EdgePro Mod - Couldn't find Legos

T

thombrogan

Joined
Nov 16, 2002
Messages
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Months ago, on a forum far, far away, I mused about getting Legos and making an extender shelf for my EdgePro Apex. Couldn't find the right-sized Legos without buying a giant kit. Tried some funtak putty instead. Too squishy and sticky. Made some extender shelves from Sculpey polymer clay (shape it, bake it, trim it, use it) and that's what was needed! The extender shelf solve the problem of sharpening knives generally too small for the EdgePro and sharpening knives with their ricasso/choil part of their edge as close to perpindicular to the EdgePro's movement arm as possible to prevent making an unintended recurve.

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Crude, yet serviceable.

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A dashing profile

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Sharpening what? Lava!

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This poor piece of steel is going to get some muy caliente sharpening!

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Super thick wax paper holds official and home-made tape blanks with equal ease. In the land of non-nutritive sweeteners, Equal-ese is the lingua franca.

Also made a larger shelf extender for wider bladed knives. The Lava's edge came out very nice. It has swampwalk. Use an EZE-Lap 1200x EdgePro SuperFine Diamond, 3M 5micron SiC, and 3M 0.3micron AO film. If it had to be done again, EdgePro's superfine 600 grit stone would've came between the diamond and the 5 micron paper.
 
"EZE-Lap 1200x EdgePro SuperFine Diamond"

Does that mean the fine diamond hone from Dale comes from EZE-Lap? Is it a continuous surface? (vs DMT hole pattern) Do you know how fine it is vs the green Xfine DMT?

Thx

MAT
 
It's continuous surface and an EdgePro/Ben & Sierra exclusive (try finding a 42SF elsewhere). It starts off coarse, but it ends up about the same as a comparable DMT product (while there are real differences between polycrystalline and monocrystalline diamonds, they don't really show at 1200 grit).
 
Thom,
I have an Edgepro Apex in the mail. For those of us that haven't handled one yet, could you explain in a few setences this shelf-extender concept.
 
Man, I'm feeling stupid.

I MUST be stupid because I know you as a smart guy, and I'm sure you did something smart, but I have NO IDEA what you did or the problem it solves.
(Even with the pictures.) :(

.
 
Forgive me for invalidating your feelings, but don't feel stupid, fulloflead, especially if it's over something I've done.

Look at your EdgePro with the stoneholder resting straight on the blade shelf. It's parallel to the base and would be completely perpendicular to a straight blade at that point. Now move the stoneholder to either corner. Instead of being perpendicular to the edge of a straight blade, it's now at maybe a 75-80 degree angle and that's how it will cut. On the belly side of the blade, that can be a plus (unless it's a wharnie or sheepsfoot blade), but on the ricasso side, it can grind a recurve into the blade (might be cool or beneficial for knives being used outdoors, but can be the kiss of death for some kitchen knives). This mod lets you go parallel with the bolster when sharpening if needed.

It also helps if you're sharpening a very small blade, such as a Spyderco Lava or Dragonfly, a Fallkniven U2, or the smaller blade on a SAK. A Benchmade 710, Spyderco Manix, or Cucchiaria recurve will fit there with no problem, but the smaller blades, they have trouble getting that EdgePro loving. The Sculpey can also help if the spine of the knife doesn't want to rest flat on the adjustor thingy.

Does that help my foolishness seem maybe 3% less foolish?
 
Another stupid question:
Would it be just as good doing this extender shelf in for example wood??
Or is there a particular reason you chose clay?
/ Karl
 
Thanks for the link, Matt321! :thumbup:

Fulloflead,

Yep, but would rather remake the extender/riser/widget out of Fimo or wood next time around. The danged thing started breaking. :grumpy:

Unrelated to riser blocks, but totally related to EdgePro:

I've been a big booster of using diamond hones on these machines. Both making my own coarse hones using an EZE-Lap 42C on an EdgePro stone blank (pop off a worn stone and place double-sided tape on the diamond and there's your new 'never needs flattening' stone) and buying Ben's 1200 grit diamond stone (against his recommendation; Ben doesn't like diamonds unless the knives are insanely hard ceramic or similar). The finish left by the standard 600 grit waterstone from EdgePro is much more polished than a quite broken-in 1200 grit diamond. Going from the 1200 grit diamond to a 5 micron SiC tape takes forever; going from EdgePro's 600 grit waterstone to the same polishing tape is bing-bang-boom
 
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