FINALLY ordered a Sharpmaker, which angles should I sharpen these knives at?

Kaizen1

Kaizen1

Gold Member
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Jan 4, 2006
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Hey All,

This is my 1st sharpener. I'm still waiting in the mail for it right now. I understand that there are 2 different angles I can sharpen my knives with on the Sharpmaker. Which angles should I be using for the following knives:

Griptilians 551, 552
Pacific Salt
LM Wave
Camillus Heat
Leek
Opinel 7

Also, any advice for a newb sharpener? Thanks
 
You use the two angles, one takes the primary edge down and the other and the second puts a final bevel.
 
The Heat, the Salt, and the Griptillians should have factory edges that allow you to sharpen at 15 degrees per side. I would do that (it's a gift, so take it).

The Leek if it's 440A and the Opinel should be easy to profile regardless of the original angle. I would go with 15 degrees per side. Sometimes you might want to not bother and just sharpen at 20 as its faster until you work on the edge with a coaser stone.

The Wave probably is obtuse enough to require 20 degrees to actually sharpen the edge. Whether you want to spend the time to reduce it depends on how much you want to use that blade. Functionally I don't see much reason to keep full 20 degree bevels.
 
For everything except the Opinel: tape (mostly), cardboard (2nd), shrink wrap, plastic ties and random cutting jobs. Haven't figured out what to do with the Opinel, I just recieved it as a gift- any suggestions?

The Leek is 440A
 
If you are avoiding metals and in general not doing a lot of harsh twisting on the blades then you can go very low in angle, you could actually flatten the edge right to the primary grind. However this will take a lot of time and unless you have power equipment or Thom's patience this is not a realistic option.

As a starting point as Kel_aa noted I would recommend sharpening each at 15 for the first time and depending on how they respond would switch to 20 for touchups. Specifically if they take a long time to sharpen at 15 then resharpen at 20. You can then decide if you want to spent the time to lower the angles on the ones which take a while to sharpen and need the higher angle for sharpening. You can just file the leatherman so it is easy to reduce its edge angle in just a few minutes.

An opinel is mainly a light cutting knife, it works very well in the kitchen as a paring/utility knife and the edge angle can be very low. I run it typically very flat to the primary grind with little secondary edge bevel. However for carving woods you will need to move up to about a 10 degree bevel to keep the edge stable, increase this towards 15 if you are cutting really knotty woods or doing a lot of scraping.

-Cliff
 
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