them.

How are you putting convex bevels on your knives? I love convex edges myself! I am getting way better with my grinder/drill press used as a buffer. Grind in them bevels, buff off theburr, and BAM! Ultra-cutter :)
 
:confused:I'm not sure of the process, so correct me if I'm wrong...Usually ceramics are formed to the correct shape and then fired, like clay. Ceramic pottery and artwork is very well known for warping during the firing process, and sometimes explode. The thinness of those rods may allow much more room for error. Again I am not sure if they use this process.

Regards,

Steve C.
 
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