S110v, 1. Me, 0. Give me an EP lesson.

ZuluKilo · Mar 28, 2016

After sharpening my buddies S30v Millie on Friday (18 DPS and wickedly sharp afterward) I decided to try my hand at reprofiling my S110v Manix LW. Yikes.

I'm an EP user and I purchased my system with Shapton Glass stones instead of the standard EP stones. I also purchased a Shapton Pro 220 grit stone. Backed by (or armed with) these tools, I've conquered a ZDP Stretch and my own GB and M4 Millie (to name a few) without much trouble. But...S110v has proven to be a different animal altogether. The factory edge was pretty uneven; relatively steep at the heel, shallowing out noticeably at the tip. My plan was to transform the blade into a pure slicer at 15 DPS, which was just a littler shallower than the factory edge was at the tip. The heel is where I'm having issues... evenly grinding away enough material to match the rest of the secondary has been a bear.

I think I just need to slow way down, even though my M4 Millie taught me a lot about/rewarded patience.

Before starting my Manix, I'd rate myself as an intermediate EP user...I'm backing off on that quite a bit now. Its been humbling.

Anyone have thoughts, tips, encouragement? I'm all ears.

Surfingringo · Mar 28, 2016

ZuluKilo said:
Anyone have thoughts, tips, encouragement? I'm all ears.

Yeah, buy more hap40!

Seriously though, I'm a pretty good hand sharpening and enjoy the process but I don't really enjoy working with s110v/s90v. Diamonds are your friend.

RevDevil · Mar 28, 2016

The best place for answers on how to use an edge Pro is here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/794-Maintenance-Tinkering-amp-Embellishment

blueblur · Mar 28, 2016

I've had an EP for about a year now and feel confident with it but don't feel I have a ton of time on it. When I was looking for my S110V PM2, in one of the longer PM2 blurple threads someone recommended Atoma plates from chefs knives 2 go. Look them up. They are pricey but man do they work good. They made S30V look difficult to sharpen and I got the S110V reprofiled and ready to go in about the same amount of time it takes me to sharpen a pretty dull "normal" stainless steel with the EP stones. After seeing how well these diamond Atoma stones work I can say they really are worth the money. It will be a good investment and it gives you good confidence knowing you can sharpen just about anything out there with ease.

gunmike1 · Mar 28, 2016

Atoma 140 is the answer. It blasts through anything pretty quick.

BilboBaggins · Mar 28, 2016

Surfingringo said:
Yeah, buy more hap40!

Seriously though, I'm a pretty good hand sharpening and enjoy the process but I don't really enjoy working with s110v/s90v. Diamonds are your friend.

Gringo...you use the diamond rods on the sharp maker? Looking at the blurple pm2, but may hold off until I get those rods.

bdmicarta · Mar 28, 2016

I use the DMT diamond stones and DMT Aligner system. It will sharpen S110V fairly easily.
I have a Manix 2 with M4 steel and the diamond stones work well for it too. I sharpened the M4 and then did a cutting comparison with the factory edge on the S110V. At the end they were both pretty dull so I sharpened them back to very sharp with the DMT diamonds, the S110V had to be reprofiled in the process. It takes more than 2 minutes but isn't horrible.

Surfingringo · Mar 28, 2016

BilboBaggins said:
Gringo...you use the diamond rods on the sharp maker? Looking at the blurple pm2, but may hold off until I get those rods.

Yes sir. They are a must have for the sm regardless of what steels you are working with! They will handle that pm2 just fine.

toxophilus · Mar 28, 2016

+1 on what gunmike1 posted; when re profiling or taking out chips, the Atoma 140 makes short work on steel, you will get a burr rather quickly! Really did short work on my GB1 M4 blade when I took it down to 18 DPS & my CTS-XHP Chaparral is just razor after working through the progression of stones!

