School me on Sharpmaker stones

N

NateHodge

Joined
Apr 30, 2018
Messages
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The wife and kids got me a Sharpmaker for my birthday because Im too peculiar to hand sharpen my exclusive knives and too cheap to buy a WE or Edge Pro right now. Since I only have a few, I cant really justify the cost until I build up my knife collection. Anyway, I got the extra fine ceramic stones, but Im curious about the CBN and diamond stones. Mainly, what the grit or micron is. Are these stones profiling stones or finishing stones? Where would they fall in my progression?
 
According to Sal Glesser, the diamond and CBN rods are roughly a 400 mesh. So somewhere between coarse and fine by most diamond grit standards. You can certainly profile with them but they will be slower than a bench stone of equivalent grit for fairly obvious reasons.

Watch some of the youtube videos on the use of the Sharpmaker and I think you'll be pleased with just how versatile a tool it is.
 
Well technically the Sharpmaker is still a form of hand sharpening since you can vary the angle based on how you hold the blade. That said, you CAN reprofile with the CBN rods. I have done it many times, but I would not recommend it. It takes too long and it isn't as precise as a guided system.

Save the $50 bucks you'd pay for the CBN rods and put it towards your Edge Pro fund. Get the Apex 1 with just the 220 and 400 grit stones. You can easily shave coming off the 400 grit once you become proficient. Even if you have only a few knives the Edge Pro is worth it. Perfect edges every time.

Edit: just calculated the cost of the Sharpmaker + UF rods + CBN rods. It's just shy of $150. For $15 more you could have an Edge Pro. It's a no brainer.
 
I ha e the Sharpmaker, diamond, and UF rods. I got this around the time the CBN rods were introduced. From my understanding back than diamond and CBN will be pretty comparable in real world use but I would still go for the diamonds since it's a harder material.

UF rods aren't really nessary and only gives you a really high grit stone to work with if you like a more polished edge. I've used mine a couple times, the diamond and brown medium rods are what I generally use and I found provide a nice middle ground between toothy and polished.

Fair warning, reprofiling on a sharpmaker is a pain. I wish they would release 120grit diamonds for it to speed up the slow process.
 
If you've let the edge get very bad and or you have a super steel .. The diamond or cbn stones might be helpful. It will allow you to set the angle faster than the brown ceramic.

You can do the same for the most part with the brown stone but it will take probably twice as long on some steels.

But also you have to make sure to apply only little pressure as possible. Cause the stones can fall off if you use too much pressure due to the angle that your Sharpening. It's easy to knock them off.
 
I have the Sharpmaker and now a W.E. system. I will acknowledge that I really (finally) understand the importance of developing a burr on the complete edge after having studied here, watching the W.E. video library and getting some basic proficiency on the W.E.

Now, armed with that knowledge and a little more skill, I can use the Sharpmaker to really sharpen a knife. Find the burr!! It's not about counting strokes until after you have developed a burr. It might not be as pretty as a completely perfect mirrored edge, but the Sharpmaker gets a blade pretty dang sharp.

I have all 4 rods for the Sharpmaker. As a point of reference, I have put a new edge on a Maxamet mule including the original bevel set at 20dps. All in, I was at it for about 2 hours. Touch ups to keep a blade singing are faster on the Sharpmaker than the W.E. if you account for setup time.

The coarse (diamond) and ultra fine rods are worth adding to it if you are invested in the Sharpmaker system, and you will get great results.
 
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