Sharpening

[knifenut848]

I have acquired many knives over the years and have had them sharpened at different places. Not to long ago I purchased a Spyderco Sharpmaker, and while it works ok for some knives, others not so much. If I sharpen my benchmade griptillian with it at a perfectly straight position perpendicular to the base it does not line up with the grind lines. I know this can be corrected by tilting the knife, but is there a better way to sharpen knives? I also have a MercWorx Sniper in S30V, it is an awesome knife, but the sharpmaker does not do well with the recurve and does not even take off any metal. I have been told that I need a round diamond sharpener, but I don't know which one would be good for sharpening this knife. What is a high quality diamond sharpener I can use for this?
Thanks for the advice!

 

[alex]

Any diamond sharpener made by either DMT or Eze-Lap is high quality. Just get one of the round ones about 10 to 12 inches long and you can pretty much sharpen and maintain any type of knife blade steel. I have had an Eze-lap round diamond butcher steel for over 20 years and sharpened knives I am sure thousands of time on it and it still works great. I still haven't found a knife that I can't sharpen on it.

The only way to learn is to use it and practice your technique to build muscle memory. Once you get that down it is easy. Start practicing on all your kitchen knives before you take on your more expensive and harder steel knives. Use the Spyderco ceramics for maintenance touch up sharpening after you first sharpen on your diamond rod.

 

[tiguy7]

I am not nuts about diamond "stones" because they wear out. They loose their particles and hence their effiency. Round rods of any material tend to dull the point of a blade when it wraps over the rod at the end of the stroke. I like to finish my strokes in the middle of a flat stone.

 

[bh49]

If I sharpen my benchmade griptillian with it at a perfectly straight position perpendicular to the base it does not line up with the grind lines.

If original grind on griptilian is even, than you shouldn't have a problem. Sometimes it is little difficult to verify if you holding the knife vertical. You can place mirror behind sharpmaker, so it will be much easier to see.

I also have a MercWorx Sniper in S30V, it is an awesome knife, but the sharpmaker does not do well with the recurve and does not even take off any metal.

I sharpened and reprofiled Spyderco Adventura, which has recurved blade without problem with sharpmaker. If knife has bigger recurve, you will be able to use corners only.
Also, if material is not getting removed, it is possible that blade's bevel has bigger angle that sharpmaker setting and you are removing steel from the shoulders instead of edge. You can use "magic marker trick" to determine, where material is getting removed. Paint knife's edge with magic marker, make few strokes and take a look on the edge to see where you are removing material. 10X eye loupe will help.

 

[knifenut848]

Ok thanks for the input guys.

 

[smegs]

You can re-profile in installments. I've done a few knives this way with the Sharpmaker. Using just the corners on the browns I would do 30 to 50 strokes each side at 30°. Since I wasn't hitting the edge I used a fair amount of pressure. After that I would put one of the rods under the base on the opposite side I was working. This would increase the angle greater than 20° allowing me to hit the edge.

Sharpening the edge took a few swipes at light pressure. I did this every time I needed to sharpen these knives. After about 20 or so of these sharpening sessions, the bevels were at 15°. Once there, I just touched up the edge at the 20° setting.

 

[Ben Dover]

Or you can bite the bullet and get an Edge-Pro

www.edgeproinc.com

And you're set for life, no matter how kany knives you get!

 

[darkmoto]

I just use waterstones

 

[knarfeng]

There are two drawbacks to a Sharpmaker.
1) The edge bevel has to match one of the Sharpmaker bevels. Unless the bevels match, it don't work.
2) The "coarse" stone supplied with the basic kit is great for maintaining an edge, but not for changing edge angles.

When I get a new knife, I mark the edge with a sharpie, take a few swipes on the Sharpmaker, then look at the edge to see where black has been removed. If it is right at the edge, it means the blade has a narrower angle than the Sharpmaker. This is not a problem. I just go ahead and use the Sharpmaker and the angle will change with it. It it is all along the edge, the angle is an exact match (never happened to me, but I suppose it could.) If the black is NOT removed at the edge, that means the edge angle is greater than the Sharpmaker angle. In that case I need to change the edge angle (or else spend a LONG time with the Sharpmaker.)

These days I use either a DMT extra-coarse or a coarse Norton India stone to change the edge angle. Then I use the Sharpmaker for the sharpening.