Brock O Lee · Mar 29, 2016

ZuluKilo said:
After sharpening my buddies S30v Millie on Friday (18 DPS and wickedly sharp afterward) I decided to try my hand at reprofiling my S110v Manix LW. Yikes. I'm an EP user and I purchased my system with Shapton Glass stones instead of the standard EP stones. I also purchased a Shapton Pro 220 grit stone. Backed by (or armed with) these tools, I've conquered a ZDP Stretch and my own GB and M4 Millie (to name a few) without much trouble. But...S110v has proven to be a different animal altogether. The factory edge was pretty uneven; relatively steep at the heel, shallowing out noticeably at the tip. My plan was to transform the blade into a pure slicer at 15 DPS, which was just a littler shallower than the factory edge was at the tip. The heel is where I'm having issues... evenly grinding away enough material to match the rest of the secondary has been a bear. I think I just need to slow way down, even though my M4 Millie taught me a lot about/rewarded patience.

Before starting my Manix, I'd rate myself as an intermediate EP user...I'm backing off on that quite a bit now. Its been humbling.

Anyone have thoughts, tips, encouragement? I'm all ears.

Perhaps your stone needs some reconditioning? What grit are you using, and when last have you lapped/reconditioned your stone?

Lapping removes the dull burnished layer on your stone, and flattens it again. It exposes fresh, sharp abrasive. If you don't lap, you end up with a badly dished stone that just glides over the steel without cutting it. Any water stone will need lapping eventually.

My experience with reprofiling the high carbide steels like M4, S90V and S110V is this:
- I need to start with a freshly lapped stone (I use the stock EP 120 grit for reprofiling)
- I need to lap it halfway through the reprofiling session to make it cut properly again
- After lapping, the stone will cut an order of magnitude faster than before

I use the EP stone leveling kit, and can recommend it. I have never done this, but I believe you can lap/level your stone using coarse sandpaper on a flat pane of glass too.

bearfacedkiller · Mar 29, 2016

My advice is to just stick with it. Don't think of S110V as more difficult to sharpen, just think of it as more time consuming to sharpen. I have 5 knives in S110V and have reprofiled a couple of them many, many times. I did this on the Sharpmaker with the diamond rods and they are about 400 grit. It takes me longer to sharpen S110V but I have no problem getting it plenty sharp.

gunmike1 · Mar 29, 2016

For clarification on the Atoma 140 post I made, I reprofiled my S110V Para 2 to 11 degrees per side from 12-13 degrees per side fairly easily with it. I was cheating a bit though, because my blade was reground so the edge was super thin, and I wasn't changing the angle much, so I didn't have to fight the steel too much. I have brought CPM M4 from 15 degrees per side to 9 degrees per side with it, and it takes a little while but the diamonds really do rip through any steel pretty fast. Compared to the Edge Pro 120 the Atoma 140 is light years faster on really hard, very high carbide steels.

clockman · Mar 29, 2016

I got a Manix lw s110v a couple of weeks. The grind on the left side was a lot lower than the right side. I used my

diamond SM stones to even the grind.

ZuluKilo · Mar 29, 2016

The stone I was using was a Shapton Pro 220 grit. I do make a habit to lap after each sharpening session on my DMT XX Coarse plate. As I mentioned though, I did reprofile my buddies S30v Millie beforehand and did not lap in between. About halfway through my S110v session I did stop, take a break and re-lap the 220 stone in an attempt to improve its performance. I will be more cognizant of the stones performance and eager to lap during future sharpenings.

bearfacedkiller said:
My advice is to just stick with it. Don't think of S110V as more difficult to sharpen, just think of it as more time consuming to sharpen.

This is the mindset I was leaning toward. Thank you for the reinforcement. My M4 Millie took quite a while to reprofile but it was a lot easier to see my progress as I went and thus easier to maintain patience. I think I am going to invest in an Atoma 140 diamond plate for my EP, as some have suggested, in order to speed things up in the future. Though I've had other frustrating sessions on my EP, especially in the beginning, I'm still learning a lot and I'm looking forward to conquering this S110v beast.

Brock O Lee · Mar 29, 2016

ZuluKilo said:
The stone I was using was a Shapton Pro 220 grit. I do make a habit to lap after each sharpening session on my DMT XX Coarse plate. As I mentioned though, I did reprofile my buddies S30v Millie beforehand and did not lap in between. About halfway through my S110v session I did stop, take a break and re-lap the 220 stone in an attempt to improve its performance. I will be more cognizant of the stones performance and eager to lap during future sharpenings

:thumbup:

Patience seems to be the best weapon against S90V+ steels. The last 20% of a reprofiling job seems to take 80% of the time!

