Questions about 204 sharpener and reprofiling bevels

Z

Zoomlizard

Joined
Jun 9, 2002
Messages
7
I have a few questions....
i have a spydie sharpmaker, 30 deg and 40 deg set.
How many knives come with a grind beveled to one of these two settings, i guess what i am asking is, is it that often that i will have to reprofile the bevel to one of these 30 or 40 degree bevels? Or, do most production knives come with one of these? I have an emerson i have been working on for close to and hour or better and i am nowhere close to reprofiling that edge. i just hope all knives are not this hard to get a good edge on..... thanks
 
As long as the angle your using is greater than the one the bevels are set at you will be sharpening the edge. Most pocket knives are fine at 40 degrees. If you want to go 30 degrees you will very likely have to reprofile as that is getting a little to thin for pocket knives. Some pocket knives have to be reprofiled to do 40 degrees.
 
I sharpen most of mine on the 30s, my beater(Delica) on the 40s, and my Calypso jr lt and SS Dragonfly freehand at about 20 or so.

I find that about every 10 months I end up putting my Delica on the 30s to thin the edge again.

I thin my knives to ~40 freehand, then the 204 for the 30s. I just find it quicker on the 200grit stone freehand than on the 204 for thinning.
 
What I’ve found is most knives require you to put Your edge on them. There is no way that every knife made, from the various companies, will have the edge You want. The best thing to do is get yourself the 204D (diamond stones) ASAP! Before diamond stones, the necessary evil of re-profiling was quite the headache; here is a link to how I solved the problem myself, pre-204D!
http://www.merr.com/users/rogue/sharpmaker.htm
P.S. I have not used the diamond stone but assume they work fine.
 
Almost all factory knives are sharpened on pretty big diameter sharpening wheels. More or less the angle matches 40 degrees but only approximately. So working with Sharpmaker you are doomed to reprofile each edge at first sharpening session to match your device’s preset angles. How much work it could take – this is pretty random thing. Don’t worry, this is the main drawback of each angle forcing sharpening device with preset angles. Only working freehand you can match actual sharpening bevel exactly.

Well, to make your job faster, easier and more pleasant get additional set of diamond rods for your Sharpmaker, you really will not regret.

Forget about Emerson knives sharpening with Sharpmaker. They are sharpened on the single side with another one not beveled at all. No matter what the sharpening angle they have it will never match Sharpmaker preset angles because they are intended for normally (symmetrically) sharpened knives. Sorry...
 
Zoomlizard, if I recall correctly, the Emerson's are ground on one side at 15 degrees. If both sides were ground, you would have a total of 30 degrees. Use one rod in the 30 degree preset angles, and that will give you the 15 degree angle. You will probably have to strop the nonground side of the blade to achieve a good cutting edge. A loaded strop with red or green jewelers rouge would be best in my opinion. You can get the rouge at automotive stores because they are also used to polish aluminum.

You said that you have been sharpening for and hour without satisfactory results. If this is the case, you should clean the ceramic rods to make them cut better. I just use a pots and pans scrubbing pad loaded with scouring powder like Comet or Ajax, and it cleans the ceramic rods, and it will make them whet better.

Also, keep in mind while you are sharpening that Emerson that they are ground like a chisel. Big D1
 
I found that after profiling and sharpening my Calypso Jr, Aus-8, to 30 degrees that it just was to thin and got damaged to easy. Perhaps a steel with higher carbon would act differently. For the 40 degree setting of the half dozen or so knives I have only one a Benchmade had to profiled in order to sharpen it on the sharpmaker.
 
Big D1,
Sharpening at 15 degrees on one side remaining another flat would create 15 degree sharpening angle totally – good for razor but too thin and as result too weak for knife. I don’t have any Emerson knife in my reach at the moment but I have played with them pretty extensively. They certainly are not sharpened this way. Something around 30 degrees on one side would be more probable.

On the other hand SPYDERCO Sharpmaker has its rods positioned under 15 degrees angle from the perpendicular to obtain 30 degrees totally (15 per side). This causes rebeveling pretty hard and wear-resistant edge to about twice lower sharpening angle. With Sharpmaker standard set this could last close to forever and when finally done this would create too weak and chipping-prone edge.

However this doesn’t change the fact that Sharpmaker rods clog pretty rapidly with removed steel and require cleaning. You are quite right at this point, I clean mine after each sharpening session.

Zoomlizard,
Paint your edge with marker and do some sharpening strokes. When you will see exactly what part of the edge you are grinding. I bet it will be rear part of sharpening area, far, far from your very edge yet. If so – don’t continue this way and try to sharpen very edge free-hand putting Sharpmaker rods horizontally into the base.
 
roguesoul,

What a great idea you had, to make an edge guide for use w/ benchstones at 30 and 40 degree angles. It had never occurred to me to do this. My local knife shop seems to be taking it's sweet time to get into stock the diamond Sharpmaker sleeves, so I may make up such a setup for myself in the meantime.

Thanks for the great suggestion.

Jeff/1911.
 
Serg, thanks for correcting me. I could not remember the exact angle that Emerson uses to grind their blades. If Zoom would check the papers that came with the Emerson knife, I think it tells what the angle grind is of the blade which should be 30 degrees. 30 degrees on one side and flat on the other.

More or less, Zoom is going to have to sharpen the blade like a chisel since it is ground like a chisel. That means whetting the ground side, and then stropping the flat side with an abrasive rouge like green or red with red being more abrasive. Blackening the ground edge with a marker, and then whetting the blade free hand is probably the best way to sharpen the Emerson blades and is a very good point. Big D1
 
I didn't read through this thread completely, so excuse me if this has been mentioned. Try sharpening it free hand, it is A LOT easier. Depending on how dull your knife is, take the fine or medium stones (no flats) and lay the stone on the edge so that it lays flat. Take slow smooth strokes along the edge. After you can feel a burr on the other side of the blade (the flat side), strop it off with some cardboard or your strop of choice. I sharpened my Raven and CQC-7 this way and got em to razor sharpness in about 5 minutes.
Good luck,
Matt
 
Jeff/1911 Thank you!
Somebody suggested wrapping sandpaper around the ceramic rods I haven’t tried it, search for reprofiling-tips.
 
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