My intentions are to write about something not too common; a Swedish made sharpening system called EdgePal, before I get deeper into the details of this particular system Id like to shape a few thoughts about knife sharpening and honing in general.
Most of us that have had an interest in knives and sharp stuff, either professional or just for recreation have probably wanted to get their tools sharp and easy to work with.
For some it is no problem, they get excellent results quickly and easy, for others the results are, at best, sporadically good
Im in the latter category
Freehand sharpening will always give certain variances in the angle applied to the cutting edge, no matter how good you are, the goal is to have an angle that is as consistent as possible.
Any deviation to the angle will make the edge rounded in the long run, this will make it necessary to re-profile the edge more often and itll shorten the lifespan of your edged tool in the end.
There has been several, more or less, good tools available on the market for sharpening knives, most probably you have tried out one or a few of them, for example Lansky.
The general idea is that you have a fixture or clamp that holds the blade and a guide that keeps the angle of the hones in the same position at all times.
Sounds great, in theory, the drawback too many of those systems is that all angles has been set and determined from the start, they cannot be changed, unless you modify the guides and clamps.
If the blade of your knife is wider, thicker or has an un-usual shape the whole equation changes and you will need to remove a lot moiré of the blade/edge to make it work as it is supposed to do. As most of these are small systems itll be very inefficient and it will take a lot of time to remove that much metal.
If a blade should be re-profiled or if large amounts of metal needs to be removed then something more like a electric grinder that is suitable for knife sharpening is the way to go, something like a Tormek grinder, they are however not very easy to carry around on your trip to the forest, not to mention the extension cord..
If we take the above in consideration we will see the need for a compact, easy to carry system that requires no external power (besides you)
Which would exclude the Tormek grinder, which is great but not practical for our needs.
If we look at manual sharpening/honing systems, as we mentioned earlier, they will have a guide, either in plastic or metal that has set angles, again, shape the shape of the blade and the honing angle will change. Either you re-profile the blade or modify the guide of the system, not very convenient.
Most guides are somewhat bulky and isnt easy to stash in your pack, plastic guides might snap and metal might bend or poke holes in your pack or some tender part of your anatomy.
The hones that are included in these kits usually have a few different grits, which is great; unfortunately they also tend to be rather slim and attached to some plastic base.
The thin hones make work slow and uns-stable, and plastic details tend to break from abuse, wear or cold. In the middle of the forest you do not want anything to go snap! on you.
So the ultimate would be a system that is compact, flexible and of high quality in material and craftsmanship.
Ive yet to find a system that combines all of these in a single package, there has always bee something that hasnt been just right.
Due to a post on a military oriented Swedish based discussion forum I found out about a system called EdgePal, I got curious and checked out their website, part from the website and part from the posts made by Mr. Thomas Löfvenmark (designer of said system) I realized that Thomas has spent quite a lot of time using knives and sharpening them.
I was somewhat sceptical at first, I just couldnt see why this system was any different from the earlier systems Id tried out and found wanting.
I decided to contact Thomas and maybe see if there was any possibility to have a system sent to me for evaluation, initially with the idea of presenting my experiences with 2 Swedish forums. (www.soldf.com and www.utrustning.se)
Thomas was kind to lend me a system and also provide me with a lot of feedback of my questions and curiosity.
The system is called Basic and is just that, Basic; it is designed to sharpen/hone knife blades that have parallel sides with a thickness of 2-3 mms and up to 18 cms.
The angle is indefinitely adjustable from 0-40 degrees and both regular edges and convex edges can be sharpened/honed.
When the system landed at my place I was struck with how compact it was, even though it is compact and neat it is a very durable design of high quality material.
I messed around with the various parts for a while to get .a feel for the design and how to use/handle it.
Basic consists of a clamp for the knife blade, 2 guide rods and a hone with a hone fixture.
The blade clamp consists of 2 parallel steel plates, they have 2 screws to secure the blade, and if you worry about getting scratches to your blade you can apply some glue to the contact surfaces of the blade.
The guide rods, of which one is lightly curved, more about this later, has a simple thread in one of the ends that screws easily into the fixture for the hone.
Easy and very secure. The hone fixture is made of milled aluminium and keeps the hone in place with a small setscrew, as long as you can find a hone that fits you can use this for the system.
The included hone is from another Swedish company, Fällkniven, it is their DC# hone, a combines diamond and ceramic hone.
Convenient and it has a mice width to it.
In conclusion the system initially gives a very through and durable impression.
I quickly donned a knife to the blade clamp and started to mess around with adjustments and details to get a feeling for how the system was to work with.
After I had gained some familiarity with the various bits and parts I decided to re-profile the edge of my Emerson CQC-8 (regular production) as mentioned earlier a system of this size isnt meant for jobs like this, but I wanted to work with it for a few hours and see if it was easy and comfortable to use it.
