KakBritva Luch, Hapstone R2, TSPROF K03.........looking for a fixed higher end "complete" sharpening system. Need advice

[777 Edge]

S sranderle , here is a link to post #19 with some tips I wrote for reference. Hope it helps to get into using your Hapstone.

KakBritva Luch, Hapstone R2, TSPROF K03.........looking for a fixed higher end "complete" sharpening system. Need advice

I found this forum as I fell into the rabbit hole of sharpener systems. I thought for sure I was going to buy a KME, but then postings in this forum have changed my mind. As I read posts from others, there appeared to be much better/refined options out there. I somewhat settled on the...

www.bladeforums.com

 

[stonemedusa6264]

We should rename this ask 777 edge. Dudes a hero!

Don't forget to play with it too. I have fun trying different stuff. I found some vids after I got my kit saying slightly polish one side and leave the other toothy for a longer lasting edge. I forget the grits they used. Cedric has some of them on it but there were more. For a working edge I use F400 on one side n F1200 on the other. I still run both sides to 1200 pretty quickly, not looking for a perfect mirror. I'll do 2-3 passes with the 400 on one side, and about 6 passes with the 1200 on the other side. Do this several times n check the scratch pattern on the rough side. If it's good I do about 2 passes with the 1200 on both sides starting with the rough side. This is all pushing the stone towards the knife and lifting to pull it away. Opposite of how you'd strop to prevent burs. As long as I didn't mess something up they come out of the vise sharp. It'll shave and do s turns in paper. They do seem to come back easier and a few more times just stropping with 2 micron diamond paste. No doubt it lasts longer than a mirror finish. It lasts longer cutting rope than any other finish.. I don't know how you'd tell if it lasts longer in the real world. I can test a knife at a lower grit, any grit run up to a nice mirror, and try the double grit thing without using anything below a 400 if I didn't chip or roll an edge. It's pretty quick with the vised systems too.

Back to the thread name change. I have the hapstone r1. I've looked at the new clamps cause I could switch to them for just a module. I don't see the point but maybe you know if there's a reason? I am thinking about a magnetic jobbie so it's easier to do full flat grinds. Is there a better option for small and flat/odd ground knifes? I've taken knives apart before so I could clamp on the pivot, but than I don't want to use it until I forget about the sharpening process...

 

[777 Edge]

I have the hapstone r1. I've looked at the new clamps cause I could switch to them for just a module. I don't see the point but maybe you know if there's a reason? I am thinking about a magnetic jobbie so it's easier to do full flat grinds. Is there a better option for small and flat/odd ground knifes? I've taken knives apart before so I could clamp on the pivot, but than I don't want to use it until I forget about the sharpening process...

Your R1 has great clamps, so there would be no specific need to change those out for a R2 clamp module.

Your R1 clamps can actually conform nicely to a Full flat grind blade and it should not really be necessary to disassemble your knife to clamp a flat section. This is where your R1 clamps (and Universal R2 clamps) excel. The large rear grub screw on these clamps is used to expand the back of the clamp so it opens up wider to work on FFG knives.

Even if you have a knife with a very thick FFG blade and the clamps can't conform to the blade shape, in most cases it shouldn't be necessary to disassemble your knife to clamp on the pivot - unless you have no flat section for one clamp at all. If there is a tiny flat section of blade in front of your handle, you can still clamp one clamp on this area. The flat doesn't necessarily have to be anywhere near the size of the clamp because this clamp position will only really serve stop any "rolling" motion of your knife. Your second clamp will then go about an inch or so back from the tip of your knife to stop any up and down "flexing" while sharpening. This method works with most FFG knives like Spyderco grinds etc.

That said, there are some knives that don't work well in clamps so the V8 module (magnetic with expandable sides) should work well for some of your knives if you find them hard to clamp securely. It also works well for very low sharpening angles. The only very important thing to remember when using a flat base like a magnetic platform with a full flat ground knife, is the fact that you'll need to compensate for the knife lying flat on its side as opposed to being clamped. You'll have to adjust your sharpening angle upwards because the knife is on its side, especially with full flat grinds.

To measure the angle you need to compensate for, you can place your FFG knife on the magnetic table and then zero your digital angle cube on the magnetic table away from the the knife. Now place the angle cube carefully on the FFG knife while it's lying in postion on the magnetic table being sure the angle cube is flat against the entire top surface of the FFG blade. Read the angle and use HALF of this angle to add to your sharpening angle when you continue the regular process of sharpening.

Just a final note - if you do saber grinds on a magnetic platform, then they will rock over the magnets while sharpening so make sure to get the V8 with the vertical knife support in the front of the magnets to compensate for this.

