Knife sharpener for a noob?

W

WalkaboutOZ

Joined
May 4, 2012
Messages
37
I am not very good at sharpening knives, I have always had a good friend of mine who is a real whizz at sharpening put a scary edge on my knives. Sadly he is not with us anymore. But to stay on subject, I need help choosing a knife sharpening system. What would you guys & girls recommend. I've got about $200 give or take to play with. And I'm guessing it would be a smart idea to practice on a few of my cheapo Smith & Wesson knives for a while before I try my higher end knives:D

Any help much appreciated;)
 
Its been said many times before, but the Spyderco Sharpmaker is an inexpensive entry system for folks with minimum sharpening skills. It does a great job helping you maintain the correct edge angle and if you follow the instructional DVD, you will be able to get an extremely sharp edge with minimum skill/effort.
 
stevewest said:
Its been said many times before, but the Spyderco Sharpmaker is an inexpensive entry system for folks with minimum sharpening skills. It does a great job helping you maintain the correct edge angle and if you follow the instructional DVD, you will be able to get an extremely sharp edge with minimum skill/effort.
Click to expand...

With the Sharpmaker, I can put a professional edge on all my knives with little effort. Though I do have the full set of stones from course to extra fine. After this, a couple of passes on a leather strop and I've got a hair whittling edge. For most EDC blades, a Spyderco Sharpmaker and a good leather strop are all you should need. Its easy enough that I was able to teach my mom, who had never sharpened a knife in her life, how to properly sharpen her Spyderco Endura with similar results in about 20 minutes.
 
Last edited:
Oh and perhaps you can also buy or make yourself a strop for touching up your knives.
 
Well after a unanimous verdict i think the spyderco is the way to go.
Any more recommendations before I pull the trigger. If not thanks for the help guys.:thumbup:
 
I guess I'm the type of guy who likes to learn things the hard way:

1) Buy a 2-sided stone, a honing rod (if you don't already have one in a knife block), and a Walmart knife.
2) Watch YouTube videos on sharpening (Videos by Murray Carter or Bob Kramer are decent)
3) Start practicing

Basically: Coarse side -> Fine side -> Honing rod -> (optional) Strop -> Done.

Once you get the hang of it, buy more/better stones. Soon enough, you will feel this weird sense of calm (kind of like meditation) as you run your blade across a stone.
Eventually, you'll be the guy who is sharpening/taking out chips and burrs/fixing rolled edges for your friends. I'm currently that guy.
 
Wicked edge, no question.

Sharpmaker is OK to touch up knives but thats it imo, painfully slow to re-profile and the results are purely a product of time, and your steady hand. I really wished I knew about the wicked edge when I started sharpening, it is a high initial cost- you can get the base model for $250, but if your spending thousands on knives, it really isin't much to pay to maintain and service them over the years.

You might also want to do some research on the edge pro, you might find that better, but do research on both before you buy anything.
 
If you'd rather go with stones the DMT diasharps are great and will last your forever, You could get the full set of the double sided ones for a little less than $100 IIRC
 
Sharpmaker, and a leather strop.

Sure, if you need to really reconstruct (reprofile) an edge, a diamond stone is faster. As a beginner, you don't want fast, you want gentle, and steady. The Sharpmaker will help you learn what sharpening is about, and once you get the idea, turn the base over and lay the rods in the two grooves and you have a benchstone to practice with.

A strop will clean up a decent edge and make it a razor. Once you've got these techniques under control, you can study the more complicated systems and skills.

(I moved this to our Maintenance forum, where the sharpening guys hang out.)
 
You can't go wrong with the Sharpmaker, I was once a sharpening noob as well, I had no idea what a burr is or how to probably hold the blade to maintain the angle, not to mention ruining several knives trying to learn freehand,

I kept hearing terrific results from those who use the SM and decided to pull the trigger

I figured not much of a loss even if it didn't turn out to be as advertised and I couldnt be more wrong, took me a few hours of practice to understanding the basics of sharpening, but once that's over with, you can pretty much put an edge on anything.

now I can take most knives and give them a pretty sharp edge, even those that were ruined by me previously, best 60 bucks I ever spent in my life. waiting for the diamond and ultra rods to arrive.
 
Many options exist. Do you want a powered system or a manual system? From a Harbor freight belt grinder and a handful of belts for around $100 all in to a high end wicked edge manual system for around $380 that will whittle hair. What types of blades and what types of edges do you want?
 
Consider the Spyderco to be a high end strop. It should be called the sharpkeeper, as it doesnt have the capabilities to sharpen, but it's more of a honer. Get you some waterstones and become aquatinted with your cutlery.Just my two cents.
 
Norton Coarse/Fine combination stone. These work well, even for beginners. Many knives don't have angles that match the Sharpmaker, and will give people fits if the Sharpmaker is all they have. It's not coarse enough to lower bevel angles to match in a reasonable amount of time. It can be done, and the SM will give a sharper edge than a Fine Norton stone, but bring a lunch. For your budget, you could get a coarse stone of some kind and a Sharpmaker. This is a good setup, as the coarse stone can lower the bevel angle and the Sharpmaker can be used for final honing, and for maintenance between trips to the coarse stone. I personally use a coarse stone to go a little lower than the Sharpmaker angle I want to use (15 degrees per side or 20 degrees per side), then apply a very small, nearly invisible final bevel with the Sharpmaker.
 
Given that budget? Look for a used-good-condition EdgePro Apex. They can be fairly easily found in the ~$150 range, and will handle any knife-sharpening task you could ever ask of them. Not as fast or easy as a powered system, but a great way to both get ABSURDLY sharp edges, and to learn how to sharpen without buggering up good knives too badly. It was my first serious sharpening system after I became disenchanted with my Sharpmaker for actually SHARPENING knives. As Acerazor said "sharpkeeper" would be a better name for it. Does very well for keeping an already-sharp edge in good shape for a long time, but if you actually need to sharpen a knife from dead-dull, you'll be at it a long, LONG time. The rods are just too fine to remove metal at a decent rate.

Don't get me wrong, it's a tool VERY much worth having, it's just not much for actually sharpening a knife unless it is already in pretty good shape, with bevels that match or exceed the pre-set ones on the Sharpmaker. Me2's suggestion is a very workable one, before I got the Apex, I used a DMT plate for that exact purpose. Knock the bevels back freehand on the DMT, then put the edge on with the Sharpmaker. It typically did not make a PRETTY edge, but it made a very functional one.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top