I picked up a Lionspy on the sales forum a while back. The knife really is built like a tank. Workmanship/quality is great. I was not overly impressed with the sharpness, however. Not sure what the factory bevel was, but it seemed kind of obtuse. I set up the sharpmaker for 30 degrees and applied the sharpy and there was quite a bit of steel to be removed to get to the edge. Got started with the diamond rods, got impatient because that Elmax steel is pretty darn hard and put it away for awhile. I was going through the knife box the other night - picked up the Lionspy and chided myself for not finishing things up. Spent the rest of that evening working on it until I had it a bit past shaving sharp. I have forgotten since then just how sharp it is and have cut myself a number of times - nothing serious - just enough to remind myself that this knife now performs the way it is supposed to. Nice knife. I really do enjoy the collaborations that Spyderco does with other makers. It is always interesting to see how the two parties are able to synthisize a tool that exhibits the best traits of both.
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Lionspy
- Thread starter stevewest
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2012
- Messages
- 389
I am crazy about that knife! I saw one at the IWA show in Nurnburg last year (currently stationed in Germany). I also got to meet Sal and his wife, great people by the way, who took a lot of time to talk to my wife and I. Anyway, I have been on the lookout for one for a while; I prefer it over the SR1, probably for the Spyder hole. I don't have a knife in Elmax; I'm very curious to see how it performs and sharpens. From what I'm seeing diamond seems the way to go for sharpening.
Stevewest, reading your post motivated me to break out my LionSpy and really work on it. I really like the knife, but it has definitely been one of the hardest knives I have to get sharp. I only have the brown and fine white rods on my sharpmaker, and didn't have a lot of luck with it (It keeps most of my other blades pretty sharp). I think I had done this blade a disservice trying various ways to sharpen it previously. I also thought the angle of the edge seemed really obtuse. I worked on this edge quite a while at a steep angle with a course diamond DMT stone and the edge finally started to come out. I then moved on to the finer grits and it finally seems sharp enough to carry around with me now. I haven't gone back to the standard 40 degree angle of the sharpmaker, yet, and don't know if I should.
One of my guys up at work, who I have badly influenced when it comes to pocket knives, just bought one after seeing/using mine. I have always sharpened his knives for him - gave him a Persian and he has a Tenacious. Not sure I am going to offer to take on his Lionspy. I told him his next purchase needed to be a sharpmaker.
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2006
- Messages
- 2,069
I used a 1x30" belt grinder on mine. Edge was very thick in the from the belly and forward, rest was 35-40 degrees inclusive.
Ended up with a 1200 grit polished convex, cuts a lot better and no issues yet (think I'll thin it out more closer to the tip later)
Ended up with a 1200 grit polished convex, cuts a lot better and no issues yet (think I'll thin it out more closer to the tip later)
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2010
- Messages
- 849
The reason it was so difficult to sharpen on the Sharpmaker is that they came with a convex edge from the factory. Sharpmakers are very much made to sharpen flat edges. These would definitely be easier to sharpen on a Wicked Edge or EdgePro.
