Sharpening Izula with Sharpmaker? Slight problem.

I

Iris223

Joined
Nov 27, 2009
Messages
87
Hello all,

I'm trying to sharpen my Izula with the 20 degree setting on the Sharpmaker, but i'm having a problem hitting one side of the blade. It seems that on one side, it is hitting the black coating, instead of the edge. It sharpens just fine on one side, but the other doesnt seem to touch the edge. How can I resolve this?

Thanks much
 
Iris223 said:
Hello all,

I'm trying to sharpen my Izula with the 20 degree setting on the Sharpmaker, but i'm having a problem hitting one side of the blade. It seems that on one side, it is hitting the black coating, instead of the edge. It sharpens just fine on one side, but the other doesnt seem to touch the edge. How can I resolve this?

Thanks much
Click to expand...

I had that same problem with my hest. It seems like maybe there are some uneven grinds on these blades. One side sharpened perfectly at 20 degrees, but the other side had such a thick shoulder on it that I could have never touched the edge on the sharpmaker.

What I did was get 180 grit sandpaper and wrapped it around the rod and fastened it with heavy duty paper clips then started to slowly sand away the thick shoulder. Eventually it will wear down to the correct bevel. Make sure to use a sharpie marker every few minutes to see what is going on exactly and how to adjust.
Be SURE not to accidentally hit your edge on the top of the ceramic rods.
 
They're pretty much all like this. They're taken to 20 degrees by a machine, then hand finished i belive. It happends.
 
The edges are applied by hand, not a machine, so there will be some slight variation, but I think you will find they're fairly symmetrical for being hand applied.
 
Sounds familiar. The first two tries on the sharpmaker didn't got it very sharp. Stay on the brown stones for a little longer than you normally would to get out the slight variation caused by hand sharpening.
 
Same thing happened to me on a BM 556. Part of it was the blade the other part was me. For me, and this is normal in most people, I have a dominant eye so sometimes it was hard for me to kep the blade truly vertical the both sides. My eyes told me it was vertical but it wasn't. I tried the sandpaper and scratched up my blade pretty good before I realized my mistake. My advice, sandpaper last resort, patience first.
 
I've a bunch of RAT/ESEE's and they have all come sharp from the factory.

But like many/most factory edges, edge bevels are not always perfectly symetrical. IMHO, this does not in itself detrimentally effect the utility of the blade as long as the edge is sharp.

I generally let uneven grinds be, and don't obsess. Later when a touch up is not enough, or in a fit of OCD, I might even up the grinds.

I guess I have way too many knives and too little time.
 
Thanks for all the help guys, I used the 30 degree angle to knock off the coated shoulder, and used the brown stones for a good while. Eventually got it down to where I can sharpen properly with the 40 degree.

Now I can revive my Izula, this is such a fun little knife.
 
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