Just got a sharpmaker...

[tenman]

and reprofiled a carbon V SRK using the 15 degree back bevel and finished the edge with a 20 degree microbevel. I then proceeded to accidently slice the end of my finger, barely even felt it- this thing is great! I have never been able to produce a quality edge like this so quickly; I am not to the level of what you guys classify as scary sharp, but it is a definite improvement over past efforts. Next up will be using Joe Talmadge's technique for sharpening a 710 d2- is there anything in particular I need to keep in mind in sharpening d2 steel? I will likely use the same technique to sharpen a Ti Bump.

To avoid rounding the tip off the SRK, I did try something a bit different- I put the tip on the flat of the stone and pushed it down and away, rotating the knife handle downward to keep the edge as perpendicular to the stone as possible. I only did this on the tip of the SRK, but it seemed to work. With smaller, shorter blades such as the Leek, it wasn't really necessary.

 

[Jeff Clark]

D2 will be a lot harder to work with if you have much material to remove. Carbon V is one of the easier steels to sharpen while D2 is one of the more difficult. Just don't give up when things don't seem to be working. You just may have to work 4x as long to get an equivalent result.

 

[Ben Dover]

The D2 is MUCH harder to sharpen. But WELL WORTH IT!!!!

 

[tenman]

Fortunately, the profile of the 710 seemed to match the preset angles of the sm fairly close- a bit of marker on the blade was evenly removed by the 30 degree rods in a relatively short amount of time. Proceeded through the steps as outlined by Mr. Talmadge, it is most definitely sharper than it was out of the box. It did take a bit of time, but not unreasonably so. Is it always advantageous to use a small microbevel- what are the downsides to leaving it at, say, 30 inclusive all the way to the edge?

 

[thestaber]

Harder to resharpen, and might wear out faster. Of course it really depends on what you use it for.

 

[Jeff Clark]

I usually use the 30-degree settings as my microbevel and do my honing at a smaller angle. The 30-degrees is actually pretty obtuse so I don't think you have a durability issue. As long as you are doing a small amount of sharpening and don't remove a lot of blade material you should be fine. In some cases where you do heavy sharpening the microbevel step would help you to get rid of a burr. With light sharpening you probably won't create a burr to worry about.