Moving to the dark side: Getting an Edge Pro

Cynic2701

Cynic2701

Joined
Mar 31, 2009
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Right now I'm a free hand sharpener. I'm pretty successful: I can get mirror finished, hair whittling sharp edges. I just don't like how long it takes to reprofile bevels, and the intense amount of concentration needed to keep my angles consistent. Plus my brothers wanted to get me something nice for my birthday, so while I'm still waiting for the handful of knives I want to be released, I figured an Edge Pro would be a good idea.

I've already ordered an Atoma 140 and some 40/30/20 micron diamond plates. I sort of plan on primarily using the Edge Pro to set the bevels, and then free handing the rest of the way to a mirror finish. Is this something that I'm probably going to end up changing my mind on, and picking up more stones and/or tapes to do?
 
If your proficient at free hand you will find guides to be slower. You will also have a hard time freehanding a bevel set by a guide.
 
Interesting. Is it a significant increase in time? I can go from a factory fresh edge to a 1 micron finish in about 45-60 minutes.
 
I don't know if I could put a exact time on it but its all about contact area. The guided system will maintain a larger contact area making the time spent grinding longer as it must remove more metal from a given area.

With freehand you effectively contact a smaller area and "work your way back" in layers which can go much faster dependant on the skill and knowledge of the sharpener.

45-60 minutes for a high quality sharpening sounds about right to me. I'm not much faster.
 
Totally reprofiling an edge with my EP takes me a bit over 30 minutes.....!
And I'm not a skilled EP user!!
 
I will second the 30+ minute range, maybe around 45 minutes for most blades I've re-profiled (lots of kitchen knives).

I will also say that if you are reprofiling a lot of knives - get a couple of the coarse stones as those are the ones that wear the fastest (from my experience - 120 grit).

Once you get the angle you want it goes relatively quick progressing through the rest of the grits. I find the time comes in with checking for a burr and completing it. This gets harder and harder. After 1000 grit it is very difficult to feel the burr. I use the method in the manual for taking off the burr - once it is completed (burr all the way up and down the blade on one side) I flip the blade over and to edge leading strokes with only the weight of the stone/arm. This seems to work OK. After that I hit the polish tapes. I can do both edge leading and edge trailing if I am careful and if the blade is flat ground. Any convex ground blades will wobble on the table and make edge leading strokes on the tapes a disaster without some real close concentration.

I just picked up a set of diamond plates - 6, 3, and 1 micron - to use with harder steels. These work real well. I can grind with the EP stones through 1000 grit, then switch to the diamonds. I have to say the diamonds work very fast.

I would be curious how well the bigger grit diamonds work on the EP system. If there is a size that is around the 120 grit stone in size my guess is that would be the preferred way to reprofile edges - a diamond plate won't wear down like the stones do.

If you want a fine finish - get a 1/16" x 1" x 36" strip of balsa wood, a 1/8" x 1" x 36" aluminum strip, and make up some strops. Use diamond spray on them.
 
I primarily use diamond stones when I free hand. Because of my familiarity with them, I decided staying with diamonds would be a good idea. I'm not too keen on the notion of having stones that dish out, though it seems like they do give great finishes.

Making diamond loaded strops for the EP sounds like a good idea.
 
NvG79 said:
Totally reprofiling an edge with my EP takes me a bit over 30 minutes.....!
And I'm not a skilled EP user!!
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KC8QVO said:
I will second the 30+ minute range, maybe around 45 minutes for most blades I've re-profiled (lots of kitchen knives).
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Add me to that list too. If I spend more than 30 minutes on a knife, it's only because it's a Kris with several recurves per side. The part of normal EdgePro use that slows me down is changing stones...



Stitchawl
 
knifenut1013 said:
I don't know if I could put a exact time on it but its all about contact area. The guided system will maintain a larger contact area making the time spent grinding longer as it must remove more metal from a given area.

With freehand you effectively contact a smaller area and "work your way back" in layers which can go much faster dependant on the skill and knowledge of the sharpener.

45-60 minutes for a high quality sharpening sounds about right to me. I'm not much faster.
Click to expand...

It usually takes me about 5 to 10 mins or so for standard edges, and maybe 20 for the higher refined ones, it's pretty fast with the right stones.

But I have been doing it awhile and put edges on a lot of blades.
 
Just setting the bevel or the complete sharpening?
 
Kind of a open statement, you need to be moving pretty fast to knock out a edge to 1 Micron in 20 minutes and that's not even naming a steel.
 
knifenut1013 said:
Kind of a open statement, you need to be moving pretty fast to knock out a edge to 1 Micron in 20 minutes and that's not even naming a steel.
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Silicon Carbide. :)

I don't sharpen that high much anymore, and when I do I use SIC all the way to the SIC 600 grit Congress Mold Master then right to the 1000 grit EP stock then on to the polishing tapes, it doesn't take long.
 
The original time frames were related to the op's level of refinement @ 1 Micron. It's rare I go that far myself anymore too, it was fun to find the limits of sharpness but I got tired of all the compounds and stropping.

You should look into some Aoto waterstones, you would probably like that type of edge.
 
You guys are fast. Between all the masking and angle-cubing and washing of the stones, I can spend 2 hours reprofiling a blade.

Still wouldn't trade the EP for anything. I can never get my freehand work this sharp.
 
I can spend a hell of a lot more time than a couple of hours to reprofile a blade. If I'm convexing, it's more like over a few hours, spread over a few days (cuz it's boring). I don't remove a lot of metal either and I've got all the grits. Some steels are just very tedious to work with by hand (even some carbon steels!).
 
knifenut1013 said:
The original time frames were related to the op's level of refinement @ 1 Micron. It's rare I go that far myself anymore too, it was fun to find the limits of sharpness but I got tired of all the compounds and stropping.

You should look into some Aoto waterstones, you would probably like that type of edge.
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Yeah, I don't mess around with edges that refined anymore, not really worth the effort the edges off the 400 grit Congress stones are semi polished anyway.
 
Nice, im hopefully getting an edge pro sometime soon, ive been using a lansky sharpening system but i HATE it
 
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