Sharpening Systems- What is best.

I'm very happy with my Wicked Edge WE130. Even if I were a billionaire, I would still have it. Plus, with the WE130 you can grind asymmetrical bevels if you choose to do so.

WE130-4a.jpg
 
I have the Work Sharp Precision Adjust with the elite upgrade. It’s multi grit diamond stones and ceramic and it comes with a strop. It had handled every type of steel I have thrown at it and hasn’t backed down. I use it quite a bit as I do most of the communities knife sharpening needs. That’s my 2 cents.
 
3D Anvil said:
It's not difficult, but it is time consuming. It can take 3-4 hrs. for a really good result. Most of that time will be spent on the coarsest stone, making sure you get a full burr on both sides of the blade before moving on.
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Excellent advise. That is the sort of information and advise should be taught to anyone starting out on the sharpening road. The first stone is the most important, rush that and you may as well not even start. Have a good weekend. :)
 
BlackDeath007 said:
I read a lot of what people had to say and I seem to see KME and Wicked Edge as the top two. What I would like to know that if money is not an issue, what would you use to sharpen any knife, even if it is some ridiculous $10 thousand dollar machine. I have mostly M390 blades but I have some 20Cv, S45vn, NitroV just to name a few. I have some knives that are $100 all the way up to $1,600. I really like the mirror edges I have seen on the higher end knifes. What are the professional sharpeners using? I have done some cheap knives by hand, however I do not trust myself on the higher end blades and would be considered a novice as sharpening goes. I do like the control and taking as little as possible off a blade.
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If money is no problem, the Nowi Pro is the way to go:
https://katocut.com/en/produkte/messerschaerfer/nowi-pro/

You can adjust the grinding angle to what you need it to be.

Only with systems like it, the angle will stay constant over the whole edge, even on knives with a curve to the tip.

Here you can find a document about the problem with the changing angle over the lenght of the edge:

Geometry and Kinematics of Guided-Rod Sharpeners – Wicked Edge Precision Knife Sharpener

knife.wickededgeusa.com knife.wickededgeusa.com

Geometry and Sharpening (DRAFT 1.0beta5).zip

docs.google.com docs.google.com

You can use every type of bench stone from diamond to Japanese natural stones.

You can find videos about the system here:

Sharpening Systems- What is best.

What's wrong with being careful? Like my Ken Onion a lot. Nothing wrong with being careful. I'll admit that I'm a little impatient and like to run the blade through quickly. It's not as mindless as the Wicked Edge where you don't have to worry about holding the blade straight. I will say that...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
 
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I started with the KME system with diamond stones and all the way through the lapping stones and strops. It took a long long ridiculously long time on steels like s90v and was too easy to mess up and scratch the blade. Difficult to get a consistent bevel all along the edge depending on your blade. No matter how careful you are I guarantee you'll get scratches on your blade. So do tape it up first. And similar to the Wicked Edge, you have to clamp in the blade, so if your blade isn't consistent thickness along the spine it is tricky to get it seated in evenly if you're not careful. Lastly, both the KME or the Wicked Edge are expensive, especially going for the complete system with all the stones/plates, etc. I spent a small fortune on the KME.

I ended up selling the KME in favor of the Ken Onion Work Sharp Elite. Not only is it cheaper but it is way more versatile and provides a razor sharp convex edge. The regular attachment is not that great, but the elite attachment is awesome. I feel the regular attachment is more prone to rounding edges and scratching up the blades. The guides are also tricky pulling the blade through. The Elite attachment though is more free hand and allows you to follow the contour of the blade extremely well. Two settings for less of a convex edge, and I think you can also get stiffer belts for more of a straight edge but they always seem to be out of stock since I had this system. So maybe they are discontinuing those.

Very easy to use. Even handles recurves and serrated edges. The edges are consistent all along the blade. Takes minutes not hours. If you're going for mirrored edge probably not the system for you but this is quick and easy. Using the stropping belts gets pretty dang close to mirrored. Close enough for me anyway.

What prompted me to switch though was when I got my first Hinderer it was a recurve blade and dull as a fork. The factory edge could not even cut paper that well. I couldn't sharpen it on the KME unless I bought the accessory for recurved blades. Once I got the KO Elite and practiced on some old kitchen knives, I grabbed the Hinderer and within two passes per side on the medium coarse belt and running down through the stropping belts, had a crazy sharp edge at about a 20-23 degree to keep it pretty tough.

Like anything there is a learning curve. It can take off a lot of metal quickly and on the stropping belts potentially can overheat the blade damaging the heat treat if you over do it. I don't do more than a few passes on the higher grits. It develops a bur after 2 or 3 at most. I don't worry about scratching the blades either. Also works great on spydercos that typically don't have a sharpening choil.

I have a Benchmade bugout in s90v that I use a lot for cutting up boxes and this has made it so much easier to sharpen and it seems to hold the edge a lot better than I could ever get in the KME. I put about an 18 degree edge on (36 total) Perhaps on the KME I should have done a micro bevel but regardless I'm loving the KO Elite.

