Sharpening Angles: Which is best

[knarfeng]

The Spyderco darker-colored rods are not "coarse" rods, they are "medium" (actually more of a medium-fine) rods. I would rate their "fine" rods as "very-fine". The net result is that it takes a long time to remove substantial material from a blade. If you need to reprofile a blade I would clip some 120 to 220 grit Wet or Dry sandpaper onto your rods for quicker material removal.

Here is a test I ran several years ago on how long it can take to sharpen a really dull knife (equivalent to reprofiling a blade) using only a ceramic V-rod sharpening system. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=938749#post938749
\

Please take the last line of my previous post into account. (It was the last of nice bottle of 10-yr old Islay single malt and there wasn't enough left to save so I had an extra glass not too long before I posted.)

You are, of course, correct, Jeff. The dark rods are not coarse. The diamond rods are supposed to be coarse and are supposed to be appropriate for changing edge angles, but they are pretty pricey. That's why I use the crystolon SiC stone instead. Haven't tried the sandpaper trick.

I was working a new blade today, changing from 20° per side to 15° per side. Took me about 10-15 min in the SiC stone, then 10 min on the dark rods to refine the angle a bit. (My freehanded angle was off a tad.) Then a few strokes on the white stones.

I like using the Sharpmaker because I hold a more constant angle using it than I do when I freehand only.

 

[Justabuyer]

So Hob and Jeff I assume then that both of you feel that the angle of the relief bevel behind the Micro bevel is important? It needs to be at a Spyderco preset?

Serious inquiry ok? How is your knife diminished by just laying it flat on a course stone then slightly raising the spine and grinding a relief bevel. Refining it to what ever degree you want to, then cutting a micro bevel?


What is gained from what appears to me to be a religious devotion to Spyderco presets? Propping a stone up against that Tri angle stone has got to be harder to use than just laying the stone on a table as they were designed to be used?

Not trying to be a smart ass.... But what am I missing here?

 

[Justabuyer]

I like using the Sharpmaker because I hold a more constant angle using it than I do when I freehand only.

Why does this matter? Not a idle question. As long as you don't lift the spine to high some slop in the bevel wont hurt the final outcome one little bit in fact it tends to blend the bevel into the primary grind which is a good thing to many people.

Am I way off base here? Am I the only one that does not care about the absolute angle of the relief bevel?

 

[sm2]

Justabuyer,

I agree with you.

My deal stems from using hand tools and there is no way a "pre-set" or "jig" could sharpen these tools.

Metallurgy comes into play as well. My Mentors, when I was under apprentice, shared why "tool steels" were preferred to 'stainless steels'. i.e Carbon Steels would allow a thinner "edge" that cut better and stayed sharper better than the new fangled steels that could not be sharpened as "fine" so not only did they not cut as well ( skipped, chirped, etc) they required more frequent sharpening and - it was more work using such new fangled steels.

Freehand allowed us to sharpen tools for tasks and adapt to OUR needs - not what someone else "says" or "thinks" is best for us.

Apprenticeship meant doing by hand, before one could use a powered tool.
Dremels were not even on the Market back in the day.
Foredom Flexshafts were, so were 3450/1725 "buffing machines" still one learned to do by hand and do it right.

That way when one did work up to powered tools and later on other "time savers" one knew the correct basics for the tasks, what it was supposed to look/ feel like and therefore "get it right".


Reminds me of the time the power went out, and my neighbor come over get a can of tuna open - "My electric can opener won't work, can I try yours?"

I do not do electric can openers, so I handed her a hand held one. She looked at that thing and asked " how do I work it?"

Dead serious, this gal was from a family with money, down here attending college, and had never seen, much less used a hand held can-opener.

Did a lot of mentoring with that gal while she was my neighbor, and she got angry about the fact she was raised as she had been.

Taught her how to sharpen a knife with stones freehand, (kitchen) and got her to carry a Case CV Stockman and how to maintain it.

Taught her to shoot as well and she ended up getting a CCW as well...

Not sure about some of the "raisin'" some kids are getting today...

