Oh GOd.. Not another shaprening question!!!

nervous

nervous

Joined
Nov 19, 2001
Messages
37
SOrry..... I bet most of you are sick of questions on how and why to shapren your knives.. but i have yet another....
I am concidering buying a "kit" from RazorsEdge.. and then there comes the clamp systems for Lansky and Gatco.. then there are the Spyderco's systems... then the Edge Pro ... Oh helll!!!!!
Basically.. I am wondering who has expierence with these and what is the best 'system' for all of your knives.. I own no serrated knives so thats not much of an issue.. but i do own blades from 2" to about 14" ... and from papper thin to 1/4" thick.. all of the above mentioned have their merit an strong points but you dont really know untill you get hands on and frankly i cant afford one of each to pick a fave. So I call upon your infinate combined wisdom here.
Personally, all ive ever used is a old 'wet stone' the kind your grand-pa spit on to sharpen his "whittle'n knife" (because thats where i got most of my stones.. from gramps..) so Im used to large flat stones, maby thats why the Razors Edge appeals to me, its somthing im familiar with. But, It seems that the clamp guides would have to ware (like your blade does) from being dragged across the stones. Thus changing the angle of your edge??
Are Diamonds better? Arkansas? India stones? Dry stones, oil or water?? and do the ceramic stones really work well enough for hard work such as re-shaping an old abused edge? or are they more for an already sharp blade that just needs the touch up??
Are ya bored with me yet?? Im sorry... as if picking a new knife wasnt bad enough we have to face the options of a Zillion damn ways to keep them sharp :mad:
 
I recently got a Spydie Sharpmaker as a gift. I could not be more impressed. I've used both Lansky and Gatco products for several years and been happy enough.

The Sharpmaker is a classy product, the video instructions were great, and I'm getting a very good edge with much less effort.

It's so much fun that I've been borrowing kitchen knives from neighbors to sharpen.

Hoped to get an EdgePro eventually, not sure if I will now.
 
The sharpmaker seems to be king around here. Now, *I think*
the diamond stones are soon to be available, I would get the sharpmaker. The fine and medium are only for moderately dull blades while the diamonds could be used to reprofile the edge or remove deformations in the edge. I have not tried the others, but hear good about all. IMO, learing to use those old flat stones properly is the best way to go. Not only a fine edge you can be proud of, but using something with good memories is always nice. Good luck with your choice.
 
nervous :

Personally, all ive ever used is a old 'wet stone' the kind your grand-pa spit on to sharpen his "whittle'n knife" (because thats where i got most of my stones.. from gramps..) so Im used to large flat stones, maby thats why the Razors Edge appeals to me, its somthing im familiar with. But, It seems that the clamp guides would have to ware (like your blade does) from being dragged across the stones. Thus changing the angle of your edge??
Click to expand...

If you are experienced with large benchstone then yes it seems the Razor's Edge system is a natural choice. You just need the clamps though, you can use the stones you have already. Yes the clamps will wear on the hone, but not that quickly from what I have heard. All the systems can be used successfully as you will note from older posts you can find people who speak very highly of every system.

Are Diamonds better? Arkansas? India stones? Dry stones, oil or water?? and do the ceramic stones really work well enough for hard work such as re-shaping an old abused edge?
Click to expand...

All the abrasives have certain advanatges. For example waterstones will cut very fast and are available in very high grits so you can get a high polish, they are also decently inexpensive. However they hollow out rapidly and need to be lapped on a regular basis. Starting off I would actually not be that concerned about exactly which type of stone as that is just a refinement and you don't want to get bogged down in the details.

Here is page for you to spend some time on, it has extensive information on systems, hones and much more :

http://www.ameritech.net/users/knives/knives.htm

-Cliff
 
Here's all you need:
- Edge Pro Apex to sharpen very dull knives and reprofile the angle
to allow easy maintenance with..
- Spyderco sharpmaker to keep that sharp edge (use often)
Lenny
 
Nervous,
I used a Sharpmaker very briefly, and I didn't like it all that much. To say that the Sharpmaker is bad is something of a knife heresy around here, but I just wasn't impressed with the extremely slow cutting speed of the triangular stones. I'm sure its a great system for honing and touchups though, but I like to reprofile my knives.
I've owned and used quite a few sharpening systems (Edge Pro Apex with stone upgrade, Smith's precision kit, Lansky deluxe clamp system, Razor's Edge professional, and a bench stone), and out of the ones I've owned and used, I liked the Edge Pro the best. With the stone upgrade, it gets your knives super sharp with a beautiful mirror like finish on the edge. You can quickly reprofile with the coarse stone, and there is no clumsy clamp. It is a bit expensive though, but it is, in my opinion, the best hand powered sharpener on the market today.
Because of the cost, not everyone may be able to afford it. If your budget is about $50 as opposed to $150, then you may be very pleased with the Lansky system. It doesn't quite get you mirror polish, but if you get the Deluxe set, it can get you fairly close. Plus you can always strop on rouged or green chromium oxide coated leather to get that brilliant shine and hair splitting edge. I suggest you cover the inside of the Lansky clamps with a bit of blue painter's tape though. Otherwise it can put scratches on coatings and satin and mirror finishes. The big disadvantage of this system is that it only does the 3 to 4 inch folders well. If you get into small knives, sometimes its just impossible to clamp well, and the big knives require you to move the clamp as much as two or three or more times, which is just frustrating. The angle guide holes are acually about 4 degrees higher than the actual angle, so keep that in mind (unless they changed the clamp design recently).
The Smith's precision kit is about $20 or $25 from Wal-Mart. I think it is a slightly inferior copy of the Lansky. The stones are clumsier to use, and the V hone for serrations is just about useless. The angle guide is also a bit clumsy too, and very poor angle selection. I do like the natural Arkansas stone though. I keep the hone around just for freehand sharpening because I love how the Arkansas stone works on steel. I haven't used the clamp in a year or more probably.
The Razor's Edge professional kit wasn't a bad system, but for the $70 or something I paid for it, I wasn't all that impressed. I thought the clamp system was clumsy, and the angle selection was pretty much none. The best you could do is try to adjust how far up the blade you clamp if I remember correctly. The ultra fine stone wasn't all that fine either, it gave you a really sharp edge, but not hair splitting sharp like the polishing tapes on the Edge Pro, or some of the finer waterstones on the market.
These are just my opinions, I hope they help though.
 
