Knife sharpeners?

Ichigo5674 said:
Hello im looking to buy a cheap sharpener im looking at the Smith's® Abrasives Pocket Pal® X2 Sharpener and Survival Tool sharpener i have the ck33 s&w karambit and a gerber ripstop one that has no edge from sitting on a shelf is this a good sharpener for eather knife. And here is a link for it it has good reviews as well.


http://www.cabelas.com/product/Hunt...pe=GNU&WTz_l=SBC;MM;cat104740380;cat104560380
Click to expand...

For curved edge such as karambit, I use sandpaper with rounded backing like a steel pipe. Starting from coarse grit to fine grit of sandpapers. Move the sandpaper along the edge of karambit. No more than $5 to get a decent edge on karambit :)
 
Thanks im also looking for something compact that i can throw in my pocket or small pocket in a backpack/camping bag to have just in case
 
1) They promise that you can get a knife back to shaving sharp in 10 or 20 seconds through their "pull through" sharpening method... okay, red flag number one.

2) Did you click that BOLDLY lettered link on the webpage stating "Buyer's Guide" underneath "Additional Information" which is right below the TWO positive reviews you referred too, lol.

Frank Ross, author of the article posted via Cabela's ad. is titled Knife Sharpener's Buyer's Guide: A Guide for Buying Knife Sharpeners (Postively hilarious given the juxtaposition of the question, the so-called sharpener, and the article which was a soothing reminder of why i love sharpening free––free from inflexible mechanical rigidity, and free from the limited options provided and on occasion the prep work needed to simply BEGIN to sharpen. I think the besides the reason I'm cheap, but lets say frugal? and Ill say the OP is innocent b/c of his recent introduction into our world.

PULL-THROUGH SHARPENERS ARE GENERALLY A POOR CHOICE TO DO ANYTHING. YES IT WILL GET A NUKED EDGE CUTTING AGAIN, BUT THATS THE LIMIT. You will be shearing, tearing and at best hacking in order to make that edge cut. This is mainly because sharpening a knife is not black and white, and its much more complicated than just having a knife, and having a stone, rig, or Smith's Pocket Pal.

If you sincerely want to know, ill answer for you:
1) Pull-through sharpeners have gained ubiquitous judgement within communities like ours for being overly aggressive, and generally a poor choice of spending one's money. However because I never judge what a man buys, I think if you like it, keep it. We are talking about a set degree of some material, in this case diamond, which your Pocket Pal promises to have sharp in a quick 20 seconds. If it took that long, I think most of the blade and knife enthusiasts would have tagged on. However, this system, removes unnecessarily large amounts of steel and yields very little in the realm of sharpness. IM talking about TRUE sharpness and please subscribe to jdavis' channel on youtube if you want to actually learn what and how and why sharpening is what it is. It's a blend of science and art, enormous precision and tight tolerances, but yielding a unique bevel unequaled in the factory or by most people. Im not at this level yet but I sure as hell know that the next level I'm trying to reach is not going to incorporate the pocket pal. Sorry bud, its a dud...

ANYHOO, I've been giving you a hard time but it wasn't personal; just want to make sure people don't needlessly spend money on these so-called sharpeners thinking that its going to miraculously heal a chipped, deformed, or abused edge back to life; if you want to accomplish this feat, it takes time, patience, but most of all experience. You would think that the concepts of sharpening a knife is black and white, but its not that simple. In fact I would say its one of the most bittersweet luxuries/hobbies in my life. Im always trying to improve, and I think this is where some of the mechanized devices fall short. Every Edge Pro Apex, Wicked Edge System, or Spyderco SharpMaker or Smiths 3-1 Sharpener has its defined boundaries and limits to what it will do, and how it will do it. Creativity and literally being free to customize an edge that purposefully has slight uneven bevels in order to test a hypothesis is what free hand sharpening, to me, is about. Its always learning something new, always improving, and the oldest quest mankind's ever had; the synthesis of absolute perfection.

;) not to worry, its the journey thats important right??!

Sorry for the long reply, but I wanted to let you know what I think its bad, and why many people on this forum might think its bad. There might be people who know exactly how to manipulate that particular system in order to get a super fine edge, but I am not that person and if you find him, praise him.
 