 

[krazichinaman]

In my remark (which got interrupted by a call) I said 20 degrees is best. By that I meant 10 degrees per side. In order to get that I lay one of the Sharpmaker ceramic rods crosswise under the center of the plastic sharpener base. Then I sharpen on the left and right rods while I tip the base the opposite direction (right and left). This subtracts 5 degrees per side from the fixtured honing angles. With the rods in the "30-degree" slots this transforms 15 degrees per side into 10 degrees per side.

When I am virtually finished with sharpening I remove the crosswise rod from under the base and do a few very light strokes at the basic 15 degree per side position ("30-degree"). This is more deburring than it is sharpening. I wouldn't sharpen an ax at 20 degree per side. I use these angles even on the cheapest kitchen knives that you could imagine. Usually I take a belt sander to rough sharpen those.

Could you possiblity take a photo of where you put the rod and maybe a few pictures for the whole process? I sharpen at the 40 for the secondary but it seems like everyone uses 30 for the secondary. Thanks

 

[HoB]

So Hob and Jeff I assume then that both of you feel that the angle of the relief bevel behind the Micro bevel is important? It needs to be at a Spyderco preset?

Serious inquiry ok? How is your knife diminished by just laying it flat on a course stone then slightly raising the spine and grinding a relief bevel. Refining it to what ever degree you want to, then cutting a micro bevel?


What is gained from what appears to me to be a religious devotion to Spyderco presets? Propping a stone up against that Tri angle stone has got to be harder to use than just laying the stone on a table as they were designed to be used?

Not trying to be a smart ass.... But what am I missing here?

No advantages to what you are describing and hell no, it doesn't need to be a Spyderco preset. But
a) A lot of people are scared of free handing and the coarse stone with the Sharpmaker is an easy entry to sharpening, you can hardly do anything wrong and the results are excellent
b) When I am using angles as large as on the Sharpmaker, I really only want a microbevel, not a macro bevel. So I use the 15 deg not just as a relief, but take the bevel all the way to the edge and start already to refine it. I use the micro bevel only as a means to really clean of the edge with no more that a few strokes, so angle control becomes already important. Of course on a simple relief grind this is not very important.
c) A lot of people have trouble holding an angle free hand without any guide and also have trouble holding the same angle on either side of the blade, yet they are often concerned about the aesthetics of their knife. Your technique combined with an unsure or unpracticed hand usually leads to uneven bevels, scratches on the blade and asymmetric grinds (left side a different bevel than right side). I can take the Sharpmaker and coarse stone with me and can rebevel my fathers knives in the midst of Christmas dinner preparation while holding a chat, I can not do that free hand even though I am relatively practiced holding an angle.

Of course the Sharpmaker technique has some shortcomings as well. You are never able to lean into a coarse stone with it, which makes rebeveling even with a coarse diamond stone slower than it would be, if you would lay the stone flat on the table and freehand it. So, no adherence to the Sharpmaker presets, but the Sharpmaker is a great tool and since it has the presets you use what you have.

Personally, I actually mostly freehand, except if I am in a hurry or if I am on the road. I use selfmade angle blocks, that I use to "train" my hands to hold a certain angle and then I free hand using waterstones. I use specific angles for aesthetic reasons and it saves me extra strokes that do not help any (efficiency), when falling back into the bevel. I am using mostly a 12 degree bevel with a very few strokes (about 6 per side) at the very end at 15 deg. Since I don't use the Sharpmaker, I don't use the presets. 12 deg I just found to be a nice compromise between convinience (less material to remove) and performance and it is above the angles at which people have reported problems with the high carbide steels. 15 deg I use because I think that the microbevel doesn't do what it is suppose to, if there is not an appreciable difference between the edgebevel and the microbevel. I find 3 deg the absolut minimum.

Finally, specific angles help to determine performance differences. This way I can check how much I gain, when lowering the angle by, say, 5 deg. That is purely for my own personal benefit though. But it also helps a beginner to give him an idea how low you should go. Imagine a beginner sharpening his first good knife. You tell him that it doesn't matter and he tries your technique and sees that the edgebevel gets much wider than it came from the factory. Now he gets unsure and either complains about a scratched up knife or returns to sharpen at factory bevel and asks, how he can match it. With actual angles you can tell a beginner. That 15 deg per side for example is not to low that he should stick with it and ignore the factory bevels .

