Sharpening and caring for my 2 new knives that will be arriving this week

[ak585479]

Hey all,

So the other night the temptation became too much and I ordered a Spyderco Gayle Bradley CPM-M4 and a Serrated Pacific Salt. I've wanted the Pacific Salt for awhile, the GB I bought because I want to see what all the rave is about the Taichung plant. Plus I wanted to try both of these steels. Now my main method of sharpening is the Spyderco Sharpmaker followed by a stropping leather from Woodcraft, I have the basic rods and also 2 diamond and ultra fine rods for the SM. My question is how do I go about sharpening these 2 blades? Does anyone know what the factory edge angle on the GB is? Will I be able to reprofile it to 30 or 40 with the diamond rods, and if so, should I? I have no experience with either steel or sharpening serrations. Should I just leave the factory edge on the GB and just strop it maybe once a week and hope that's enough to keep it very sharp? Or would I be better off reprofiling it right away to 30 or 40 with the diamond rods on the SM? I understand it's an amazing slicer much in part to the geometry and I don't want to ruin that. As far as the Pac Salt I can probably find a vid on youtube or just rewatch the SM DVD. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks BF.

 

[RevDevil]

You sharpen them the same way you would any other knives with similar angles.
Both knives are hand sharpened on belts so the exact angle can and will vary by a degree or 3.
It's been my experience that the average angle is between 35-40 degrees. I really doubt you will gain much by reprofiling the GB, I have 3 of them, one is from the very first one, the other 2 are from the second run. The angle that they come with are pretty much ready to go out of the box. You have to understand that CPM-M4 is very wear resistant and it will take a good while to reprofile on the Sharpmaker. You would be better off using an EdgePro or similar guided system for that.
As for H1 steel, watch the DVD included with the Sharpmaker and do what Sal advises for serrated edges. You can also sharpen them with a small triangular file and a small round rat tail file. But, the serrations will hardly need frequent touch ups. Unless you are constantly cutting through yards of fibrous material like fiberglass insulation. Congrats on some cool knives.

 

[ak585479]

Thanks for the excellent info, Rev. Much appreciated as always. The Salt will mainly be my fishing knife so I guess it won't need touching up all that often since I don't get out there anymore as much as I'd like to. I'm extremely excited for the GB now . The more I hear about it, the happier I am I made that last second decision to add it to my Salt purchase. Really can't wait to get my hands on it and put it to work.