Sharpmaker Diamond or UF?

Josh K

Josh K

Joined
Sep 29, 2008
Messages
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I've been using my sharpmaker for the past month or so with great success. I love it. Touch up's are quick and easy on the fine rods, and if things get too bent out of shape I switch to the brown ones for some rebeveling.

Now I'm considering the ultra fine rods or the diamond ones. The diamond ones are a bit more expensive, but also an excellent way to dramatically rebevel a blade if the need is there. I just spend close to an hour working a rather large chip out of a SAK. The UF rods would be nice for touching up my ZDP/S90V blades. I just want to polish them a bit more, and touch up for less time a little more frequently.

What do you recommend? Have you used the diamond rods enough to notice that they offer significant improvement over the brown ones? Do the UF rods offer noticeable improvement in sharpness levels attained and kept? Should I just be happy with what I've got?? :D
 
The diamond rods are far and away more aggressive than the brown rods. I don't see how people get by with only the two grits that the Sharpmaker ships with. I only use the diamond rods the first time I sharpen a new knife, to set the bevel, but the time savings are considerable. Just use a gentle touch and let the diamonds do the work, or you'll knock them out of the nickel plating they're embedded in.
 
I'd go with the diamond rods for reprofiling or kickstarting the sharpening of a dull knife. For polishing, I'd pick up the Bark River black/green stropping system from Knivesshipfree. Check out their instructions. The stropping works even if you don't put a convex edge on your knife.
 
I have both and if I had to pick either the UF or the diamonds, I'd pick the diamonds. They're just a bit more useful for me. The original fine sticks get my knives pretty dang sharp as it is.
 
I like Twindog's advice. I have U/F rods for my Sharpmaker, but I also have an Edge Pro for any serious rebeveling or chip removal. If I didn't have the Edge Pro, I'd have a set of diamond rods for the Sharpmaker before I had the U/F rods.

You can get the diamond rods and then add a strop block from Knives Plus for another $25, or use the stropping system Twindog mentioned, I just don't know how much that one costs.

Another option would be to get a coarse diamond benchstone from DMT (less $ than the Sharpmaker rods) and learn to do the heavy work freehand, or cheat a bit and prop the benchstone up against one of the Sharpmaker rods to get close to the angle you want. Then switch to the Sharpmaker F & U/F for final tune-ups. After that, simple stropping can often restore your working edge if you have't used the knife too hard since the last sharpening/stropping.
 
Diamond rods for sure. I have all four grits, and I almost never use the ultrafine. The regular white stones do a pretty good job finishing most blades.

Pay attention to the "gentle touch" advice, though. I got tired and careless one night(with a friends chinese 110 knock-off :mad:) and now I only have four sides instead of six. :(

I recently put a new edge on another friends Old Timer (with that ancient rock-hard carbon steel), and the diamond rods did it quick and neat.
 
Try this place. Someone here posted this link a few years ago and their stuff is excellent. Scroll down to the triangular rods.

The rods are a good fit in the Sharpmaker and offer a lot of different grits for around $4.

They're certainly not as aggressive as the Spyderco diamond stones, but I actually think the diamond rods are a bit too aggressive and can take off a lot of steel very quickly if you're not careful.

And for around $4 each, you can get multiple grits and still have the cash left over for the Spyderco UF rods.
 
I say get the UF and a coarse or X Coarse benchstone to rebevel. You can lean the stone against the rods to hold your angle or just freehand in your backbevel. Either way the coarse stones (I prefer DMT) will cut much faster then the diamond rods. The big exception though is for hawkbills or serrated edges, where you need the corner of the rods to be able to get into the curves on those blades.

Mike
 
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