 

[yuzuha]

I have an M2 knife that will take 7 degrees per side, but most will round or chip out at that angle. Most of my small knives are about 9 to 13 degrees per side and hold up just fine when made of good, well hardened steels (Japanese Damascus, Super Blue, VG-10, BG-42, ZDP etc.)

Soft German kitchen knives (Wusthof etc.) seem to work just great at 15 per side (30 on the Sharpmaker, which is what I mainly use mine for). Outdoor knives that are going to be used for some hacking or knives of questionable steel generally get 20 per side (40 on the Sharpmaker).

D2 chips out easily because of the large grain size, so I tend to keep D2 knives between 15 and 20 per side (generally do them at 17 per side on diamond and waterstones). Might hold up better with the 40 setting on the Sharpmaker, but no harm in trying the 30.

Mostly I use diamond plates and waterstones and just follow existing angles by feel unless the knife is not performing well, then I use a machinist's protractor to set the angle when I adjust bevels and go a bit on the thin side of what I think the steel might be able to handle. Then, increase the angle if the resulting edge doesn't hold up under use. (experimenting like this can be a real pain with large knives but small ones aren't too much trouble to regrind)

 

[HoB]

Good to see you around yuzuha. I've missed your posts. Thought you might have left for good .

 

[yuzuha]

Hi HoB! Oh, I mostly hang out in Fred's cutlery forum or KF's kitchen knife forum, but I drop in on this one now and then to see what's up. BTW, Ken (can't remember his handle here but doesn't show up here much) has a review of a Naniwa 12k stone up both places.... says it is pink and a bit harder than the 10k (though that wouldn't take much). He also picked up a Naniwa 2k aoto stone (mix of synthetic and natural grits) that sounds a bit harder than the synthetic aoto you've mentioned. You should grab the old deba and drop by now and then. ^-^

 

[yoopernauts™]

The Spyderco darker-colored rods are not "coarse" rods, they are "medium" (actually more of a medium-fine) rods. I would rate their "fine" rods as "very-fine". The net result is that it takes a long time to remove substantial material from a blade. If you need to reprofile a blade I would clip some 120 to 220 grit Wet or Dry sandpaper onto your rods for quicker material removal.

Here is a test I ran several years ago on how long it can take to sharpen a really dull knife (equivalent to reprofiling a blade) using only a ceramic V-rod sharpening system. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=938749#post938749
\

What about the Boker VULKANUS?

Could I use it to get the first step over with quickly before I switch to the Spyderco rods?

Or could I just take a few swipes on a cheap carbide sharpener, then switch to the stones? My knives arent really high quality. But if I had a really expensive blade that cost more than a hundred bucks(my dream knife) then I would never use carbide. Why does Spyderco push this 4o degree angle? Do they really want you to sharpen your Spyderco knives with this angle? I think they are shooting themselves in the foot with this.

ALSO: What about the BUCK 420HC steel. Is this a quality hard steel, or it it softer???

Thanks for the replies....

 

[HoB]

Why does Spyderco push this 4o degree angle? Do they really want you to sharpen your Spyderco knives with this angle?

ALSO: What about the BUCK 420HC steel. Is this a quality hard steel, or it it softer???

The ceramic sticks work particularly well when they are used for micro bevels, so since the factory angle on the Spyderco knives is around 15 deg a microbevel at 20 deg is very sensible. So the real question is why doesn't Spyderco use a smaller factory angle, but in fact 15 deg per side is pretty acute for a factory edge and considering what a company like Spyderco sees in warranty and repair I doubt they could be persuaded to lower their factory angle. The average customer (not the average bladeforums member) would likely not be able to tell the difference anyways.

My experience with Bucks 420HC have unfortunately been very poor. Lots of edgerolling and very stubborn burrs.

 

[BostonBull]

Were all still wondering what a Yoopernauts is and why it is Trademarked?

 

[kgd]

Could Jeff or someone else comment on the method of attaching wet/dry sand paper to the sharpmaker for rebevelling?

How is the paper attached (just folded on) ?
Do you use the flats exclusively or corners + flats?
Does the paper rip frequently? How do you avoid this?
Finally any time comparisons - sandpaper covered rods against naked rods?

Thanks for your insights!

 

[knarfeng]

Why does this matter? Not a idle question. As long as you don't lift the spine to high some slop in the bevel wont hurt the final outcome one little bit in fact it tends to blend the bevel into the primary grind which is a good thing to many people.

