Newbie help on Lansky system

[v_roomy]

Hi all... I just recently joined and haven't contributed anything to the forum yet, so I feel kind of bad asking for help straight away. Please forgive the selfish introduction.

I only got into knife collecting in the last few months. None of the knives I own is financially valuable, but they mean a lot to me, so their monetary value is irrelevant. I have a small collection of American, European and higher-quality Chinese knives - mostly stockman, congress, whittler patterns - with (as far as I can tell) a mix of 420HC, 440A and 440C blade materials. Most of my knives are unused (with the exception of a couple of Victorinox pocket-knives). I'd like to use more of them, but only when I know I can keep them in good working condition, and looking excellent too.

My issue is with maintaining and sharpening the blade edges. I do not yet trust myself to freehand sharpen any of my knives, so have tried various sharpening devices (yes, I now realise I should have studied forums like this before wasting my money! ). The last one I bought - and have had reasonable success with - is the Lansky system. But I find I'm running into problems...

With blades that have a pronounced "wedge" profile - ie. thick-ish spine sloping down in a vee-profile towards the edge - I can't adjust the clamp so that it grips the blade properly. I can only get the leading edge of the clamp to grip the blade. This means the blade can "rock" up and down quite significantly, resulting in an inconsistent angle as I work (and when I flip the clamp over to work on the other side of the blade). I get the same problem when using the little indented section at the leading edge of the clamp for small blades. I also find that, even when tightly clamped, the blade can rotate within the grip of the clamp, particularly on highly polished blades like my Victorinox. I wondered about adding some thin rubber sheet in the clamp jaws to reduce this slipping, but haven't tried it yet.

Any advice / help would be greatly appreciated. The reason I've gone with the Lanksy system is that it was relatively inexpensive (the "EdgePro" is a little rich for my blood at present), but seemed like a good way to get a consistent angle on my edges - as even on a "working" knife, I want the edges to look good, as well as being sharp. But these problems are driving me nuts, and negating the very benefits I thought I'd get from the Lansky.

Thanks in advance, guys.

Best wishes

Mike

 

[mauiblue]

My advice is get a Spyderco Sharpmaker. No clamps to deal with and easy to use. Get the optional diamond rods for reprofiling and the ultra fine rods if you want to splurge. I had a hard time with some of my blades with the Lansky system over the years. It was difficult to get the blade to sit evenly between the clamps sometimes and I would end up scratching the blade with the clamp if I couldn't tighten it up enough.

BTW, the Edge Pro Apex model is less than $200 if you want to save up your green stamps and get a great knife sharpening system. Consider getting the Sharpmaker if you really want a system that is fairly easy to use without clamps and not very expensive.

 

[cbwx34]

Yup, try the rubber strips, you can hold them in with double stick tape, to see if you like it. You can also try a couple of layers of electrical tape on the clamp.

cbw

 

[db]

There are really 2 fixes. 1 First tighten the screw closes to the knife end of the clamp. I always tried to rest the knife spine in the clamps little indented part. Then tighten the thumb screw. this will move the clamp so each side is angled and most of the time will match the angle of the blade grind. I've gotten a good clamp on all my knives doing it that way.
2. put electrical tape on the spine of the knife.
Or do both and you should not have the problem anymore.

 

[v_roomy]

There are really 2 fixes. 1 First tighten the screw closes to the knife end of the clamp. I always tried to rest the knife spine in the clamps little indented part. Then tighten the thumb screw. this will move the clamp so each side is angled and most of the time will match the angle of the blade grind. I've gotten a good clamp on all my knives doing it that way.
2. put electrical tape on the spine of the knife.
Or do both and you should not have the problem anymore.

Thanks db (also to the other responses so far).

I found the small indented section didn't offer enough grip on a couple of my knives (the highly-polished Victorinox models, for example - particularly the heavier one), but I think with the added use of electrical tape as you've suggested, this might just do the trick. Not only that, it should increase the chances of keeping the same sharpening angle each time I come back to a knife, and should eliminate the swivelling problem.

It would be great if this does work. For all the criticisms I've read on the Lansky and other rod/guide systems, when I *do* manage to clamp a knife properly, I can get really good results, and I've barely had any practice with it.

Again, many thanks - I'll give this a try and report back! :thumbup:

Cheers

Mike