I wont bore you with the monotone details of re-profiling the edge but in the end it worked out great, to be honest it got really, really good. Thomas provides some simple and easy to follow instructions and the results didnt take long.
The edge got evenly thin and razor-sharp.
My initial scepticism of the system began to fade away
After the CQC-8 Ive sharpened some other knives and multi-tools, the results have been very, very good every time.
Even convex edges are easy and quick to sharpen, minimal effort gives great results.
Some details when using the system is to use a felt pen to find the angle of the edge, Thomas also gives the advice to use bits of drinking straws cut in the appropriate lengths to slide over the angle adjustment screw, not so fancy but easy to use and it works.
During the time I have been trying the system out Thomas has been kind to bounce questions and ideas with me, the idea is that basic is a basic sharpening/honing system, it is however easy to accessorize and to add parts to make it even more flexible.
Longer screws for thicker blades or longer guide rods for longer blades can be ordered directly from Thomas
In the end I found the system Basic a tool of very high quality, it will give you excellent results that are easy to repeat over and over again.
Basic is compact and very easy to tale along any trip and yet it has great flexibility in its use.
Ive never seen a system that combines all the aspects of Basic in the same package, the details in it self might not be rocket-science but as is often the case it is not the idea in itself but the compilation of several good ideas that makes a product excellent and above the rest.
Basic is delivered in a simple zip-lock bag with a few simple instructions on how to use it, the idea is that Basic will be cheap and yet of high quality. Nothing fancy, but it will perform.
Me and others that had the opportunity to handle the system was somewhat negative to the finish of the milled parts, they were somewhat rough. Not bad, just a little bit rough.
A better finish would cost more, if you care less about good looks and want performance before bling then it is not an issue.
In the future Thomas might be able to deliver the system in a synthetic case.
Theres also plans for a kit that allows Basic to handle sharpening/honing of longer blades then 18 cms and more demanding sharpening jobs. If you have a favourite hone custom fixtures can also be ordered for a modest fee.
Im very grateful for having the opportunity to evaluate this sharpening system; I highly recommend it to anyone that wants an easy way to hone ones knives simply and with excellent results, every time.
If you have any questions please ask them here and Ill do my best to answer them or turn to Thomas. Im pretty sure that he has already thought about it 
You can find more information about EdgePal here: www.edgepal.com
Disclaimer: Im not affiliated with EdgePal in anyway.
Some pic's:
Most of us that have had an interest in knives and sharp stuff, either professional or just for recreation have probably wanted to get their tools sharp and easy to work with.
For some it is no problem, they get excellent results quickly and easy, for others the results are, at best, sporadically good
Im in the latter category
Freehand sharpening will always give certain variances in the angle applied to the cutting edge, no matter how good you are, the goal is to have an angle that is as consistent as possible.
Any deviation to the angle will make the edge rounded in the long run, this will make it necessary to re-profile the edge more often and itll shorten the lifespan of your edged tool in the end.
There has been several, more or less, good tools available on the market for sharpening knives, most probably you have tried out one or a few of them, for example Lansky.
The general idea is that you have a fixture or clamp that holds the blade and a guide that keeps the angle of the hones in the same position at all times.
Sounds great, in theory, the drawback too many of those systems is that all angles has been set and determined from the start, they cannot be changed, unless you modify the guides and clamps.
If the blade of your knife is wider, thicker or has an un-usual shape the whole equation changes and you will need to remove a lot moiré of the blade/edge to make it work as it is supposed to do. As most of these are small systems itll be very inefficient and it will take a lot of time to remove that much metal.
If a blade should be re-profiled or if large amounts of metal needs to be removed then something more like a electric grinder that is suitable for knife sharpening is the way to go, something like a Tormek grinder, they are however not very easy to carry around on your trip to the forest, not to mention the extension cord..
If we take the above in consideration we will see the need for a compact, easy to carry system that requires no external power (besides you)
Which would exclude the Tormek grinder, which is great but not practical for our needs.
If we look at manual sharpening/honing systems, as we mentioned earlier, they will have a guide, either in plastic or metal that has set angles, again, shape the shape of the blade and the honing angle will change. Either you re-profile the blade or modify the guide of the system, not very convenient.
Most guides are somewhat bulky and isnt easy to stash in your pack, plastic guides might snap and metal might bend or poke holes in your pack or some tender part of your anatomy.
The hones that are included in these kits usually have a few different grits, which is great; unfortunately they also tend to be rather slim and attached to some plastic base.
The thin hones make work slow and uns-stable, and plastic details tend to break from abuse, wear or cold. In the middle of the forest you do not want anything to go snap! on you.
So the ultimate would be a system that is compact, flexible and of high quality in material and craftsmanship.