Hope this all makes sense?

 

[sranderle]

You don't need to use the full set of stones at all, unless you specifically want a polished edge. The F400 leaves a great every day edge even on kitchen knives. Maybe F800 if you want to use the knife for push cutting. Your F1200/F1500 stone really is not necessary for a daily use knife. It's a great stone to have if you want to take a knife to that level of hair splitting but not necessarily a good edge for daily use knives.

Most kitchen knives (other than hard use chopping knives) work well on a 15 degree per side edge (or lower in some cases), so it's worth spending the time on all your knives to reprofile them. Take note that this will take some time, but it's well worth doing and is necessary only once. After that, future maintenance and touchups will be quick - literally only a minute or two per knife (if done regularly).

Once your edge bevel is set and knives are sharp, you can touch them up every few weeks or so with just a few strokes on the F400 and/or the F800 if desired.

Make a note of the angles and clamp position on your knives when you sharpen them, so you can repeat it for touch-ups.

777 Edge , what do you consider regular maintenance of kitchen knives; frequency?

 

[777 Edge]

777 Edge , what do you consider regular maintenance of kitchen knives; frequency?

That's a very hard one to answer because it depends on what, how often and how the knife is used. It also depends on the steel type, heat treat, edge angle and finish.

As soon as edge performance dips to a point where I don't like it, I will refresh the edge.

With my regular daily use kitchen knives, I typically do it with a ceramic rod that I keep in my kitchen knife stand - only 2 or 3 very light passes every week or so. When that doesn't give me what I want, then I will throw it back onto one of my sharpeners and touch it up with the stones.

With my pocket knives, it could be days, weeks, months or years before I touch them up.... depending on how regularly I carry and use that individual knife.

For your EDC knife - I would say, every few days do a thumb pad feel test (or your preferred test) on your edge and if it's not sticky sharp anymore then do some quick work on it.

 

[Blade Lab]

My wife is the cook in our house. She's become so spoiled that she will hand me a knife and tell me it's dull. These usually measure in the range of 120-160 g on the BESS scale, which is way sharper than most knives come out of the box. lol

 

[hungryone12001]

Actually, in all honesty I personally do not like or recommend the Opti clamps that much. I much prefer the standard universal angled clamps.

I have all of Hapstone's clamps - past and present and my favorites are: #1 The standard universal angled clamps and #2 The regular Lite clamps. The Lite clamps are temporarily discontinued unfortunately...I hope Hapstone decides to bring them back.

The Opti clamps is a great idea from Hapstone, but they do not perform nearly as well as intended or designed. They are designed to conform with the shape of a knife grind depending on how much clamp force you put on them but because of this and how thin they are, they deform too easily and then do not provide the best solid grip on a knife. With many blades, you can move and shift it inside the Opti clamps no matter how much clamping force you apply. On some Spyderco FFG grinds (as an example) they will deform so much that they even start to open the tips of the jaws if you try to tighten them enough to grip properly.

You can make them work (within reason) with a grippy pad inside them (like RIB boat fabric or something) but even then they don't clamp nearly as well as the standard universal angled clamps do. The universal angled clamps can be adjusted to perfectly conform to your knife grind too, but they are as solid as can be when tightened and used correctly.

Getting it through Gritomatic would be your best bet for easy after sales support if you ever need it, assuming you're in the USA.

second the angle clamps they work perfect on my spyderco knives rock solid angle side to side

 

[sranderle]

with a ceramic rod that I keep in my kitchen knife stand

Does anyone have a recommendation for a ceramic rod? I have been using the steel rod that came with our Wusthof knife set, but that is over 30 years old.

 

[777 Edge]

Does anyone have a recommendation for a ceramic rod? I have been using the steel rod that came with our Wusthof knife set, but that is over 30 years old.

I've had some Idahone ceramic rods with handles for years now and been very happy with them.

 

[cnhensel]

Top choices in my opinion, are Venev bonded (either diamond or CBN) stones, CGSW (or Edge pro matrix) stones, or Poltava CBN stones.

Do you have any experience with the different Diamond or CBN bondings? Trying to differentiate between metallic (copper-tin) or resin with regard to performance and longevity.

 

[777 Edge]

Do you have any experience with the different Diamond or CBN bondings? Trying to differentiate between metallic (copper-tin) or resin with regard to performance and longevity.

Yes, I have many different diamond and CBN stones - plated, resin and metallic bonded. As far as metallic bond is concerned, I only have Poltava branded ones.

