Finally Made Peace with My Commander!

N

nolan raborn

Joined
Aug 18, 2005
Messages
303
For nearly a year now I have owned an Emerson Commander. A plain edged black colored blade. I loved that knife, well except for the sharpening part. I have tried several times to sharpen it, first with the Spyderdco system and then the EdgePro. I was not happy with either. I felt like the Spyderco should do the job if I could just find the right angle to hold the thing. A week ago I gave up and pitched the thing into my gun safe with about 50 - 60 other knifes that I do not carry. Only thing, they were all scary sharp. Someone last week mentioned "30 degrees" to me. I thought about that for a day or so and it occurred to me that my Spyderco was set at 20 degrees on each side. If I took a little semi-circular compass and held the straight side against the ceramic stick and looked around the circle till I came to 30 and followed a line down to the ceramic stick, that would give me 30 degrees. I set up my Spyderco with one rod installed and held the compass to it and noted the 30 degree angle. Then I started sharpening my blade at as close to that angle as I could hold it. When a bead build up on the back side I did like Mr. Emerson said and stropped it against a sheet of cardboard. Pretty soon I had that thing shaving pretty good. I tried it on some little sheets of note paper held by the corner. There was still some rough places that tore the paper so I worked on it a little more and then sat down and spend several minutes with a leather strop on a little board. Pretty soon it would rip through the note paper very easily. I want to mention that I only used the white stone on the Sharpmaker. Did not need the black one at all. Needless to say, it is back in my pocket as my EDC.

Nolan
 
thats one way to do it but imho is the long way around the barn, the best way to sharpen EKIs is with a std norton india stone and a steel or cardboard, a SM will work but its a PITA to do it that way.
 
SIFU1A said:
thats one way to do it but imho is the long way around the barn, the best way to sharpen EKIs is with a std norton india stone and a steel or cardboard, a SM will work but its a PITA to do it that way.
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To use an india stone I first have to learn to sharpen with a flat stone. I do not do enough sharpening to do that and do not care to do it since I have a superior, well two superior systems. It only took me a few minutes to sharpen the Commander once I arrived at an angle that would work. By the time I learned I would have ruined a couple of knives or more. That is what is so great about the Spyderco SM. It is fast to learn and it only takes off enough steel to do the job. I don't know how close the angle that I used was to the angle already on the blade but it worked well and I will continue to stick with the angle that I used.

Nolan
 
if it works for ya thats cool, but the SM isnt a superior system on a CG though lol.

"V" grinds?? i agree, but not CG's, and if it ever gets very dull ya will see WTF i am talking about.
 
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