Am I way off base here? Am I the only one that does not care about the absolute angle of the relief bevel?

I'm one of the people HoB talks about in section c). Thanks for explaining so well HoB.

I wasn't talking about the angle of the relief bevel. I use a single bevel of 15° per side. (I use 20° per side on my old kitchen knives which are all 30 years old and are not fancy steel.)

So yes I think it makes a difference. I used just freehanding for years. I found that using the Sharpmaker to set the angle gives me an improved level of sharpness compared to what I used to get just freehanding. Call me a spas, but I just couldn't maintain the same angle pass to pass and side to side.

 

[Justabuyer]

I'm one of the people HoB talks about in section c). Thanks for explaining so well HoB.

I wasn't talking about the angle of the relief bevel. I use a single bevel of 15° per side. (I use 20° per side on my old kitchen knives which are all 30 years old and are not fancy steel.)

So yes I think it makes a difference. I used just freehanding for years. I found that using the Sharpmaker to set the angle gives me an improved level of sharpness compared to what I used to get just freehanding. Call me a spas, but I just couldn't maintain the same angle pass to pass and side to side.

Thats my point exactly. Keeping exactly 15 degrees or 20 degrees has nothing to do with how sharp the knife is. The benefit to keeping a exact angle is....... ???

Or in other words if your knife bevel varies from 12 to 20 degrees and is about 18 degrees on on one side and 15 degrees on the other... how is it duller than a knife with perfect 20 degree bevels on both sides?

I don't even KNOW what degree my knives are anymore. When I set the bevel I take a good guess at how thin the knife can go for the steel and type of work I intend to do. If I go to thin and it begins to collapse with use I just thicken it up some.

But I understand HOB's points and don't want to get into a circular argument. I just think the Measured edge bevel thing is largely emotional.

 

[knarfeng]

I think you are misunderstanding me. I wasn't all that clear, I think. Let me try again:

I agree that the angle itself isn't important. But consistently holding the blade at the same angle during the sharpening of a single blade in a single sharpening session is important. And that is what I have trouble doing. Using the Sharpmaker for the final sharpening of a blade allows me to maintain a set angle during that single sharpening.

The Sharpmaker has two preset angles. When I got the Sharpmaker I tried both angles on my pocket knives. I found that for what I use a knife for, the 15° was better.

add:
The proof of the pudding for me is that I get my knives sharper this way than by just freehanding. Yes I am limited to two angles, but I am willing to live with that limitation for the $40 the Sharpmaker cost. I find the results I get at those angles is sufficient for what I use my EDC pocket knives for. Works for me YMMV.

 

[Justabuyer]

Nope you were clear and I understand what you are saying. But I disagree. Holding the angle is NOT IMPORTANT and rocking the blade through a range of angles while sharping just creates a convex. As long as you limit the highest elevation of the spine to something as thin or thinner than the final edge bevel you want things will be fine. How far you go below that, all the way to flat against the stone can ONLY help with the edge geometry. yes?

If what you are after is a thin sharp edge... holding a perfect set angle during a single sharpening session is mental masterbation. (opinion)

I think I am the one that is being unclear not you.

Now I can see the utlility of perfectly flat bevels for one thing.... LOOKS.
Wont be one damn bit sharper... But to some it may look better.

I prefer a nice hand sharpened look myself.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I wasn't all that clear, I think. Let me try again:

I agree that the angle itself isn't important. But consistently holding the blade at the same angle during the sharpening of a single blade in a single sharpening session is important. And that is what I have trouble doing. Using the Sharpmaker for the final sharpening of a blade allows me to maintain a set angle during that single sharpening.

The Sharpmaker has two preset angles. When I got the Sharpmaker I tried both angles on my pocket knives. I found that for what I use a knife for, the 15° was better.

add:
The proof of the pudding for me is that I get my knives sharper this way than by just freehanding. Yes I am limited to two angles, but I am willing to live with that limitation for the $40 the Sharpmaker cost. I find the results I get at those angles is sufficient for what I use my EDC pocket knives for. Works for me YMMV.

 

[knarfeng]

um, OK we disagree. If it works for you, OK by me. Varying the angle during freehanding did not work for me.