Hopefully my last sharpening thread

[jfindon]

Ok, so I've made a few threads in the past and each one gets me a little closer to my goal of actually knowing what I'm doing.

Setup is a KME with the old basic kit as seen here:

http://www.kmesharp.com/4sexcomefi.html

Interesting link name. Anyway, I'm going to be picking up the diamond stone set here because the supplied ones kind of suck:

http://www.kmesharp.com/gose3set.html

So, onto my questions. I've come to find out that knife companies can't put an even edge on to save their lives and you wind up with something that look like this:

Rather than this:

And from my last post I learned that this will completely screw up attempts at getting an angle like the second photo if you keep the same exact angle on a guided system and flip the knife over. It leads to one side having a much wider edge bevel than the other. So should I be trying to correct this or just stick with the weird factory angles provided it doesn't hurt sharpness? How would I even go about correcting this? I'm afraid to sharpen my good knives now because I've messed up cheaper ones where the edge bevel is way wider on one side than the other, so it almost seems like I need to just use the sharpie method more than the direct angle cube method unless I know how to fix the side that is shallower.

 

[jpm2]

If I wanted both sides to match, using a guided sharpener, I'd set to the wide side, which has the lowest angle, flip and grind the short side till they matched. If the inclusive angle ends up too low, say for instance 25° inclusive, and wanted 30°, reset the guide for that and make micro bevel. Future sharpenings would continue at 30°.

 

[bolabeenz]

Don't assume the bevel will be the same heel to tip on the factory edge. When I used the edge-pro I would sharpie the lowest angle side and set the stone in the middle of the blade. Adjust the angle to match the edge with a high grit stone just to remove the ink then see if the rest of the edge matches. If not, I would reprofile that side until it was even. Then flip and do as jpm2 mentioned.
Diamonds are your friend here.

 

[cbwx34]

In addition to the above replies, I would add... don't "stick to the weird factory angles"... it defeats the purpose of the guided system, can make things worse over time, and will make sharpening way more difficult than it needs to be.

 

[bflying]

The goal is for even and equal bevels from side for side. Often factory edges look like they were the victim of a wrist roll while sharpening on a grinder. The only time I have had trouble obtaining a correction is if the primary grind and/or flat stock at spine is ground different side to side. So if the blade ends up at an angle (not horizontal with the edge at the exact same elevation when flipped) in the clamp, it will be impossible to get the same bevel as you flip side to side.

I would add that if using non-fixed thickness stones (not the diamond stones), the small thickness differences can make a perfect edge more of a challenge. KME now has a thickness compensator for stones of varying thickness. I have a set of the ceramics, but I found it easier to just use the gold diamonds for most of my knives. Some day will pick up (or make) a compensator so I can experiment with the results of different stones.

Edge Pro users are quite familiar with this phenomenon as stones are lapped and flattened.




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Sent from my mind....using Tap-a-Thought. (tm)

 

[jfindon]

Sounds like there are many more factors than I started out thinking, it's more complex than I thought. I'll probably get a beater knife and try sharpening it and photo document each step so I can make sure I'm going about things right. I think that's the only way I'll get it all sorted in my head.

Thanks guys.