find I get micro abrasions on the back part of the blade, behind the edge. I know I could tape everything off, but that’s a pain and I never experienced this with the Lansky. Thoughts on why the KME is doing this?
First use of KME, putting a 30 degree edge on a Benchmade 710-D2, found scratches above secondary bevel as you did, during inspection after one of the flips changing sides, with NEW KME 140 grit diamond. It was clean and used, so I was bummed but got over it after using the 710 a while. My enthusiam for using a new tool overwelmed rational thinking which would have had me sharpen some thrift store finds before a benchmade... Never scratched anything after that with KME. I considered it driver error. The KME diamonds are great stones and long wearing but need breaking in.
Taping is a common strategy for protecting blades, I always have some blue tape around.
At the moment I am reprofiling a 710-1401 for a friend. I'm at KME's 600 grit stage, without thumbstudes. Both 710's are very symmetrical at the secondary bevel so they do not have the wider edge nearing the tip, nicely ground primary bevel's from the factory.
I'm expecting well over 400 to 500 sharpenings with each KME plate, using a light hand hand and wet water.
At one point in the past I assumed 6 inch plates would be obviously better, but for several housholds these 4 inch KME plates work great for the home / kitchen / field / garage users, and are more economical then 6 inchers to replace when the time comes. I have spent time looking for 6 to 8 inch thin plates built as robust as KME, and the best I can come up with are DMT solid more expensive plates, duh.
The exception in stone length is vertical V-sharpeners like the Sharpmaker or Idahone's 7 inch trangle standard, and Congress Moldmaker's at 6 inches. For my hands the KME 4 inch plates are too short for vertical use. Maybe smaller younger hands would not have a problem with 4 inch stones. Just set up two 1/2 triangle Sharpmaker kits using Idahone's coarse ceramic which is finished to 100 to 200 grit, their medium at 500 grit, a sharpmaker medium 600-800 grit, an Idahone fine 1200 to 1500 grit, and sharpmaker's fine finished to about 2k grit. Compared to Idahone's coarse ceramic, Congress's Moldmaker 240 grit did not seem to cut differently enough, in my experience, to gift to one of the houses. Going to mount 6 inch by 1 inch EdgePro form factor diamond stones for one house's kit that has super steels.
Gritomatic is showing about five LeadinEdge V-Sharpeners fully assembled at the bottom of landing page (and a room full of 3D printers), taken from their Instagram feed. So I keep waiting for them to finish building inventory and start selling. Hoping Sharpmakers flats and edges will work with stone holder. Asked if I could buy n test early unit, but did not get any play, o well.