I like the resin and softer bonded diamond & CBN stones for the fact that they act and feel a lot like traditional whetstones and leave a very good edge. They have good metal removal rate vs edge quality.

When it comes to fast metal removal, diamond / cbn plated stones are almost unbeatable but can cause edge chipping when you fully apex the edge on a coarse grit plated stone. FYI, the Chinese plated diamond stones are mostly excellent but they seem to top out in grit at about 800-1000. They sell "2000","3000" etc grits but in all cases and tests I've done, it's all the same 1000/800 grit stone just branded with different logos. These stones are excellent value for money and work very well for quick sharpening. Lubrication helps a lot to significantly extend the life of these stones but eventually they will lose grit and slowly deteriorate in performance.

As far as metallic bonded copper/tin stones go, I do like them a lot because they will give you the same effect as a resin bonded stone in that they can be refreshed and will last a very, very long time. In my opinion they work best with lubrication (I use soapy water) and they cut nice and fast, but they can load up a bit with steel and glaze a little over time. There has been a lot of discussion and experimentation on how to refresh the surface when needed but I've found a Nagura to clean them up well in most cases after sharpening. When they do need some deeper surface reconditioning, some guys use ferric chloride to etch the metallic bond away a bit but that can be very hard to control and can ruin the stone if you're not careful. Plain old silicon carbide with the traditional method of lapping stones work well on them to remove and refresh the top surface. After refreshing the surface this way, some bits of silicon carbide can temporarily embed into the metallic bond, so it's probably best to try and use a grit just slightly below the stone grit if you're concerned about this.

There has been a lot of rumours about using silicon carbide on Poltava CBN metallic bonded stones to refresh them, but it has been confirmed that this is actually how Poltava does it themselves so no doubt - it is an acceptable method.

I like to use my coarse and cheap diamond plated stones for quick metal removal when I re-profile or remove chips from inexpensive steel knife edges, followed up by Venev resin stones. For more expensive knives I use my CBN Poltava 120 grit, followed up by Venev resin diamond or CBN. Note that this just my current method and current personal preference, many other methods and steps also work well.

 

[Blade Lab]

KKnives Switzerland came up with a clever way to clean and dress metallic bonded stones, but I don't have the necessary power supply so I haven't tried it myself.

 

[UncleBoots]

KKnives Switzerland came up with a clever way to clean and dress metallic bonded stones, but I don't have the necessary power supply so I haven't tried it myself.

This might be the greatest thing in the history of the world. But how does it not ruin the metal mounting block? Keeping ferric chloride away from the block has been a real pain.

 

[cnhensel]

Yes, I have many different diamond and CBN stones - plated, resin and metallic bonded. As far as metallic bond is concerned, I only have Poltava branded ones.

I like the resin and softer bonded diamond & CBN stones for the fact that they act and feel a lot like traditional whetstones and leave a very good edge. They have good metal removal rate vs edge quality.

When it comes to fast metal removal, diamond / cbn plated stones are almost unbeatable but can cause edge chipping when you fully apex the edge on a coarse grit plated stone. FYI, the Chinese plated diamond stones are mostly excellent but they seem to top out in grit at about 800-1000. They sell "2000","3000" etc grits but in all cases and tests I've done, it's all the same 1000/800 grit stone just branded with different logos. These stones are excellent value for money and work very well for quick sharpening. Lubrication helps a lot to significantly extend the life of these stones but eventually they will lose grit and slowly deteriorate in performance.

As far as metallic bonded copper/tin stones go, I do like them a lot because they will give you the same effect as a resin bonded stone in that they can be refreshed and will last a very, very long time. In my opinion they work best with lubrication (I use soapy water) and they cut nice and fast, but they can load up a bit with steel and glaze a little over time. There has been a lot of discussion and experimentation on how to refresh the surface when needed but I've found a Nagura to clean them up well in most cases after sharpening. When they do need some deeper surface reconditioning, some guys use ferric chloride to etch the metallic bond away a bit but that can be very hard to control and can ruin the stone if you're not careful. Plain old silicon carbide with the traditional method of lapping stones work well on them to remove and refresh the top surface. After refreshing the surface this way, some bits of silicon carbide can temporarily embed into the metallic bond, so it's probably best to try and use a grit just slightly below the stone grit if you're concerned about this.

There has been a lot of rumours about using silicon carbide on Poltava CBN metallic bonded stones to refresh them, but it has been confirmed that this is actually how Poltava does it themselves so no doubt - it is an acceptable method.

