Griptilian sharpening

T

The True Nerevar

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Jul 30, 2015
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I have owned my Griptilian for over a year now, it arrived extremely sharp and i fell in love with the axis lock. However once i lost the factory edge I've never been able to really get the 154CM steel back to razor sharp. I use the Spyderco sharpmaker and have no problem sharpening any other steel.

I can't tell if its the angle, if 154cm is just stubborn, the spyderco hates benchmade products :P, or if I'm just lazy. I'm looking into getting another Benchmade but i Don't want to buy 154CM again if I don't get along well with it.

Any advice to help me get my grip razor sharp again would be much appreciated.

:D
 
If the cutting edge is too thick you may have to back bevel it but Id imagine it would take some heavy use to get to that point. Other than that I dont know
 
What angle are you using on the sharpmaker? I use wet stones or sandpaper on all of my knives including Benchmade. 154cm is not hard to sharpen. But it goes better on a stone at 17-20 degrees. Lots of great sharpening help in the stickies at the top of this section.

Mike
 
The True Nerevar said:
I've been trying the 30 degree angles, but I'm not sure if its acute enough for the grind angle.
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30 degrees inclusive is 15 degrees per side. That might be to thin to sustain an edge with that steel. I think the sharpmaker has a 40 degree inclusive...I would try that. Do you have the white (red tip) extra fine rods? Use them as the last step and then strop on leather with green or grey compound.

Mike
 
You are not hitting the edge with the 30 degree setting. With the 30 degree setting, I'm guessing that you are just grinding the shoulders of the bevel and will need a lot of work to basically rebevel it to where you'll be hitting the edge at that setting.

Try the sharpie trick and the 40 degree setting.

BTW, 154CM will have no problem with an edge bevel at 30 degrees inclusive or 15 dps.
 
Yup, run the marker to see exactly where you are hitting the edge. You may also look into a guided sharpening system. The Sharpmaker is basically a freehand system. Which is great if you have well developed eye/hand coordination, but not so great until then.
 
The griptilians are factory sharpened at around 20 degress (40 inclusive), . If you're going down to 15, it will get sharp but you're wasting most of the grinding on the shoulder.

It's a common misconception that lower angles give you an overall sharper knife. It will be sharper initially, but it will not stand up to being worked. I have knives that are ground 25 (50) degrees that will easily do the "paper test". My paper test is a piece of belt leather, if an edge cuts it like it was a phonebook sheet I'm happy. Everything in the universe has a balance, ying and yang. Super acute angles are sharper but need more maintenance, more obtuse angles are less sharp but take a beating.

Find your balance point. There is an angle that comes naturally to you, and serves most of your purposes. Read a little zen and bushido. Don't fight the nature of the knife or yourself.

When you aim for the balance of utility, sharpness and your own ability, you'll be much happier with the results.
 
nine4t4 said:
The griptilians are factory sharpened at around 20 degress (40 inclusive), . If you're going down to 15, it will get sharp but you're wasting most of the grinding on the shoulder.

It's a common misconception that lower angles give you an overall sharper knife. It will be sharper initially, but it will not stand up to being worked. I have knives that are ground 25 (50) degrees that will easily do the "paper test". My paper test is a piece of belt leather, if an edge cuts it like it was a phonebook sheet I'm happy. Everything in the universe has a balance, ying and yang. Super acute angles are sharper but need more maintenance, more obtuse angles are less sharp but take a beating.

Find your balance point. There is an angle that comes naturally to you, and serves most of your purposes. Read a little zen and bushido. Don't fight the nature of the knife or yourself.

When you aim for the balance of utility, sharpness and your own ability, you'll be much happier with the results.
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Depending on the steel of course, but that's just generally not true. Most modern steels can take 15 dps angles. They will hold their cutting ability longer than the same knife sharpened at 20 dps. 20dps for modern steels is really quite marginal. You won't get the benefit from modern steels that you should.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, that has been the experience of most experienced users here.

Consider this. Why does a dull kitchen knife continue to be useable? Because it's thin behind the edge. Same principle applies. More acute bevel angles are thinner behind the edge than more obtuse ones. The result is that sharpness drops off faster from knives with more obtuse bevel angles. Assuming of course, that the steel can handle the angles.

What you get with more obtuse edge bevels is resistance to edge damage like chipping and rolling(think axes and choppers). You don't get longer lasting cutting performance.
 
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You can always send it back to Benchmade and they will resharpen and maintain it for free, comes back like a razor.
 
Cutlery Mania said:
You can always send it back to Benchmade and they will resharpen and maintain it for free, comes back like a razor.
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If you use your knife a lot, sending it in for sharpening will become a bit cumbersome.

Since the OP already has a sharpmaker, he'd be better off having his knife rebeveled by someone like Jason B. Maintenance on the sharpmaker will be a breeze then.
 
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