For Sharp Maker users

udtjim

udtjim

Joined
Sep 4, 2007
Messages
6,583
I got a Sharp Maker Spyderco sharpener for Xmas and am amazed at its versatility and how sharp you can get your knives. I have sharpened everything from the small blade on My SAK to the 10 inch Condor Mountain knife. All with the same result, Razor sharp. Who else uses this one and what has been your toughest knife to sharpen? So far my Kabar Camp Knife was the biggest challenge. The sheer weight of the knife along with the Boa style blade made it a little tough but in the end, it slices paper like a razor knife.

Big knives used to be my pain in the neck for sharpening. However with the edge maker I have done a bunch of 8-12 inch blades with no problem.
 
I think I made 2 passes on my Kershaw Outcast before realizing that it was a lost cause. It ended up taking about 20 minutes on a belt sander to get it reprofiled to where the Spyderco would even touch the edge.

For touch-ups, though, the Sharpmaker can't be beat. :thumbup:
 
Thanks. How did you break your sharpening rod?

Is your Outcast the D2 model? I have not tried that one yet. I did order the Congress Course stone rods for mine but have not recieved them yet. Overall I am real happy with the Sharp Maker.
 
If the edge is thicker than the 20 deg forget it! But if its under, the hardest are skinner types with large bellies. They need to be held in two positions, 1st normal for the belly, and 2 for the tip, which I have hold it like a pencil, or the tip gets rounded.
 
Yes, the Outcast is the big honkin' D2 recurve blade. My father-in-law did the sander work on it... said it took longer than any knife he had ever done.
 
I have that D2 Outcast but so far its still very sharp. I won't look forward to working on that one. I guess I have a belt sander too though.
 
I broke the rod thusly: I took the SM to work to sharpen a friend's knife. I set the SM on a counter and lifted the top off. One of the brown medium rods wasn't "clipped" into position in the lower tray. When I pulled the top off, this rod was closest to the edge of the counter and out it came...and down it went. Broke into three pieces.

As Samhain says: Watch out for the tip of your knives! Don't, at any time, let the tip slide off the rods at the end of the stroke. It's nearly impossible to prevent, but you can limit it by slowing down and *watching* carefully as the tip nears the edge of the stone. I find when it happens, it happens when using the corners of the rods. The tip will round very quickly with very few "slips".
 
Before getting a belt sander, I used the SM almost exclusively. It is an ingeneous device!:p

I still use it on a couple of my blades.

And BTW, when I first got my "Big ol' honkin' 710 D-2" from Benchmade, I reprofiled that hard D2 steel to a straight 15 degrees with the grey rods on the SM

A pain in the arse???? You betcha! :grumpy: Took a couple of hours!:thumbdn:

But when it was done, it was well worth the effort, and a breeze to "touch up" the blade. :p:):p
 
I just sharpened my Benchmade folder in D2.

It wasn't that hard to get sharp. I ran it through 40 passes on each side for all 4 steps though.
 
StretchNM said:
I broke the rod thusly: I took the SM to work to sharpen a friend's knife. I set the SM on a counter and lifted the top off. One of the brown medium rods wasn't "clipped" into position in the lower tray. When I pulled the top off, this rod was closest to the edge of the counter and out it came...and down it went. Broke into three pieces.
Click to expand...

Look at the bright side. You now have three pocket stones for quick field touchups! :D Put some rubber end caps on it and you've got some cheapo dogbone sharpeners you can take with you.

I love my sharpmaker. Awesome for plain edges, but haven't had good luck with serrated.
 
I also noticed that rounding the tips while using the corners is way too easy... I try to avoid working on the very same tip while using corners, just sharpen them while using the flats.

BTW, I got a question for you all who use serrated blades... Somehow when I was watching the sharpmaker video I expected Sal to sharpen the serrations going one by one just slowly using the corners but... ¡he did not! He just used it as it was a plain edge blade... ¿How do you guys do it?
Mikel
 
Just like Sal, shows, but I pull the blade for a few strokes, and then I push it, to work the front half and back half of the serrations equally.
 
HoB said:
Just like Sal, shows, but I pull the blade for a few strokes, and then I push it, to work the front half and back half of the serrations equally.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice! I will try that whenever I need to sharpen serrations.
Mikel
 
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