Sharpener said my Spiderco Delica VG10 is cheap steel & hard to sharpen

Are delica’s counterfeited? If so, given the low price they would have to use really crappie steel to turn a profit. The lettering on yours is off, in places, but that may have been common for those years. Vg-10 doesn’t need professional sharpening. It’s definitely cheap compared to hap-40 or zdp, but not compared to 420, in raw materials cost or machining. Practice makes perfect(or close enough), and try to have fun while learning. Another way to tell is to check out YouTube, they have videos showing real and fakes side by side enough to be confident that what you have is one or the other. If it were fake there would be many thousands made, as frn is more expensive the fewer that are made, since the mold is most of the cost.
Clamp sharpeners are a waste of time imo unless you need to get the angle a perfect 17 degrees or so. Get a dmt diafold with coarse/fine and you won’t spend a lot of money.
 
calldoug said:
Images of Said Knife, my Delica VG-10
Im not sure how to make this link into active pictures on here


Images are here


https://imgur.com/a/dFMiR28
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Here ya go.

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Yonose said:
Are delica’s counterfeited? If so, given the low price they would have to use really crappie steel to turn a profit. The lettering on yours is off, in places, but that may have been common for those years. Vg-10 doesn’t need professional sharpening. It’s definitely cheap compared to hap-40 or zdp, but not compared to 420, in raw materials cost or machining. Practice makes perfect(or close enough), and try to have fun while learning. Another way to tell is to check out YouTube, they have videos showing real and fakes side by side enough to be confident that what you have is one or the other. If it were fake there would be many thousands made, as frn is more expensive the fewer that are made, since the mold is most of the cost.
Clamp sharpeners are a waste of time imo unless you need to get the angle a perfect 17 degrees or so. Get a dmt diafold with coarse/fine and you won’t spend a lot of money.
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What are you doubting? Of course they can make a HUGE profit from making and selling counterfeits of a $60 knife.

That said, the OPs Delica looks legit to me.
 
sharp_edge said:
What are you doubting? Of course they can make a HUGE profit from making and selling counterfeits of a $60 knife.

That said, the OPs Delica looks legit to me.
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I wasn’t doubtful, just suggesting that there would have to be a lot out there, as frn isn’t cheap until several thousands can be made from the same mold. This is what Sal has said about frn. Since most cf’s come from China, doubt they would use vg-10. It most definitely looks legit, the sharpener was having a bad day or is biased against Japanese steel, or something.
 
Vg10 is awesome. Easy to sharpen to razor sharp and holds a decent edge. Sounds like a bad sharpener to me.
 
Yep, hard to sharpen. It takes me all of 30 minutes on a glass slab to touch up my friend's vg-10 delica from hang-ups-on-paper dull to smooth-slicing-paper sharp.
 
James Y said:
I've never had a problem sharpening any of my knives so far with my Sharpmaker. Back in 2002, I reprofiled my brand new large regular Sebenza (S30V) using only my SM. The knife came super-dull, and I wanted to take on the project myself, but SLOWLY so as not to risk messing up the blade by incorrectly removing too much metal at any one time. Yes, it went slowly; I worked at it here and there, on and off for a good while, but I eventually worked the shoulders down at 15 DPS and finished at 20 DPS, using the darker rods. Later, I also reprofiled a NIB Bemchmade Stryker (ATS-34) that also came dull in the same manner.

Would I recommend the SM as the best tool for reprofiling a blade? No. But in those instances, it worked for me. Like I mentioned, I wanted to go gradually so as not to do something I might regret. For normal resharpening, so far my SM has worked just fine for:

VG-10
S30V
S35VN
440A
440C
420HC
H1
X50 (Victorinox steel)
ATS-34
154CM
Gin-1 (G-2)
AUS-8
AUS-6
Old Schrade carbon steel
I believe there's others as well...

...and I'm not some sharpening master or guru, either. If I wanted to touch up an edge that isn't exactly 15 or 20 DPS, I simply matched the edge bevel angle to the rod by sight or by feel (so far, I haven't needed to use the magic marker method), or held a rod freehand.

There are 3 steels in knives I own that I haven't used the SM on yet, and those are:

CTS-XHP (I haven't used my knives in that steel enough to need to, though I am confident that I can do it when the time comes);

LC200N (also haven't used enough yet, but have full confidence resharpening will be easy);

S110V (which, TBH, I'm actually a bit concerned *might* present a problem to resharpen, though I haven't used my S110V Military enough to need it).

