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Seriously? Most of us would like to see a little harder steel on the CRK's.
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Do you use your CR often?
- Thread starter BubbaGump
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Seriously? Most of us would like to see a little harder steel on the CRK's.
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What do you use to sharpen your knives?
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2015
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My question as well.
CRK recommends the Spyderco Sharpmaker, which I use on all my CRK's and all other knives as well. Puts a great edge on in less than 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how many steps I follow and how long I sharpen them. In less than 20 minutes and following all steps, I can get any of my CRK's scary sharp.
I use my CRK's every day, both for work and casual off-work use.
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I end up having to use my sharp maker free hand becaise the factory edge bevels never seem to be 30 or 40 degrees as the sharpmaker comes equipped to sharpen when putting the stones in the plastic jig. It is well neigh impossible to regrind an edge with the sharpmaker's stones even set in this jig.
I even bought the coarse diamond rods for the sharpmaker but they are TOO coarse and the edge doesn't seem to glide along them in a way conducive to sharpening. The blade seems to skip along the high points on these coarse rods and all that happens is the edge gets damaged.
Now I want to address the idea behind steels like Aus8 and 440c being easier to resharpen. This is true if you ise your knife until it dulls. However more resistant steels are actually easier to sharpen. I will explain.
Let's say you cut 30 boxes with your Aus8 blade and it is now dull and must be resharpened. This can be easily done. Now lets say you cut another 30 boxes with your S110v blade. This blade will be much less dull than your Aus8 one. Now you should touch up that edge even though it hasn't gone dull and that can also be done quickly. Use these steels and touch them up once in a while and they will not require more time to keep sharp than more basic steels. Infact some like ZDP can be kept razor sharp with nothing but occasional stropping.
Happy cutting!
I even bought the coarse diamond rods for the sharpmaker but they are TOO coarse and the edge doesn't seem to glide along them in a way conducive to sharpening. The blade seems to skip along the high points on these coarse rods and all that happens is the edge gets damaged.
Now I want to address the idea behind steels like Aus8 and 440c being easier to resharpen. This is true if you ise your knife until it dulls. However more resistant steels are actually easier to sharpen. I will explain.
Let's say you cut 30 boxes with your Aus8 blade and it is now dull and must be resharpened. This can be easily done. Now lets say you cut another 30 boxes with your S110v blade. This blade will be much less dull than your Aus8 one. Now you should touch up that edge even though it hasn't gone dull and that can also be done quickly. Use these steels and touch them up once in a while and they will not require more time to keep sharp than more basic steels. Infact some like ZDP can be kept razor sharp with nothing but occasional stropping.
Happy cutting!
I reprofiled the edge bevels on my large Regular Seb with my Sharpmaker back in 2002. It took a long time, but I did it, so it's not impossible. I used the standard white and gray rods (but mostly the gray rods) the Sharpmaker comes with; no diamond rods. Once I wore down the thick shoulders of the bevel with the 15 DPS setting, I finished the very edge at 20 DPS. The edge bevels were still slightly convex, but thinned out. Now, is the Sharpmaker the ideal system for reprofiling? No. But it's what I had, and at the time I was afraid of accidentally taking off too much metal at a time.
As far as time went, it took a few weeks, off and on, of me working it on the Sharpmaker a few times a week, maybe 20 minutes per day. Sometimes more. The edge that came with that particular knife brand new out of the box was literally dull.
My newer CRKs all came with much thinner and sharper edge bevels, and are easy to touch up on the Sharpmaker when needed. To this day, my only sharpening system is a Sharpmaker.
Jim
As far as time went, it took a few weeks, off and on, of me working it on the Sharpmaker a few times a week, maybe 20 minutes per day. Sometimes more. The edge that came with that particular knife brand new out of the box was literally dull.
My newer CRKs all came with much thinner and sharper edge bevels, and are easy to touch up on the Sharpmaker when needed. To this day, my only sharpening system is a Sharpmaker.
Jim
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Most knives including my CRs I sharpen with the sharpmaker. I hold one rod in my hand with most the rod sticking out the top of my hand. Then I lay the blade on the stone and turn it until I feel the edge kind of click as it lays flat. I make one stroke heel to tip like this and turn the knife over and repeat on the other side. I do this over and over until it is sharp. It is abit slow but an excellent way to touch up or even sharpen a fairly dull edge as this way I always match the edge angle. It is great for recurves too as using the flat of the rod the two corners contact the inner radius of the recurve sweeping it on each stroke.
However it is much too arduous a process to regrind with. Especially as I need to find the edge on each and every stroke. It is much harder with convex grinds because the edge does not lay flat. I manage to flatten out these convex grinds fairly quickly though. If the knife came with an overly jacked up obtuse grind it is simply too slow a method to regrind the edge. Getting bad chips out of a super steel? Forget it. I send these knives to be sharpened. They come back with an edge more suitable to my methods.
With the rods in the jig it simply takes too long for me to regrind. For instance it would take a lifetime to regrind the obtuse edge that came on my Lionspy, I must get that reground.
Anyway back to the topic; because the CRs come with slightly convex but good edges I am easily able to keep them very sharp and enhance them out of the box. This means I am not afraid to use my CRs for cutting and do often. I avoid use that I worry would damage the edge or especially the tip. I actually quite like S35vn and feel it much better to sharpen than S30v. So overall yes I do frequently use my CRs but for more rugged use I prefer other blades.
However it is much too arduous a process to regrind with. Especially as I need to find the edge on each and every stroke. It is much harder with convex grinds because the edge does not lay flat. I manage to flatten out these convex grinds fairly quickly though. If the knife came with an overly jacked up obtuse grind it is simply too slow a method to regrind the edge. Getting bad chips out of a super steel? Forget it. I send these knives to be sharpened. They come back with an edge more suitable to my methods.
With the rods in the jig it simply takes too long for me to regrind. For instance it would take a lifetime to regrind the obtuse edge that came on my Lionspy, I must get that reground.
Anyway back to the topic; because the CRs come with slightly convex but good edges I am easily able to keep them very sharp and enhance them out of the box. This means I am not afraid to use my CRs for cutting and do often. I avoid use that I worry would damage the edge or especially the tip. I actually quite like S35vn and feel it much better to sharpen than S30v. So overall yes I do frequently use my CRs but for more rugged use I prefer other blades.
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I carry a large and small Reg. sebenza daily. If it needs to be cut I cut it with out a worry. In all things I like to buy quality and use what I buy. I am not easy on anything (guns, cars, tools, etc.) I learn long ago that quality is free. Buy cheap and when it breaks you remember exactly what you paid for it, but when you buy quality you tend to forget the price.