How quickly did you buy a sharpening system?

[Joben]

I only have like two knives at the moment which is pathetic haha. I guess I kinda want to build my collection before buying a sharpening system ( sharpmaker ). Is this a wrong way to go about things?

I got a simple system fairly early on.

If you really want to sharpen knives properly you need either a bench stone or one of the systems. Small pocket stones are hard to use until you have a better feeling for what you're doing, and those pull through things with the carbide teeth are evil.

With this in mind I bought a Lansky Turnbox which is sorta the poor man's sharpmaker. That worked pretty well, and my knives were never unusably dull again. For under $20 it's really hard to go wrong...

But I finally sprung for a Sharpmaker a little while ago...probably should have done it sooner. It's fast, easy to use and can even handle serrations.

A well made knife with a dull edge is a tragedy. Please, think of the knives, buy a sharpener.

 

[cziv]

Well, you seem pretty new to the whole concept, so I'll try to explain better about the basics (forgive me if I talk too simply, I don't mean to talk down to you, just trying to help).

There's 2 levels of sharpening a knife. Touching up, and reprofiling. When you get a knife from the factory, it will (should) be sharp enough to slice paper without snagging or tearing it, and shave a bald spot on your arm. When the knife is used it'll dull a bit and you won't be able to shave or slice like you used to. Usually, all that's needed is a quick touch-up. On a Sharpmaker you use the 40º angle holes. Very little metal is removed. Eventually though, after many, many touch-ups, enough metal will have been removed that the edge angle is too obtuse to touch up at 40º. At this point it's time for a reprofiling.

Reprofling involves creating an entirely new bevel grind. On the Sharpmaker you use the 30º setting for reprofiling. Reprofiling with the included medium rods can take quite a while, especially with steels like S30V or D2. This is where the diamond rods come in. Or something like the Edge Pro. Or sending it in the factory for them to resharpen it if you don't want to spend the money on such a system or the time to do it yourself.

The 30º and 40º settings on the Sharpmaker work for most any knife for most any user. The Edge Pro gives you much more flexibility if you want it. Reprofiling on an Edge Pro is easier and quicker than using the Sharpmaker, even with the diamond rods. You can do touch ups on the Edge Pro if you use the finest grit stones, but IMO this removes more material than necessary.

Unless you're overly abusive or obsessive, reprofiling is a rare chore. I've owned both my Benchmade 940D2CF and Spyderco Caly 3 ZDP-189 for a few years, carry one of them every day, use them most days, and touch them up probably a couple times a week. And I've only had to reprofile them each once.

A Sharpmaker will tide you over just fine. Make sure you watch the included DVD. The Edge Pro is a good choice when you have more knives or want to start experimenting with different edge bevels.

That's the best description of a Sharpmaker's function and application tht I've ever read - I knew it but most don't know that stuff. Good contribution man! :thumbup:

I bought Sharpmaker shortly after I bought my first decent knife and certainly before I bought my second. I just figured out that if I want to keep my knife sharp, sharpmaker will pay for it self after few sharpening. I never bought diamond rod. At that time they were US made and cost much more, so I bought few Congress stones. They can be much coarser than diamond rods and probably will remove steel faster plus cost less. Not sure how they will work with steel like ZPP189, but work pretty good with S30V and VG10.

There's another thread going on right now that shows the Congress stones (with a link to their site) clipped to a Sharpmaker rod and the poster said they work great on ZDP!

Myself - I freehand or use the clamp sometimes with a full set of DMT magna-guide hones, x-coarse to xx-fine. They give you a near mirror edge coming off of the xx-fine hone w/o stropping. I wish they were about an inch longer but they're amazing for the price!

 

[Dorito Monk]

My father let me use his whetstones and strops back when I got my first knife, and since then I've amassed a collection of my own. I learned to sharpen before I got into knives when I'd fiddle around with woodworking projects when I was younger. I guess I've always had sharpening devices available to me, although I don't have any fancy 'systems' like the Edge-Pro/DMT Aligner/Sharpmaker. Come to think of it, between strops, stones, compounds and such, I probably have more sharpening do-dads than I have knives by a long shot.

 

[cziv]

My father let me use his whetstones and strops back when I got my first knife, and since then I've amassed a collection of my own. I learned to sharpen before I got into knives when I'd fiddle around with woodworking projects when I was younger. I guess I've always had sharpening devices available to me, although I don't have any fancy 'systems' like the Edge-Pro/DMT Aligner/Sharpmaker. Come to think of it, between strops, stones, compounds and such, I probably have more sharpening do-dads than I have knives by a long shot.

Well don't leave us hanging. What's your favorite sharpening stuff? Whetstones and strops? Any particular kind?

 

[Dorito Monk]

Well don't leave us hanging. What's your favorite sharpening stuff? Whetstones and strops? Any particular kind?

Sorry about that. I mostly use a two methods, depending on the knife. For convex edges, I just use your standard wet-or-dry sandpaper (220, 400, 1000, 1500, 2000) followed by a big old bench strop loaded with chromium oxide compound. For standard V edges, I use a 220 Norton stone for reprofiling followed by a 1000 grit Norton stone, then a 4000 grit King stone and finish with a few licks on an 8000 grit Norton stone. Then I usually give a knife one or two passes on the same strop. I used to use a 1000 grit japanese waterstone (I don't remember the brand off the top of my head...) and a cheap 200 grit stone, but I mostly use the Norton stones now.

Lately I use a Fallkniven D4 diamond stone for field sharpening or little medium grit ceramic stone (it's a little stone sold by Lee Valley...I'm pretty sure it's just a spyderco medium ceramic stone cut in half) for travelling/quick touch-ups. I like to fool around with different bits of gear, though, so I have a few cheap ceramic rods, a Coarse/Fine 6" DMT diasharp stone, and a set of Busy Bee diamond stones (which do more harm than good, I'm afraid).