What works best is influenced by the blade material. If you sharpen alloys that are 60 RC and up it is nice to use diamond hones. If the alloys are rich in molybdenum or overloaded with vanadium (more than .4%) you need an abrasive harder than aluminum oxide to cut the carbides cleanly. The water stones are silicon carbide and will work. I much prefer using diamonds.
 
I don't sharpen the magic stuff like talonite or the CMP super steels. I use my knife making gear, plus a sharpmaker, strop and Razor's Edge Pro kit. I think if you like using bench hones, buy the Razor's Edge clams separately (and maybe their folding steel) and get stones that you want. I like Razor Edge's stones personally. however, I think the ideal setup would be diamonds and ceramics for the higher grits.

In 4 words, ditto what Cliff said!
 
I just would say diamonds indeed make it easier when reprofiling beat up edges, like just yesterday, when my bro gave me my Buck M9 and it had chips out of the blade...4 hours of work made me really want some diamonds...lol.

Theres a wide selection of sharpening devices that won't lead you wrong. I think that you should go with what you're comfortable with.

<cough>Go with diamonds</cough>
 
Check out www.skarb.com.A clamp system which will hold blades from 2-14" with only one clamping. Also an optional clamp to hold knives with a spine thickness from 3/16 to 1/4 "
 
Well first thank you to all the opnions and suggestions.. I guess i was looking for an easy answer. It seems that basically, what ever i like would be the correnct choice..so in a nutshell ... what ever i want! this dosent make the decision any easier..hahaa... "thanks"
Actually it was nice to see some opnions on the edge pro and razors edge as well as an adverse opnion on the shaprmaker.. nothing is perfect even if it was made by spyderco ..haha... I must give a little (ok, A LOT) more thought into the systems.. and just realise that what ever i choose is not going to be the last system i buy. I get the feeling that is as bad as knives them selves.. no one stop's with the first one.
Thank you for all the links as well, espically the one from Cliff.. that was a fun page to sort through.
I think I might just do peices.. maby a guide from razors edge, a few of Norton's stones, a diamond bench 'stone', some ceramic stones for polishing and some stropping paste.. umm.. a steel from razor edge, ,.... ok ok... just one at a time maby, untill i hit the lottery any way.
 
If you already have good benchstones, the RS guides are a good place to start. I also recommend the Razor Edge Book of Sharpening. It taught me what I was doing wrong with their system. You see, you need to use a progressively little touch on the fine hone. Too much force and you tear up the edge. Don't forget the page Cliff recommended or the FAQ.

Now the bad news: If you have been sharpening by hand or have blades with a lot of heavy hours on them, you will need to reprofile the edges. :( Heavy use can "round off" an edge and hand sharpening can do the same. By hand, sometimes one gives the blade a convex edge which is sharp if done right. It is too easy to be even a little off, and then you have crap. The good news is that once you reprofile it right, you don’t need to (seriously) reprofile again. On my knife I reprofiled wrong and had to start over. I got good results but I need to go back to the fine hone still (too much force was my second mistake).

Yes, the guides wear out, but so does your knife. At first I thought the guides should have roller bearings to prevent that, but I see now that the guides wear with the blade. This stops the angle from becoming more obtuse every time you sharpen it! The only problem is with one-sided bevel edges, you will wear out one side before the other and so it gives you a lopp-sided edge when you go back to double bevel edges.:mad:

I am still experimenting with hones and technique. The waiting sucks but will be worth it for a job well done. I should have more info after the New Year. In the mean time, have fun sharpening.
 
I have used Lanskies, Sharpmakers and I will be getting a Razoredge system this week and so far I perfer the Sharpmaker. Like I said so far. I'll post more when I've made a decision about the razor edge system.
 
I have used both the Lansky system and a Sharpmaker for a couple of years and consider them both necessary for me. The Lansky stones wear fairly quickly in the coarse end of the spectrum and I am not overly impressed with their diamond hones. The solution was simple, I bought a full set (xtra-coarse, coarse, medium, fine) of 1" x 4" DMT diamond hones and epoxied them in place of the standard Lansky hones. I use these to set the bevels on almost all my folders and smaller fixed blades. They work great and cut quickly. I finish the edge with an xtra-fine Lansky stone and then strop. Large fixed blades have their bevels set courtesy of my 4" x 60" water cooled grinder. I also sharpen them on this wonderful grinder using a slightly worn 400 grit belt. The Sharpmaker is left for the area at which it excels, touch-ups. Using the grinder and the Sharpmaker allows me to sharpen a blade to a razors edge in about 2 minutes :D
 
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