help with my edgepro

L

licensed to chill

Joined
Dec 14, 2008
Messages
10
Finally got my edgepro in the mail today.Biggest smile on my face all week. Set her up,read instructions carefully and even watched video on edgepro website.

first victim--- fairly dull spyderco endura wave. Started with 220 and felt marker. angle roughly at 20 degrees. worked thru 220,320,600 and 1000 stones.
Knife will barely shave hair off my arm. reread book again. Don;t think i'm doing anything wrong but still no wicked sharp.
Man, i'm pretty upset right now. Need some help.
 
Take a deep breath.. relax... Rome wasn't built in a day. It does work but takes time to master. Someone will chime in with help soon! I went through the same thing with my Sharpmaker.
 
okay, there are many possibilities of what could be wrong here. 1. you never worked up a burr 2. once sed burr was acheived you have not removed it properly. I have an edge pro and it is fantastic. Do you have any polish tapes? If you don't then you certaintly need to get some, they are amazing. They also make removal of burrs close to idiot proof. So at this stage I would check for any remaining burrs, if there is none, repeat process. Start with 220 and work up burr along the entire edge, then proceed through the rest of the grits and remove the burr you worked up. Hope this helps and don't worry you'll be able to get knives sharper then you sometimes want them. :)
 
Try taking a sharpie and do up the edge i use red.This will let you see if you have gone far enough.And start with a POS. knife get it hair pippin sharp use it on every thing resharpen it then go for the good one.12 years on one edge pro.
 
I think the biggest mistake you can make, besides not working up a burr before you switch stones, is using too much pressure! Lighten up. Just a little downward force on the knob is enough. No need to feel as if you are grinding it down. Use more strokes rather than more pressure. Also, be sure that you are working directly over the blade table. Move the knife rather than swinging the sharpening arm.

As with all sharpening devices, the first time you use it on a knife will be the most difficult. No matter how carefully you are using the Sharpie, you are actually re-beveling the edge. That removes a lot of metal. You should be spending a lot of time with the 120 grit stone working up the edge. A LOT of time. Then with each successive grit less and less time and less and less pressure. By the time you are down to the polishing tapes there should ONLY be the weight of the sharpening arm alone pressing down on the blade.

The EdgePro is without doubt the finest hand sharpening device on the market today, but you have to use it correctly. Once you lighten up your pressure, once you stay over the blade table, and once you work up a burr before switching to the next stone you will have perfectly sharpened edges. Rome wasn't built in a day. It just looks that way.

Stictchawl
 
I agree with Stitch, you will spend most of the time with the coarsest stone to get the bevel completed. I still need to learn to not bear down on the finer stones.
 
Another trap for young players, something that happened to me in the early days of my Edgepro, a wire edge. This is hard to explain but you can end up with a tiny, extremely thin sliver of metal right along the edge of the blade. The blade looks sharp and can even feel sharp but the first time you try to cut something that sliver folds over and you seem to have a butter knife. Very annoying.
 
.
stitchawl said:
I think the biggest mistake you can make, besides not working up a burr before you switch stones, is using too much pressure! Lighten up. Just a little downward force on the knob is enough. No need to feel as if you are grinding it down. Use more strokes rather than more pressure. Also, be sure that you are working directly over the blade table. Move the knife rather than swinging the sharpening arm.

As with all sharpening devices, the first time you use it on a knife will be the most difficult. No matter how carefully you are using the Sharpie, you are actually re-beveling the edge. That removes a lot of metal. You should be spending a lot of time with the 120 grit stone working up the edge. A LOT of time. Then with each successive grit less and less time and less and less pressure. By the time you are down to the polishing tapes there should ONLY be the weight of the sharpening arm alone pressing down on the blade.

The EdgePro is without doubt the finest hand sharpening device on the market today, but you have to use it correctly. Once you lighten up your pressure, once you stay over the blade table, and once you work up a burr before switching to the next stone you will have perfectly sharpened edges. Rome wasn't built in a day. It just looks that way.

Stictchawl
Click to expand...
WOW very nice great info.
 
Keep in mind that the 120 and 220 stones are thicker than the others. You will need to adjust the angle after the 220 or you will not be coming into full contact with the edge.
 
CarpScot said:
Keep in mind that the 120 and 220 stones are thicker than the others. You will need to adjust the angle after the 220 or you will not be coming into full contact with the edge.
Click to expand...

???! I just calipered my stones and they are all the same thickness. Maybe we received ours at different times. I do have to make adjustments when I use my leather mounted strops on the blanks as that is slightly different.

