EdgePro copy sharpeners

J

JohnWesley

Joined
Sep 26, 2016
Messages
34
I have been looking at these sharpeners based on the Edgepro and trying to decide if they are worth a try for the little money they want. By the way, the self righteous indignation I hear about these machines makes me chuckle. Edgepro's patents ran out a long time ago. So there is nothing illegal or unethical about buying these. I work in research and have many patents. That is the nature and purpose of patents, to protect the inventor for 17 years, and to teach the invention to advance the technology.

It is kind of like if you had invented the light bulb, had 17 years of charging a high price and enjoyed huge profits, and then being outraged once the patents ran out when someone sells them for the actual price of manufacture plus a small profit.

If you watch Edgepros videos about these sharpeners, they never say they are illegal, they say theirs is better for some rather trivial improvements they made, for ten times the cost.
 
Cool. Seems like your mind is made up. Enjoy your ethically sound copy/knock-off/homage.
 
Have the original and have seen a copy at a friends.
Well the copy wasn't as good but for the price it might be okay for some.
His stones where warped or the metal plate underneath. I could see a big space between them.
While the original handle screws the stone in place the copy used a spring. Cool! Easy replacement I thought. But when I used it with even the lightest pressure the spring wasn't strong enough to hold the stone in and it kept falling out. The copy stones came in different colors but felt like they had all about the same grit.
If money is an issue go with the copy. If you want something reliable which works chose the real deal.
 
The biggest issue other than ethics seems to be the warped stones... Which you should be able to correct to some degree. But the real cost of these systems is the quality stones, which are worth investing in if you plan on sharpening knives worth hundreds of dollars IMO.
 
Righteous indignation is strong in this subject.
The patent ran out long ago, but people are upset about the clones that exist.
I am sure they are expressing their indignation on an International Business Machines personal computer...

(And we'll disregard that DMT did it long before Mr. Dale did, which makes him a copycat).
 
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I have a clone that I bought several years ago.
I did purchase some good quality SiC stones for mine.
I did not want to spend the money for an Edge Pro if I did not like it.
I do not use it a lot, but it is nice to be able to dial in exact angles when sharpening.
I use mine mostly for thinning edges. I will set it to 8 or 10 degrees and remove the shoulder.
I will then continue to hand sharpen, which I am faster at and prefer.
I have had discussions with EP owners and I will admit the clone is nowhere near as nice as the real thing.
There is a lot of slop in the rotating mechanism and it does not sit on a table nicely, I had to mount mine to a board.

If you do not free hand sharpen I would say that the Edge Pro is definitely worth it.

However, for what I use mine for the clone and it's shortcomings get the job done for me.
 
If you only have a couple of low end knives to sharpen, get the copy.
If you have a bunch of blades over $150 and use them a lot, get the real deal.
From what I've read, and seen, the copy's stones are nowhere near the quality of the stones that come with the real deal.
Joe

PS.....not seeing much righteous indignation in this thread at all.
 
The generic version with the single suction cup is better than the one with four. If you're going to do some heavy duty work on tons of blades all the time, I wouldn't suggest it but for a knife or three a week it works well. I can fairly easily get hair whittling edges with both the supplied stones and stones from congress. I can't tell a huge difference in quality of the finished edge. Having said that, on a normal day I've gone to hand sharpening with diamonds. It's so much quicker. You can't beat a guided system for setting bevels, though. The generic version does it just as well as any other. Gotta spend some time with it and figure out the way to get best results like anything else.
 
That is about what I figured, that it is useable, just not as durable. I hand sharpen, but thought it would be fun to checkout to do some precise angle sharpening.
I looked at an Edgepro, and thought for the price, I can order parts to make that thing, rent time at my friends machine shop, and still save money.
 
I would say this one is superior to the original, you can attach whatever sharpening medium that you want via double sided tape or whatever and the parts are 3d printed except for the steel parts which can be bought by yourself or from as a set.


Gesendet von meinem SM-T813 mit Tapatalk
 
i have a edge pro ish design sharpener.. the stones that come with it are utter shit.. i have a set of diamond plates from gritomatic, and a set of edge pro stones. angle cube etc. around $250 invested and its very nice. it provides amazing results and i mean amazing results. all that said, i dont really use it on my knives often. it sees use when sharpening damaged knives, mostly friends and customers knives. i prefer to sharpen by hand 75% of the time simply because thats what i had done for years. after setting the bevels i want on my own knives they generally never touch the sharpener again.
 
Big Chris said:
I have a clone that I bought several years ago.
I did purchase some good quality SiC stones for mine.
I did not want to spend the money for an Edge Pro if I did not like it.
I do not use it a lot, but it is nice to be able to dial in exact angles when sharpening.
I use mine mostly for thinning edges. I will set it to 8 or 10 degrees and remove the shoulder.
I will then continue to hand sharpen, which I am faster at and prefer.
I have had discussions with EP owners and I will admit the clone is nowhere near as nice as the real thing.
There is a lot of slop in the rotating mechanism and it does not sit on a table nicely, I had to mount mine to a board.

If you do not free hand sharpen I would say that the Edge Pro is definitely worth it.

However, for what I use mine for the clone and it's shortcomings get the job done for me.
Click to expand...