I even used it to quickly repair a tiny broken tip on a knife I got here recently.

For small touchups I also have the work sharp field sharpener. As well as just a leather strop on a block of wood. Easier to maintain the edges rather than let them get so dull I have to fully sharpen and needlessly waste steel all the time.
 
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000Robert said:
I'm very happy with my Wicked Edge WE130. Even if I were a billionaire, I would still have it. Plus, with the WE130 you can grind asymmetrical bevels if you choose to do so.

View attachment 1859003
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Do you know when the WE 130 was first released, been watching some Youtube videos on them, i did not realize that they had been around for so long. :)
 
I prefer my two hands, a couple good stones and some various grits of emory paper. Best sharpening system around ;)
 
cudgee said:
Do you know when the WE 130 was first released, been watching some Youtube videos on them, i did not realize that they had been around for so long. :)
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I don't have a clue. I know that some older units have been up for sale here on the forum occasionally. I found them after becoming a member of BFC. And I checked out every system that I could find information about and settled on the WE130. The first criteria in my search was that the system does not require electricity to operate. Wicked Edge just looked like the obvious best choice.
 
Titanium said:
If money is no problem, the Nowi Pro is the way to go:
https://katocut.com/en/produkte/messerschaerfer/nowi-pro/

You can adjust the grinding angle to what you need it to be.

Only with systems like it, the angle will stay constant over the whole edge, even on knives with a curve to the tip.

Here you can find a document about the problem with the changing angle over the lenght of the edge:

Geometry and Kinematics of Guided-Rod Sharpeners – Wicked Edge Precision Knife Sharpener

knife.wickededgeusa.com knife.wickededgeusa.com

Geometry and Sharpening (DRAFT 1.0beta5).zip

docs.google.com docs.google.com

You can use every type of bench stone from diamond to Japanese natural stones.

You can find videos about the system here:

Sharpening Systems- What is best.

What's wrong with being careful? Like my Ken Onion a lot. Nothing wrong with being careful. I'll admit that I'm a little impatient and like to run the blade through quickly. It's not as mindless as the Wicked Edge where you don't have to worry about holding the blade straight. I will say that...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
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This edge looks even all the way down.
Boker Mirror-1a.jpg

Oops, and this one too..

KL1-5a.jpg
 
Sometimes the angle will be constant with fixed rod system, but that's a function of the blade grind. If the blade is ground with a near-constant thickness behind the edge, then a fixed angle system will produce a bevel of consistent width. OTOH, if the blade is considerably thicker behind the edge towards the tip (as many blades are), the bevel angle will fatten up towards the tip.
 
3D Anvil said:
Sometimes the angle will be constant with fixed rod system, but that's a function of the blade grind. If the blade is ground with a near-constant thickness behind the edge, then a fixed angle system will produce a bevel of consistent width. OTOH, if the blade is considerably thicker behind the edge towards the tip (as many blades are), the bevel angle will fatten up towards the tip.
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That may be so with really long knives and swords. But you can string 2 or 3 Wicked Edge vises inline for them. There are people that do that.
 
000Robert said:
That may be so with really long knives and swords. But you can string 2 or 3 Wicked Edge vises inline for them. There are people that do that.
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It doesn't matter how long the blade is. I've seen plenty of <4" blades that got quite thick toward the tip. My Sebenza 31 is a good example.
 
3D Anvil said:
It doesn't matter how long the blade is. I've seen plenty of <4" blades that got quite thick toward the tip. My Sebenza 31 is a good example.
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You must have had it clamped in the vise wrong. Do you have a photo of it clamped in the vise?
 
3D Anvil said:
It doesn't matter how long the blade is. I've seen plenty of <4" blades that got quite thick toward the tip. My Sebenza 31 is a good example.
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My Carothers DEK1 has a 4.5" blade. You can see in the photo that I'm not having that problem.

DEK1-2a.jpg
 
I still use my edge pro system, I also have a sharp maker but the regular stones took forever ! may I recommend the 204 CBN rods because they take a lot less time.
 
000Robert said:
You must have had it clamped in the vise wrong. Do you have a photo of it clamped in the vise?
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No, I didn't clamp it wrong. If you maintain a *fixed* angle, and the blade thickness behind the edge changes, the width of the bevel must change in order to apex the full edge. In the case of my particular Sebenza, the blade is about .017" bte about 1/3 of the way up from the heel, and about .030" bte towards the tip, so it's impossible to maintain an even bevel on a fixed angle system.

Maybe this will help visualize the issue: imagine you're sharpening a square chisel at 20°, and the chisel is .25" high on one side and .025" the other side. You can't possibly grind an even 20° bevel on such a chisel. The bevel will be much wider on the .25" side than it will on the .025" thick side. If you wanted to maintain the appearance of an even bevel, you would have to gradually raise the sharpening angle as you moved from the thin side to the fat side. Well ... that's what you can't do on a *fixed* angle system, because ... fixed angle.
 
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