Jim
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Thanks Jim that is good and detailed infomation
 
Sergeua said:
You get diamond rods like I told you earlier if you wanna listen to that guy.
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At that point, you are just under the cost of a set of Shapton Pros. You may have to wait a bit on the shipping of those stones, but you'll have much more flexibility and life.
 
Ourorboros said:
At that point, you are just under the cost of a set of Shapton Pros. You may have to wait a bit on the shipping of those stones, but you'll have much more flexibility and life.
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He already got SM. Its plenty strong for delica. Its user friendly and if they want they can progress to free hand from there. Taking off less metal is not a bad thing for beginners. SM gets you thinking... And if your not up to the task you pick the other route. SM weeds things out and you pick your path from there.
 
Your sharpener is an idiot that doesn't know what he's talking about. "Cheap japanese steel" should be EASIER to get sharp than high end stuff. The mere fact that he's spouting nonsense like that shows that he doesn't have a clue.

Good steel is harder to sharpen......cheap steel is easier.

Whether it KEEPS that edge is an entirely different story. But you could put a good edge on aluminum if you want to....and it would be easier than putting it on steel.
 
Knife looks authentic. Follow the instruction for the Sharpmaker and you can probably shave with it once you are finished sharpening it. The edge looks to be in good shape, no dings or chips. You should only have to use the 40 degree angle setting, first with gray rods, then a few passes with the white rods, and maybe a couple of swipes on the back of one of your leather belts. Then it should be very close to razor sharp. You can do it! I know you can.

 
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In my experience Spyderco's VG10 can take a crazy sharp edge. Is it the best steel? No, but it is by far not the worst and certainly not cheap.

Just send your knife in to Spyderco and they will sharpen that VG10 right up for you.
 
BBuser said:
^^And if they return it you'll know it's real.
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UPDATE
Customer service at Spyderco said they were not aware of any fakes in
the time period of 2011
I asked when they started and they said "a few years ago"
And yes, they said they can sharpen it and they would have it about two weeks.

I am amazed how Bad the engraving is on my VG10,
the G looks like a deformed 8
and the V looks like a Y, that in other items is usually a dead giveaway of a counterfit

I stropped it yesterday and it definitely improved the sharpness.
I really would like to learn how to sharpen better.
The secret seems to be in holding the hand steady and keeping the same angle.
I already knew this but seem to have some trouble doing this
I will find my spyderco sharpener and try it on some knives.

Also do you guys think should I go explain to the sharpener guy;
that as I already thought I knew and now know for sure / that VG-10 is great steel
that it can be sharpened extremely well
, I will show him how sharp it is
Because im very curious what he will say
 
calldoug said:
UPDATE
Customer service at Spyderco said they were not aware of any fakes in
the time period of 2011
I asked when they started and they said "a few years ago"
And yes, they said they can sharpen it and they would have it about two weeks.

I am amazed how Bad the engraving is on my VG10,
the G looks like a deformed 8
and the V looks like a Y, that in other items is usually a dead giveaway of a counterfit

I stropped it yesterday and it definitely improved the sharpness.
I really would like to learn how to sharpen better.
The secret seems to be in holding the hand steady and keeping the same angle.
I already knew this but seem to have some trouble doing this
I will find my spyderco sharpener and try it on some knives.

Also do you guys think should I go explain to the sharpener guy;
that as I already thought I knew and now know for sure / that VG-10 is great steel
that it can be sharpened extremely well
, I will show him how sharp it is
Because im very curious what he will say
Click to expand...


Send it to me, let me fix it and THEN take it back to show him.
 
Sounds like that sharpener guy isn't very sharp. Get a set of the sharpmaker diamond rods and forget that guy.;) You shouldn't really need the diamonds for VG10 but they will cut quicker.
 
skyhorse said:
Sounds like that sharpener guy isn't very sharp. Get a set of the sharpmaker diamond rods and forget that guy.;) You shouldn't really need the diamonds for VG10 but they will cut quicker.
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UPDATE:
I took both the Delica and Benchmade Barrage to the new sharpener ( highest rated but only uses some 2 wheel sharpener, thats it
for like five minutes time )and then I stropped them both on a leather strop ( equally the same) and the benchmade is Much sharper than the Delica VG-10.
So then I carefully put just the Delica vg-10 through the tri-angle sharpmaker and still the benchmade is Much sharper.
As an easy sharpness test I use 8x10 paper and index cards to see the smallest sliver I can slice take off of them.
So why do you guys think this is? Also you see how bad the engraving is, the person at the spyderco outlet store said they dont let knives out of the factory with engraving like you are describing. Look at the pictures please, the G looks like a very badly done 8.
This makes no sense to me.
 
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