Knife Sharpener

[xamoel]

I've been thinking about a suitable sharpener for "field" use.
Something lightweight, small, durable and easy to learn.
Something to carry in your bag everyday, that won't take much space.

Any idea?

 

[Noctis3880]

I've been thinking about a suitable sharpener for "field" use.
Something lightweight, small, durable and easy to learn.
Something to carry in your bag everyday, that won't take much space.

Any idea?

I've tried the DMT Double-Sided Diafolds with little success. The sharpening is rather slow because it is both small and has those annoying holes(thinking about replacing my set of Duosharp benchstones with Diasharp Continuous Stones). It might simply be lack of skill on my part, but I suspect those holes might even be dulling my knives further and preventing me from even getting to a nice paper slicing sharpness.

Given that I originally bought those so that my coworkers could touch up their knives on it, the not-so-user-friendly nature of them made me seek out the Spyderco Sharpmaker. 15 degrees per side seems like a pretty good overall setting, with a 20 degree setting for a more durable edge. I'd say it's pretty simple to use out of all the sharpeners available. The different grit ceramics gives you your choice of finish and the thin sticks can even sharpen recurves.

Not a pocket size sharpener, but I feel it's better suited for accurate touchups and not as easy to mess up the edges like with the semi-freehand DMT diafolds. I'll have to wait until I actually get it and use it before I'm sure about its performance, but you don't really hear a lot of bad things about it:thumbup:.

Just a quick comment, it will make it extremely polished but the resulting edge has no bite to it. Great for whittling hair. But for an EDC knife, it seems to be an overkill. I prefer a little bite to the edge.

It did my corn just fine. Besides which, the beautiful thing about modern steels is that those with a good vanadium content like M390 will develop a "bite" as the polished edge dulls, keeping a working edge forever(well, enough to last you the day).

My Chromium Oxide wheel didn't seem to be much different than the white rouge. I ordered some Veritas Compound to see if there's any improvement.

 

[Jason B.]

I've tried the DMT Double-Sided Diafolds with little success. The sharpening is rather slow because it is both small and has those annoying holes(thinking about replacing my set of Duosharp benchstones with Diasharp Continuous Stones). It might simply be lack of skill on my part, but I suspect those holes might even be dulling my knives further and preventing me from even getting to a nice paper slicing sharpness.

Given that I originally bought those so that my coworkers could touch up their knives on it, the not-so-user-friendly nature of them made me seek out the Spyderco Sharpmaker. 15 degrees per side seems like a pretty good overall setting, with a 20 degree setting for a more durable edge. I'd say it's pretty simple to use out of all the sharpeners available. The different grit ceramics gives you your choice of finish and the thin sticks can even sharpen recurves.

Not a pocket size sharpener, but I feel it's better suited for accurate touchups and not as easy to mess up the edges like with the semi-freehand DMT diafolds. I'll have to wait until I actually get it and use it before I'm sure about its performance, but you don't really hear a lot of bad things about it:thumbup:

There's nothing wrong with your diafold

 

[Any Cal.]

I've been thinking about a suitable sharpener for "field" use.
Something lightweight, small, durable and easy to learn.
Something to carry in your bag everyday, that won't take much space.

Any idea?

It doesn't get much smaller or more portable than the DMT Magna Guide. That would be an easier one to learn.

If that is too much to carry, you can learn to use the Diafolds by themselves. They do have a learning curve, as you can see by Noctis' post, but sharpeners don't get much more light or compact than that.

I keep a C/F Diafold in my kit, and use it often for sharpening a machete.

If you really knew what you were doing, you could probably carry a bit of sandpaper and do fine, or just a single crock stick if you just wanted a way to touch up.

 

[awestib]

A mora or DMT aligner clamp + a bench stone can teach you a lot about freehand sharpening. Norton makes affordable dual sided bench stone for about 20 dollars too.

The above items are cheap but can be very effective, not going to give you hair splitting edges but will get it more than sharp enough.

Why is it not giving you hair splitting sharpness? Is the finest stone too "coarse" ?
Thanks!

 

[dsmegst]

My Chromium Oxide wheel didn't seem to be much different than the white rouge. I ordered some Veritas Compound to see if there's any improvement.

2 - 3 micron vs .5 micron isn't very dramatic but I'm seeing the difference, even if it's under a microscope.

 

[Jason B.]

Yes, the fine side is really not that fine at about 320 grit but is suitable for producing a good sharp edge.

 

[cziv]

There's nothing wrong with your diafold

I've been frree-handing with diafolds for 6 months now and my blades easily push cut little piles of arm hair. Soft touch and the right angle. I dinged up an Ontario RAT-1 folder in 2 spot's by batoning firewood with it.

I just finished (about 10 minutes ago) getting them out. It took 10 smooth strokes on the coarse, fine, x-fine and xx-fine and a 10 very light passes on a 2 micron strop, 1 micron strop, and a .5 strop.

The thing is like brand new again! I don't use the magna guide anymore, it's faster to just hit 'em freehand. Like knifenut says it's all technique and I'm finding this out with diamonds. I can't wait until I get my big 8 x 3" DMT plates

It's really about this easy - except I use more grits than this guy.

[YouTube]uaqWRLrc-RA[/YouTube]

 

[peppercorn]

Double post. Oops

 

[peppercorn]

I've been frree-handing with diafolds for 6 months now and my blades easily push cut little piles of arm hair. Soft touch and the right angle. I dinged up an Ontario RAT-1 folder in 2 spot's by batoning firewood with it.

I just finished (about 10 minutes ago) getting them out. It took 10 smooth strokes on the coarse, fine, x-fine and xx-fine and a 10 very light passes on a 2 micron strop, 1 micron strop, and a .5 strop.

The thing is like brand new again! I don't use the magna guide anymore, it's faster to just hit 'em freehand. Like knifenut says it's all technique and I'm finding this out with diamonds. I can't wait until I get my big 8 x 3" DMT plates



+1 :thumbup:, Also,if one day you find you find yourself without tools,power or the like you will have the skill set to use a rock or some other abrasive alternative to sharpen your knife with.