I wonder how you'd feel if people saw knock off knives similar to yours and bought those instead.
 
sodak said:
I wonder how you'd feel if people saw knock off knives similar to yours and bought those instead.
Click to expand...

Sorry Guy, that does not come close to making sense. People don't sell well made 10v knives with incredible scales and perfect heat treat for one quarter the price of one of Chris' Babies. You know why? They cant...
I hate these threads...

Russ
 
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One of my friends got a clone so I'll throw in my two cents.

The cheap clone I saw just sucks. Cheap stones are cheap stones. The build quality, and let's admit it there is isn't a lot of parts, reflects the price. Lots of slop and that changes the angles. All the metal looked like badly recycled steel.

Yes the patent has expired. And if somebody made a clone that was equal or better to the edge pro for less money I got no problems buying it. After all my circular saw is made by dewalt, jigsaw made by Bosch and use Bahco "crescent" wrenches. I look for the best return for the money in my tools and brand loyalty or origins have nothing to do with it.

It's like buying a harbor freight compound miter saw. Yeah everyone and their momma can make one and it may work for a bit but it's not gonna be as tight as the other machines. Good for a few quick cuts but you'll beat your head into the wall dealing with all that slop.

Have you noticed that most of the trusted brands are all in a similar price range? That's because it takes a certain price point to put out a product at a certain level of quality, be it materials, customer service, workmanship, etc.

There is a point where you get diminishing returns but it seems that limit right now for jig systems is around $250 bucks.

The KME, edge pro and hapstone prices aren't that much different from the edge pro. A 3 stones set of really good Japanese water stones will cost you that much.

Currently nobody makes an adjustable sharpening jig that bridges the gap between the Lansky system and the other more expensive jobs. I doubt patents have anything to do with that.









Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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I got a "generic edge pro" back in 2012... here's what I posted back then...

cbwx34 said:
I bit the bullet and got one to compare. I may write a review at some point... but in summary... the quality is definitely not as good, the design is based on the "1st generation" Edge Pro, that has since been improved, and the stones are crap (as someone said). The "Blade Stop" safety design is not present in either direction, so you can, in theory anyway, run your hand into the blade, and you can also run the stone off the edge of the blade, messing up the sharpening. Also, thought you'd like to see how accurate the angle markings are next to the "real thing"...

AngleMark03_zpsae56e060.jpg



and a sample of how well it's put together...
FitFinish04_zps458a7d12.jpg


;)
Click to expand...

After a few months, the suction cups quit working, and plastic (or whatever it is) started flaking off where the sharpening rod went thru... making it basically unusable.

Conversely, my approx. 10 year old "real" Edge Pro, even though I don't use it as much as I used to, still works just fine when I pull it out.

Maybe the generics are improved... but can't beat the real deal IMO.
 
Some valid points Fishingfool, but are they more reasons for pushing someone to buy the original instead of a copy, as opposed to reasons that make the copy "bad"?

How massive is the "slop" level? Does it still exceed the precision you could get by freehanding?
I've seen several copies and the tolerances seemed tight enough to maintain at least a portion of a degree of accuracy after setup. How many freehanders can do that (you know, the ones who say "systems" are bad, because you might need to sharpen "in the field")?

What degree of precision is needed, given what so many knives here are claimed to be used for (cutting a sammich at lunch, baton-ing kindling, cutting up cardboard boxes, slicing a Polish by the campfire, dressing a deer, opening the box that the new knife arrived in)?
Is the knife edge ruined if you sharpen it to an inclusive angle of 22 degrees versus 20 degrees?
Is it ruined if you are just touching up and using the Sharpie method to match the angle without knowing the numbers?

How bad is a bad stone? Someone with skill can achieve hair-popping sharp using a cinderblock and some cardboard.
Can one of these stones be worse than a cinderblock?

As for price range, that will always be open to debate, but having a little knowledge of manufacturing, markup, etc., I can say with 100% confidence that the price of a product is not always reflective of the "background" of the product.
An example might be a wristwatch (since a lot of knife guys seem to be watch guys):
A lot of lower-priced watches (sub-$200) use folded steel links to make up the band. It works and it's inexpensive. The "problem" is that solid-link bands are available on Canal Street clone and homage watches that cost far less the the brand-name watches. You can even see non-knockoff watches with solid-link bands on those websites that carry a gazillion products. If it can be done by someone making knockoffs, it can certainly be done by a "legit" mfgr.

Another example might be the cost of a music CD (do those even exist any more?):
When CDs came out, they were more expensive at retail than LPs. The "reason" was that there was only one pressing plant in existence. As time progressed, many more plants came online. The cost of CD production dropped below the cost of an LP. (BTW-the original cost of production was not even THAT accurate, given that most of the music had already been released before and was just being put on the new CD format). The thing that DIDN'T change was the retail price of the CD. Why? Because that only benefits the consumer, and the consumer had no way to force the price down You like a performer? you buy from the record label that "owns'' them or you get nothing.

If a copy of a product can be made and sold legally that performs closely enough to the original that the differences don't matter to the user, it's going to happen. It will happen sometimes even if the differences DO cause a hardship, but one that can be "lived" with (so, I have to replace the battery every two years instead of three, but that Invicta homage watch is $300 cheaper? I can have that reel that only holds 200 feet of line instead of 300 but it's $100 cheaper? OK...)
It's the nature of goods and services in our world and it ain't gonna' change.
 
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