I used the EP quite a bit, but these days I prefer freehand with DMT Diafolds. They seem to cut faster and there is no need to setup or soak stones, and almost no stone maintenance. Some days I lack patience. Lucky for me I like coarse edges.

(No mirror polishing and stropping on sub-micron sprays until the cows come home.

)

Rasco · Mar 30, 2016

ZuluKilo said:
The stone I was using was a Shapton Pro 220 grit. I do make a habit to lap after each sharpening session on my DMT XX Coarse plate. As I mentioned though, I did reprofile my buddies S30v Millie beforehand and did not lap in between. About halfway through my S110v session I did stop, take a break and re-lap the 220 stone in an attempt to improve its performance. I will be more cognizant of the stones performance and eager to lap during future sharpenings.

This is the mindset I was leaning toward. Thank you for the reinforcement. My M4 Millie took quite a while to reprofile but it was a lot easier to see my progress as I went and thus easier to maintain patience. I think I am going to invest in an Atoma 140 diamond plate for my EP, as some have suggested, in order to speed things up in the future. Though I've had other frustrating sessions on my EP, especially in the beginning, I'm still learning a lot and I'm looking forward to conquering this S110v beast.

Last time I sharpened my Manix 2 S110v, I ditched the EP after the 140 Atoma and just stropped it from there on balsa with 1mu CBN slurry.
I don't have any faith in my EP stones (factory and/or Choseras) to realy cut S110V, so I just stick to diamond / cbn combos.
If I had more Atmoa stones, obviously I'd keep working up the grit before stropping, but I only have the 140 right now.
But I still think 140 > Stropping gives better results than using the Choseras.

gunmike1 · Mar 31, 2016

After reading the OP again, I see a couple things. The main issue with many Spyderco knives near the heel is that there is an unsharpened section right at the heel. This introduces a little recurve into the blade. When you go to sharpen it with an Edge Pro it is very hard to get it fully sharpened at the heel. On bench stones you can add pressure on the heel side, but even then you are likely to just make a slight recurve into the blade and not get it sharp to the heel. What I do is use a very small round diamond file, and right at the heel I cut in a small sharpening notch. It only needs to be a small notch to allow the stones to hit all the way back on the edge to that notch, making the full length of the edge sharp. As long as the notch is small then you can avoid material snagging in the notch.

The other issue I'm thinking of is whether you are using an angle cube or not, and if you are laying the blade flat on the table of the Edge Pro if you are accounting for the reduction in angle that applies. The Glasstones are much thicker than factory Edge Pro stones, causing the sharpening angle to be shallower than the marks on the Edge Pro indicate. Also, if you are sharpening with the flat of the blade on the table, that is another 2-3 degree reduction from the indicated angle to the actual sharpening angle. I'm just bringing this up because obviously the more you reduce the angle, the longer it will take.

ZuluKilo · Mar 31, 2016

gunmike1 said:
The other issue I'm thinking of is whether you are using an angle cube or not, and if you are laying the blade flat on the table of the Edge Pro if you are accounting for the reduction in angle that applies. The Glasstones are much thicker than factory Edge Pro stones, causing the sharpening angle to be shallower than the marks on the Edge Pro indicate. Also, if you are sharpening with the flat of the blade on the table, that is another 2-3 degree reduction from the indicated angle to the actual sharpening angle. I'm just bringing this up because obviously the more you reduce the angle, the longer it will take.

:thumbup: :thumbup: Key points I had heard/read before, but filed away somewhere in my brain before I fully developed my EP technique/method. While it's not quite 'back to the drawing board' for me, I need to revise and polish and bust out the angle cube that I bought but never really integrated. Overall, my results have been satisfactory (sans the S110v Manix experience thus far) just not as precise (at least a few degrees shallower) as I thought.

Thanks to all thus far for your insights!

farnorthdan · Mar 31, 2016

Thats why you want to use the lock ring from EP to Index from based on stone thickness...

ZuluKilo · Mar 31, 2016

farnorthdan said:
Thats why you want to use the lock ring from EP to Index from based on stone thickness...

...I do.

...but as Mike mentioned, there are various factors which influence initial edge angle accuracy. The drill collar just keeps you consistent throughout the stone progression.