Impulse Purchase

D

dust.

Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
87
Fack, I just 1 click purchased a Spyderco Sharpmaker. Please tell me that it was a good decision and I will not regret it! I know close to nothing about sharpening my knives... it is a good way for a beginner to learn, right...?? :confused: :( :eek: :barf:
 
youre good brother, I have one, along with the ultrafine stones and they are awesome just go slow at first and watch the dvd it really is easy just dont let your knives get too dull the sharpmaker wont handle jacked up edges too well
 
good purchase. the video didn't help me at all. other than seeing the obvious. i took me a long time to figure out why some knives got shaving sharp and some didn't.

the sharpie or marker trick is worth it's weight in gold. mark the bevel on both sides of the knife with the sharpie. then via the video method sharpen knife look and see where the marker gets removed. if it removes marker from the shoulder of the bevel rather than the edge....you'll see you got a knife with a wider angle and hence the shoulder hits before the edge. so the knife won't get sharp. two ways to fix this problem.......

adjust the knife at an angle so you hit the edges. in other words rather than straight up and down, i hold the knife at the proper angle to hit the edge. the sharpie trick will help you with this.

other way is to re-profile the knife. doing this with spyderco stones and even spyderco diamond stones for the 204 sharpmaker is hard and tedious. think many, many days of work. not 30 or 40 minutes.

i found the best way to get this done is to buy the courser congress tool stones that will fit the sharpmaker and sharpen at the 30 degree side of the sharpmaker. the other method i like is using the course dmt diamond benchstones and lay them up against the sharpmaker rods and clip them or rubber band them.

however you want to re-profile.....once you get the bevels even and at the right angle sharpening your knife on the sharpmaker is easy and fast. hope that helps?
 
You won't regret it, even after you outgrow it's capabilities and end up with a more capable and advanced system. I have no fewer than THREE superior systems, and I still go back to the Sharpmaker for quick touchups fairly often.
 
Great advice guys thanks a lot! Ok cool now I'm feeling more relieved. jbmonkey that's a lot of good info hopefully I don't misinterpret what you are telling me and do it correctly. And yeah as of now, it's mostly for touchups and just general experience with sharpening. Thanks again!
 
Great input already here but I just wanted to agree that some type of coarse rod like the Congress or Diamond or DMT is essential. Good choice brother.
 
Hmm I see. So it seems just buying the actual system will not fulfill my needs. Looks like I'll have to get me some pretty diamonds haha. I wonder how much more it will cost me... :rolleyes:
 
flash900 said:
dust, if you don't mind my asking, how $$ was your Sharpmaker?
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Hmm, don't know if I can state the vendor so I won't, but it's a pretty big one that you can find pretty easily with a google search. I tried to look for one on the exchange with no luck. I got mine for ~$57. However, I just saw one this morning on the exchange for $55 and accepting offers so if you are looking to buy one, I would definitely jump on that!
 
That concurs with my experience, I slightly overpaid at $60 when I bought mine new from a common internet source. Interestingly enough, you don't see too many of them being re-sold on the second-hand market. Says something about the tool, I think, especially given that they are not prone to wearing out or breaking under use to remove themselves from resale.
 
As said before the sharp maker is some balls with reprofiling, but it's possible. It's really good at keeping sharp knives shaving sharp. You definitely want the ultra fine stones. Those things work magic..

You also should consider buying a strop and some stropping compound. It takes the nice polished edge you get from the ultra fine stones and kicks it up a notch, thus giving you an edge that gracefully destroy paper.
 
Having recently acquired a Sharpmaker, my impression of it is that it is best used as a regular maintenance item, rather than an all-out sharpening system. I grew up using a Lanksy, and would enjoy a Wicked Edge system, but those are insanely expensive. As such, I still use a Lanksy to reprofile edges when needed (or sharpen out any deep gouges I may get on a blade from time to time), and will now use the Sharpmaker as a weekly (or more, if needed) maintenance system. :)
 
I love the sharpmaker but don't bother buying the diamond stones, they're overpriced and won't do you that much good. spend the money on some stones from congress tools or a diamond benchstone instead.
 
fatherhudson said:
I love the sharpmaker but don't bother buying the diamond stones, they're overpriced and won't do you that much good. spend the money on some stones from congress tools or a diamond benchstone instead.
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Hmm I see. Thanks for the heads up. Yeah I was looking at the diamond stones and they did seem kind of pricey... almost as much as the sharpmaker! Do you recommend the ultra fine stones though? And what's this about a benchstone?
 
dust. said:
Hmm I see. Thanks for the heads up. Yeah I was looking at the diamond stones and they did seem kind of pricey... almost as much as the sharpmaker! Do you recommend the ultra fine stones though? And what's this about a benchstone?
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The ultra fine stones are great and even if you stop using your sharpmaker and start freehand sharpening at some point the UF ceramics will still be useful for finishing and touching blades up. The sharpmaker isn't any good for reprofiling, even if you have some coarse ruby stones, so some people buy a good benchstone to reprofile their knives. You can prop it up against the sharpmaker to use it as a guided sharpening system or you can learn to freehand.
 
fatherhudson said:
The ultra fine stones are great and even if you stop using your sharpmaker and start freehand sharpening at some point the UF ceramics will still be useful for finishing and touching blades up. The sharpmaker isn't any good for reprofiling, even if you have some coarse ruby stones, so some people buy a good benchstone to reprofile their knives. You can prop it up against the sharpmaker to use it as a guided sharpening system or you can learn to freehand.
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Ok cool I'll go ahead and put in an order for some UF stones hopefully sometime soon. I think I'll wait on that benchstone until I familiarize myself with at least touching my blades up. Don't want to bite off more than I can chew. Thanks so much for the tips!
 
It's been said before but i'll say it again: 1. mark your bevel with a sharpie at every step (i used the sharpie trick when i was learning on the sharpmaker but i didn't re-mark it between the medium and the fine stones. make sure you do this because sometimes the fine stones will sit at a slightly more acute angle and you'll just waste your time on them unless you adjust the way you hold the knife). 2. don't get frustrated if you're not making things sharper. I thought the sharpmaker was useless at first because i started on my cheap knives and they all had >20 degree edge angles. Companies like kershaw and spyderco use bevels between 15-20 degrees and these knives will be easy to touch up on a sharpmaker. Other knives (including every benchmade i've ever had) will impossible to sharpen on the sharpmaker (they'll have to be reprofiled first). 3. the 15 degree setting (30 degrees inclusive) is essentially useless. Don't bother with it unless you have aftermarket stones 4. check out jdavis828's video on the sharpmaker, it helped me a lot. The only thing i do differently than him is i use the corners of the stones sometimes (they're useful for getting to the hard to reach part of the blade closest to the hilt).

Good luck!
 
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