Stitchawl.
 
stitchawl said:
???! I just calipered my stones and they are all the same thickness. Maybe we received ours at different times. I do have to make adjustments when I use my leather mounted strops on the blanks as that is slightly different.

Stitchawl.
Click to expand...
We must have different stones then. I bought my EdgePro a few weeks ago and the 120 and 220 stones are noticeably thicker.
 
CarpScot said:
Keep in mind that the 120 and 220 stones are thicker than the others. You will need to adjust the angle after the 220 or you will not be coming into full contact with the edge.
Click to expand...

I think you bring up an important point.
When the EP was offered for sale a number of years ago, I think there were two grit sizes and both stones were the exact same thickness. Move forward 10 years and now we have many stone options ,plus Diamond embedded steel plates, glass and leather as well as blanks for 'peel and stick' micro abrasives. All from diferent supliers.

As these are all different thicknesses, angle re adjustments will be required at every change of abrasive hone.

The problem is worse when you change from a thin hone to a thicker one as in this case, you would be missing the edge completelly without angle
adjustment.
 
stitchawl said:
I think the biggest mistake you can make, besides not working up a burr before you switch stones, is using too much pressure! Lighten up. Just a little downward force on the knob is enough. No need to feel as if you are grinding it down. Use more strokes rather than more pressure. Also, be sure that you are working directly over the blade table. Move the knife rather than swinging the sharpening arm.

As with all sharpening devices, the first time you use it on a knife will be the most difficult. No matter how carefully you are using the Sharpie, you are actually re-beveling the edge. That removes a lot of metal. You should be spending a lot of time with the 120 grit stone working up the edge. A LOT of time. Then with each successive grit less and less time and less and less pressure. By the time you are down to the polishing tapes there should ONLY be the weight of the sharpening arm alone pressing down on the blade.

The EdgePro is without doubt the finest hand sharpening device on the market today, but you have to use it correctly. Once you lighten up your pressure, once you stay over the blade table, and once you work up a burr before switching to the next stone you will have perfectly sharpened edges. Rome wasn't built in a day. It just looks that way.

Stictchawl
Click to expand...

I agree, based on having used an EP for 10 years.

Also, if you're trying to get from 'marginal shaving sharp' to 'hair falls off your arm sharp' get a strop. I could drone on about the whys and hows, but just trust me. Learn how to finish a stone-sharpened V-bevel on a strop!

I would be willing to bet I could get your knife from where it is to where you want it just using my 10K strop. Not that that would necessarily be the most efficient way, but bet it would work. You can pop most blades back from 'off shaving' to 'pretty damn good' on a dirty pair of jeans. :-)
 
Thanks for the replys. Found that my biggest problem was using too much pressure and not having the knife stay in one position due to the blade design(blade wobbling on edgepro table) . Restarted process and took my time and finally got the Spyderco sharp like i want it.

Once again thanks for the help.
 
Something else to think about; the stones aren't doing the cutting. It actually the 'slurry' created by particles of stone rubbed off, mixed with water, that are the abrasive at work. Japanese sword polishers usually take a small piece of broken stone (of a lesser grit) and rub it around the soaking wet stone that they will use to sharpen, and work up a good thick slurry (read:mud) and use that to sharpen the blade. Although this is happening on top of the stone, and is even wearing down the stone during the process, it's this mud that having the most effect upon the edge. For their final stages they often don't even bother with using the stone as the sharpening surface. They just use some of the slurry on their finger and rub the blade with that! You MUST use the EdgePro stones wet so that a slurry forms. And you don't want it too wet either so that the slurry drips off during the sharpening. After all, the EdgePro stones are used upside down making it easy for that to happen. Watch out for it.

Another thing to think about... keeping the stones absolutely flat. A dished stone is not going to sharpen very well at all! This is really only a major problem with the couarser grit stones. I've worn out several of the 120 grits, but hardly touched the 600 grit. In fact, I can still see the number markings clearly on the 600 and 320, and just barely on the 220. But I've had to replace the 120 a couple of times because it got too thin from repeated flattening. I have a flattening stone that I bought in a hardware stone. Looks like a cleaning stone for a short order grill. A rough brick with several diagonal grooves in it to clear away debris. Norton sells one for $25 but you can find them more cheaply in restaurant supply shops. http://www.craftsmanstudio.com/html_p/N662434-87444.htm or you can just use a piece of flat granite paving stone with some silicon carbide grit or fine sand on it to rub the sharpening stone against. Which ever you use, you MUST use it after every few knives to keep the coarse stones flat.