I like to use my coarse and cheap diamond plated stones for quick metal removal when I re-profile or remove chips from inexpensive steel knife edges, followed up by Venev resin stones. For more expensive knives I use my CBN Poltava 120 grit, followed up by Venev resin diamond or CBN. Note that this just my current method and current personal preference, many other methods and steps also work well.

This was very helpful, thank you!

How big a part does the "shoulder" milled into the Edge Pro Matrix stones mounting plate play? It seems like they are the only ones doing that.

https://imgur.com/a/ybQkIAw

 

[777 Edge]

This was very helpful, thank you!

How big a part does the "shoulder" milled into the Edge Pro Matrix stones mounting plate play? It seems like they are the only ones doing that.

https://imgur.com/a/ybQkIAw

It's really more aesthetic than anything. It looks great and shows real attention to detail.

With any other stone backing, just make sure it seats down all the way into the stone clamps and compensate for thickness all the time.

 

[Blade Lab]

This might be the greatest thing in the history of the world. But how does it not ruin the metal mounting block? Keeping ferric chloride away from the block has been a real pain.

KKnives said that he hasn't had a problem with the aluminum plate, which he attributes to the direction of the materials, i.e., the reaction is occurring between the metal pieces facing each other. That's probably true to an extent, but I think the real reason the aluminum plate isn't affected (or is hardly affected) is that the copper-based alloy is more conductive and thus acts as a sacrificial anode. It's the same principle used in maritime and other wet environments, where zinc blocks are attached to steel components to inhibit current-induced rusting. Because zinc is more conductive than steel, it will erode away before the steel does.

I got a power supply and already tried this method. It works great! It's clear from the bubbles that most or all of the reaction is restricted to the metallic bonded surfaces. Virtually no bubbling occurs on the aluminum and I don't see any erosion.

 

[UncleBoots]

KKnives said that he hasn't had a problem with the aluminum plate, which he attributes to the direction of the materials, i.e., the reaction is occurring between the metal pieces facing each other. That's probably true to an extent, but I think the real reason the aluminum plate isn't affected (or is hardly affected) is that the copper-based alloy is more conductive and thus acts as a sacrificial anode. It's the same principle used in maritime and other wet environments, where zinc blocks are attached to steel components to inhibit current-induced rusting. Because zinc is more conductive than steel, it will erode away before the steel does.

I got a power supply and already tried this method. It works great! It's clear from the bubbles that most or all of the reaction is restricted to the metallic bonded surfaces. Virtually no bubbling occurs on the aluminum and I don't see any erosion.

OK, that does it. Power supply ordered. May my supply of messy ferric chloride rot on the shelf from disuse.

 

[UncleBoots]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I've been reading about electrolysis, and I can't answer it so far. Why does the metal come off of the metallic-bonded stone, but the metal of the other piece of metal involved does not precipitate on the stone in its place? Does it matter what you use for the other piece of metal? I was thinking I'd use a spare aluminum EdgePro blank...is that OK?

 

[Blade Lab]

Not sure I really understand it either, but this paragraph from Wiki's page on Electroplating seems to explain it:

"When the anode is made of the coating metal, the opposite reaction may occur there, turning it into dissolved cations. For example, copper would be oxidized at the anode to Cu2+ by losing two electrons. In this case, the rate at which the anode is dissolved will be equal to the rate at which the cathode is plated and thus the ions in the electrolyte bath are continuously replenished by the anode. The net result is the effective transfer of metal from the anode to the cathode.[2]."

In other words, the anode (CBN stone in this case) is dissolved and the dissolved metal is plated on the Cathode, which does not lose metal, but actually gains metal from the anode.

 

[cnhensel]

Maybe this is a dumb question, but I've been reading about electrolysis, and I can't answer it so far. Why does the metal come off of the metallic-bonded stone, but the metal of the other piece of metal involved does not precipitate on the stone in its place? Does it matter what you use for the other piece of metal? I was thinking I'd use a spare aluminum EdgePro blank...is that OK?

It has to do with the polarity of the current. If the current was reversed by switching the positive and negative (anode/cathode) alligator clamps around, the material would flow the other direction and the sharpening stone would be receiving material. The other piece of material doesn’t matter as long as it is conductive. In the video he is using titanium which isn’t a great conductor of electricity. Your aluminum scrap will work fine, or even aluminum foil. I have used a very similar setup for anodizing titanium different colors at different voltages using a piece of aluminum foil folded over the edge of the container dipped into the electrolyte solution. I did this so there was some foil sticking out of the solution that I could clamp to. If you dip your alligator clamps into the electrolyte solution, they will take a beating from the electrolysis.

Here is a link to a video of my setup:

https://twitter.com/x/status/757365063510528000