To put it short avoid the pull through sharpeners in general, there is only one that I've seen that looks promising and that is made by one of our forums members to help maintain knives and is precision built and is not cheap nor sold anywhere else to my knowledge. They generally rip away steel and leave behind metal hanging off to the sides and just destroy the blade. Oh did I mention it rips away a LOT of steel. They will take a fully blunt butter knife to something that has the edge geometry to "cut" if you can call it that but it's not going to be pretty.

I've been given one of those pull through sharpeners and just to test it I used it on an knife the same size as a Victorinox Classic and pulled the blade through the puller a few times (less than 5, but I think 2-3) and it chewed away somewhere around 1/8-1/4 of the blade. Used it on my practice sharpening knife a victorinox paring knife and it chewed through steel just as much, in fact it removed more steel than I have in those few swipes than I have removed and I did around 20 reprofiles and sharpened that knife at least 100 times already.

Edge that was left on them were junk and didn't want to cut. The bevel looked nice at a distance where it did hit the knife which wasn't the whole knife due to the cross shape of the sharpening inserts so there was a 1/16th gap of unsharpened steel no matter what. And was easy enough to clean up on a stone if you knew what you were doing, but at that point why would you subject your knife to such abuse if you already knew how to sharpen and repair a knife.
 
If you could, what are the most important factors needed in your sharpener?

Low price point is one, which I'm definitely on board with, and if you don't mind, did you have a ceiling price that, hypothetically, you are not willing to go over?

DrFosg8 pretty much hit it on the nose, but if you want something a little bit cheaper, I would recommend the Smith's double sided 4" diamond sharpener. I think its like only $20.00 and I own both the the 3-1 field sharp, the double sided 4" handheld I just previously mentioned, and also the Smith's guide rod system, so my familiarity with their quality of sharpeners and what they're capable of is decent. As far as Im concerned, there are definitely better stones out there, but for the price point, its amazing that I can get my S30V's and other high vanadium/carbide blades to hair popping sharp..These are the tools i use, in addition to a 1000grit King whetstone used only for softer steels.

Basically, I think you're having difficulty holding a steady angle because you haven't sharpened enough yet. I had the exact same problem, getting uneven edges, bevels that weren't centered, scratch marks everywhere, etc... lol. I would definitely recommend buying a cheap 5 dollars knife from like home depot, or just use an old kitchen knife and practice, practice practice!!!
(oh and that steel rod is meant for honing, not sharpening. or thats my impression when i hear of steel rods. They're meant to smooth out edges after the sharpening process.

But let me know some of the things you're really looking for, i.e. material of abrasive, price max, size, knife and steels being sharpened primarily would be a great start
 
Those sharpening steels are actually meant to reallign the edge not sharpen it. But as mentioned before what is the max price your looking at spending? It's looking like you want a guided setup in which there are plenty such as lanskys, dmt, etc. And not being able to hold a consistent angle is an easy fix, practice with preferably a dedicated practice sharpening knife so you have something to screw up and not care about in which case a cheap kitchen paring knife works pretty dang good for this due to the low price and easy to sharpen blade shape.
 
 
With a little tinkering you can get very good results from a carbide scraper - likely not as good as the ERU (do a search) but plenty serviceable.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-(with-micrographs)?highlight=carbide+scraper

In general, aside from assorted bricks and rocks, there is nothing cheaper than a Norton Econo stone from Home Depot and a small bottle of mineral oil. You can use the grit right off the stone for a stropping compound by smearing it on a sheet of paper, and the newer ones come pretty flat right off the shelf. This involves learning some freehand sharpening, and/or the Econo stone can be used to tune up the carbide scraper (instructions in the thread link).

I sell a full service sharpening block through the link in my signature below, but might be a little more than you're willing to spend at present. There's an electronic copy of the User's Manual and a link to a whole bunch of videos that are applicable to a variety of freehand methods (just skip the first one as it only deals with the characteristics of the block I sell).
 
I picked up the norton econo at home depot, it may be flat for the most part but not level or it would be flat at an angle on one side and flat at a different angle on the opposite side, usually nothing too bad but still requiring some work to get it right. I spent a good 5-10min looking at all their stones to find the best one so the time I take to flatten it would be quicker. This was probably a couple months ago.
 
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