This brings up another point. The more you flatten it the thinner the stone becomes. This is going to change the angle of sharpening. Keep that in mind. It's only a degree or two, but it does change the angle.

Stitchawl
 
Nosmo said:
I think you bring up an important point.
When the EP was offered for sale a number of years ago, I think there were two grit sizes and both stones were the exact same thickness. Move forward 10 years and now we have many stone options ,plus Diamond embedded steel plates, glass and leather as well as blanks for 'peel and stick' micro abrasives. All from diferent supliers.

As these are all different thicknesses, angle re adjustments will be required at every change of abrasive hone.

The problem is worse when you change from a thin hone to a thicker one as in this case, you would be missing the edge completelly without angle
adjustment.
Click to expand...

When I ordered my EdgePro it came with 120, 220, 320, and 600 grit stones, one stone blank and one tape blank, 2,000 and 4,000 grit polishing tapes, and a ceramic rod. Taking the advice from others, I ordered a couple of extra 120 stones and extra polishing tapes. That was about 8-10 years ago. I've since made several extra stone blanks and made up my own using different stones (both diamond and water stones,) several leather strop blanks so that I can strop at the exact angle that I sharpened, and some more polishing tape blanks. I've found various makers of polishing films in grit sizes from 1,000 going all the way up to 15,000 grit, but that aren't adhesive backed. I solved that problem by using the white glue sticks from the stationary store gently on the back of the film. Works fine.

I have to be careful when making up my own stones and strop blanks to be sure that the thickness is the same as with the original stones, but that really isn't too difficult. The results speak for themselves. I can whittle amoeba into basket weave patterns.... ;)

Stitchawl
 
PetaBread said:
What are burrs?
Click to expand...

Sorry, Peta... Nobody addressed your question. I'll take a stab at it.

The 'burr' is a thin line of metal that is created when you sharpen only one side of the blade at a time. It's sort of 'metal that is bending up over the edge' so to speak, and you'll find it on the opposite side of the edge from the one you are grinding down with your sharpening stone.

Burr with me for a minute... :rolleyes: Imagine that you sharpening the side of a triangle. let's call the faces of this triangle 'A' and 'B.' You are sharpening the 'A' side. You have this 'A' side of the triangle laying flat on your stone and you're rubbing it back and forth. You aren't turning it over. You're just working on one flat side. After a while, this 'A' side will be as flat as the stone, and there will be a small, very thin, upturned metal "burr" on the 'B' side of the triangle, right at the thin edge, even though you haven't done anything to that side. Often this 'burr' is so small that you can't really see it. You can, however, feel it. Especially if you use your fingernail, dragging your nail from the spine of the blade down across the edge. (Do NOT drag from the point to the heel along the edges. That is called 'cutting your finger' and is not a good thing.) It's as if you have been pressing a thin edge onto something hard causing the edge to roll over... but of course, this burr isn't caused that way.

When sharpening, especially with a clamp device, it's common to do one side completely, and then switch to the other side. You scrub one side of the blade (the 'A' side of the triangle) until you create this burr along the entire length of the blade on the 'B' side. THIS IS IMPORTANT! Be sure that you can feel the burr all along the edge, but always check it by dragging your nail from spine to edge. Just do that a lot of times. Once you have a burr all along the edge, switch to the opposite side (the 'B' side of the triangle) and do it all over again, raising the burr (which will now occur on the 'A' side.) When you have the burr again, it's time to go to the next higher grit stone and repeat the process. By the time you've reached the really higher grits, you won't be raising a burr any longer though. In fact, I'd say that I stop feeling them around 600 grit, but continue on to considerably higher grits using less strokes and less pressure.

I hope this was clear. I tried to make an ASCII picture but I couldn't figure out how to do it. :o

Stitchawl
 
I've been sharpening knives on the professional model of the Edgepro for 10 years or so and absolutely love this system. Its capabilities are amazing. I bought mine from Ben Dale himself and he recommended that I pick up a smooth steel to put the finishing touch on my blades. Here's a source. http://www.restaurantsource.com/for...ers-sharpening-steel/ProdDesc-40587-5420.aspx I took his advice and have never been sorry. Don't mistake this for the regular abrasive textured steels that are so common. These will actually remove steel from your blade. These steels are hardened and perfectly smooth. When you're done sharpening and have removed the burr, run both edges down the steel using no pressure at all. Just let the edge slide down the steel while pulling the knife toward you. Only takes one time for each edge. You will be surprised at the difference it makes.

-Dan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top