Sal, a Sharpmaker Suggestion

fulloflead

fulloflead

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May 3, 2002
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Sal,

Hi, I'm Jim and I met you once at a local knifeshow. I'm a big fan. I'm sure you get a lot of mushy compliments so I'll skip all of that embarrasing sappy stuff and get to the point. ;)

TONS of people love the Sharpmaker, but there seems to one common complaint/criticizm which is that it has only the one (OK, two if you count the back-bevel) angle.

There's been recent discussion about this on another thread and I thought I'd ask you directly...

Would you consider creating another base, possibly as an "upgrade", that either offered adjustable angles or simply had other holes to give more angle options?

I'd suggest about 8 or 10 angle options at 5-degree intervals and also one that would accomodate chisel-grind angles like Emersons.

I know it works well with Spydercos, but I'm also sure you know that many, many knife-lovers buy it for OTHER knives as well.

I don't think it's a bad idea because you seem to revel in the fact that the Sharpmaker is versitile and can sharpen many things (which it does and you should). That's why I think you may, also, be open to the idea of improving the base to accomodate different angles.

I know Spyderco to be a company that values customer input and actually USES customer input, so I felt comfortable asking.

Thanks for your time. -Jim

P.S. To be fair, only the multi-hole thing was my idea, the adjustable thing was someone elses idea on another thread. Besides, I'm quite sure someone else, probably thought of it before. Probably you've thought of it to begin with.
 
it is worth noting that when you rotate the rods, the cutting surface on the rods changes, which is a whole new can of worms. i don't know what the practical results are, but when you consider it in a 3-dimensional space, you will find that things change.
 
If the rods are rotated, then the angle that the rod and steel meet at changes significantly. I don't know what the implications would be of that either...

I think I may have to just make a test rig, see how it works, and take it from there...
 
Muppet said:
If the rods are rotated, then the angle that the rod and steel meet at changes significantly. I don't know what the implications would be of that either...
QUOTE]

I am a little slow but I don't see this. Are you saying that the angle changes by turning the stones on the flat from tip positions?
Click to expand...
 
What I meant was this: in the same way that the flat edges of the stones produce a different effect to the points, as the stones are rotated around their axis, they'll hit the blade in a different way. It won't change the grind angle, but it might have some other effect.

Rather than hitting the sharp point of the triangle "head on" the blade would now be drawn across it obliquely, if that make sense... The diagram on the other thread makes it a bit clearer, I think...
 
roger,
the easiest way to point out the difference is to think of running a serrated knife down the rod as per standard directions. the way the rods sit by default, if you keep the knife roughly perpendicular to the body of the sharpmaker and the angle of the blade that the grooves of the serrations are roughly perpendicular to the floor (imagine cylindrical protrusions that fit the serrations perfectly going directly up and down through space), you have a very finite and even contact point. on the other hand, if you rotate the edge of the triangle toward yourself, the angles tend to cut more sharply on the trailing portion of the serrations as you pull the knife down and toward yourself, and more softly on the leading portion of the serrations. this would lead toward some minor, though probably visible with a loupe, variations on each side of each serration. looking at my endura, i think that unless the triangle is rotated greatly, the impact would be minor on the larger grooves of a spyderedge, but rather noticable on the smaller ones. while i don't know how negatively this would affect the serrated edge for cutting, i'd pretty sure that it would do less well under certain circumstances. after all the R&D done on both the spyderco serrated knives and the sharpmaker itself, it seems foolhardy to expect a change like this not to cause some measurable difference, a difference that i doubt has yet been measured (please do feel free to chime in on this, sal&co!)
 
It doesn't seem like it would be very hard to make a base with some sort of adjustment mechanism to do different angles, does it?

As long as we're throwing our $.02 in, I'd like to have a Sharpmaker instructional DVD instead of VHS.
 
There would be two degrees-of-freedom ajustable mounts - edge angle, and angle of the rods rotated relative to the blade, so you could do edges, flats, or the 30' offset edges as you liked.

Probably have mounts like on a camera tripod, and tighten with butterfly screws or something like that....
 
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