Ive yet to find a system that combines all of these in a single package, there has always bee something that hasnt been just right.
Due to a post on a military oriented Swedish based discussion forum I found out about a system called EdgePal, I got curious and checked out their website, part from the website and part from the posts made by Mr. Thomas Löfvenmark (designer of said system) I realized that Thomas has spent quite a lot of time using knives and sharpening them.
I was somewhat sceptical at first, I just couldnt see why this system was any different from the earlier systems Id tried out and found wanting.
I decided to contact Thomas and maybe see if there was any possibility to have a system sent to me for evaluation, initially with the idea of presenting my experiences with 2 Swedish forums. (www.soldf.com and www.utrustning.se)
Thomas was kind to lend me a system and also provide me with a lot of feedback of my questions and curiosity.
The system is called Basic and is just that, Basic; it is designed to sharpen/hone knife blades that have parallel sides with a thickness of 2-3 mms and up to 18 cms.
The angle is indefinitely adjustable from 0-40 degrees and both regular edges and convex edges can be sharpened/honed.
When the system landed at my place I was struck with how compact it was, even though it is compact and neat it is a very durable design of high quality material.
I messed around with the various parts for a while to get .a feel for the design and how to use/handle it.
Basic consists of a clamp for the knife blade, 2 guide rods and a hone with a hone fixture.
The blade clamp consists of 2 parallel steel plates, they have 2 screws to secure the blade, and if you worry about getting scratches to your blade you can apply some glue to the contact surfaces of the blade.
The guide rods, of which one is lightly curved, more about this later, has a simple thread in one of the ends that screws easily into the fixture for the hone.
Easy and very secure. The hone fixture is made of milled aluminium and keeps the hone in place with a small setscrew, as long as you can find a hone that fits you can use this for the system.
The included hone is from another Swedish company, Fällkniven, it is their DC# hone, a combines diamond and ceramic hone.
Convenient and it has a mice width to it.
In conclusion the system initially gives a very through and durable impression.
I quickly donned a knife to the blade clamp and started to mess around with adjustments and details to get a feeling for how the system was to work with.
After I had gained some familiarity with the various bits and parts I decided to re-profile the edge of my Emerson CQC-8 (regular production) as mentioned earlier a system of this size isnt meant for jobs like this, but I wanted to work with it for a few hours and see if it was easy and comfortable to use it.
I wont bore you with the monotone details of re-profiling the edge but in the end it worked out great, to be honest it got really, really good. Thomas provides some simple and easy to follow instructions and the results didnt take long.
The edge got evenly thin and razor-sharp.
My initial scepticism of the system began to fade away
After the CQC-8 Ive sharpened some other knives and multi-tools, the results have been very, very good every time.
Even convex edges are easy and quick to sharpen, minimal effort gives great results.
Some details when using the system is to use a felt pen to find the angle of the edge, Thomas also gives the advice to use bits of drinking straws cut in the appropriate lengths to slide over the angle adjustment screw, not so fancy but easy to use and it works.
During the time I have been trying the system out Thomas has been kind to bounce questions and ideas with me, the idea is that basic is a basic sharpening/honing system, it is however easy to accessorize and to add parts to make it even more flexible.
Longer screws for thicker blades or longer guide rods for longer blades can be ordered directly from Thomas
In the end I found the system Basic a tool of very high quality, it will give you excellent results that are easy to repeat over and over again.
Basic is compact and very easy to tale along any trip and yet it has great flexibility in its use.
Ive never seen a system that combines all the aspects of Basic in the same package, the details in it self might not be rocket-science but as is often the case it is not the idea in itself but the compilation of several good ideas that makes a product excellent and above the rest.
Basic is delivered in a simple zip-lock bag with a few simple instructions on how to use it, the idea is that Basic will be cheap and yet of high quality. Nothing fancy, but it will perform.
Me and others that had the opportunity to handle the system was somewhat negative to the finish of the milled parts, they were somewhat rough. Not bad, just a little bit rough.
A better finish would cost more, if you care less about good looks and want performance before bling then it is not an issue.
In the future Thomas might be able to deliver the system in a synthetic case.
Theres also plans for a kit that allows Basic to handle sharpening/honing of longer blades then 18 cms and more demanding sharpening jobs. If you have a favourite hone custom fixtures can also be ordered for a modest fee.
Im very grateful for having the opportunity to evaluate this sharpening system; I highly recommend it to anyone that wants an easy way to hone ones knives simply and with excellent results, every time.
If you have any questions please ask them here and Ill do my best to answer them or turn to Thomas. Im pretty sure that he has already thought about it 
You can find more information about EdgePal here: www.edgepal.com
Disclaimer: Im not affiliated with EdgePal in anyway.
Some pic's:
