Sharpmaker Question... Regarding The Tip

[BadComrade]

Ok so I've owned a Spyderco Sharpmaker for about 6 months now. Gets most of my knives razor sharp... however there's one crutch to this system that I've noticed repeatedly when using it and I want to know if there are other BFers who have a method to getting around this.

Its very hard to sharpen the edge all the way to the tip... I consider myself to have pretty steady hands when sharpening, but no matter how careful you are, youre bound to accidentally let the knife slip off the sharpening rod. This consequentially will roll the tip of the blade making it less 'pointy'.

So does anyone have a method to avoid this? I'm thinking free-handing the tip portion, but im not great at free handing yet. Maybe its time to learn? I know getting systems like the edge pro would eliminate this problem too.

 

[bgentry]

There are a couple of parts to this. First, the tip tends to get used the most on many blades, which means that the tip tends to be the most dull to start with. The sharpmaker is a maintenance tool mostly. It's not going to remove a lot of metal unless you put in a lot of effort. So, you need to start with a blade that has a nice sharp point, dull it a little through use and then use the sharpmaker to return it back to a nice sharp point. If you start with a very dull point, you'll have to do a lot of work to make up for that.

On to technique: There are a handful of things you can do to make it more effective and easier. First, you need to follow the curve of the blade by lifting the handle as you go through it. When you get to the point, the edge should be perpendicular to the sharpmaker stone. Just like you would do on a bench stone, except you are going vertical instead of horizontal.

A decent way to avoid pulling the tip off of the stone is to overshoot the end of the stroke. What I mean is, end with the tip of the blade touching the plastic base in front of the stone. Then draw forward a bit and stop with the tip touching the middle of the stone. You can set this up such that you only overshoot a little bit and that's mostly to catch you if you get sloppy.

Another way to do it, is to concentrate on the first 1/2", more or less, and do back and forth, up and down motions. It's easier to keep the tip in touch with the stone if you are doing small motions on that smaller portion of the blade.

Brian.

 

[jll346]

I own the sharpmaker and a set of crock sticks that I use religiously. But only for final finish and daily touch ups in between full sharpenings. I would never rely on it as a main sharpener but could not live without it for daily use

 

[BadComrade]

There are a couple of parts to this. First, the tip tends to get used the most on many blades, which means that the tip tends to be the most dull to start with. The sharpmaker is a maintenance tool mostly. It's not going to remove a lot of metal unless you put in a lot of effort. So, you need to start with a blade that has a nice sharp point, dull it a little through use and then use the sharpmaker to return it back to a nice sharp point. If you start with a very dull point, you'll have to do a lot of work to make up for that.

On to technique: There are a handful of things you can do to make it more effective and easier. First, you need to follow the curve of the blade by lifting the handle as you go through it. When you get to the point, the edge should be perpendicular to the sharpmaker stone. Just like you would do on a bench stone, except you are going vertical instead of horizontal.

A decent way to avoid pulling the tip off of the stone is to overshoot the end of the stroke. What I mean is, end with the tip of the blade touching the plastic base in front of the stone. Then draw forward a bit and stop with the tip touching the middle of the stone. You can set this up such that you only overshoot a little bit and that's mostly to catch you if you get sloppy.

Another way to do it, is to concentrate on the first 1/2", more or less, and do back and forth, up and down motions. It's easier to keep the tip in touch with the stone if you are doing small motions on that smaller portion of the blade.

Brian.

Thanks for the write up Brian. This is helpful.

 

[numbersman]

I saw something like bgentry's suggestion on YouTube the other day, and tried it out on my Native 5. It seemed to work well near the tip, it got sharper than it has been for a while. But when I tried it on my Dragonfly, it still wouldn't sharpen near the tip. So instead of pivoting the knife vertically around its middle, I pivoted it horizontally around its middle. In other words, I rotated the butt end of the knife towards the opposite rod. I wonder if this method is better for smaller knives, but the other way is better for medium to large knives.

 

[bucketstove]

Its very hard to sharpen the edge all the way to the tip... I consider myself to have pretty steady hands when sharpening, but no matter how careful you are, youre bound to accidentally let the knife slip off the sharpening rod. This consequentially will roll the tip of the blade making it less 'pointy'.

Hi,
How fast are you going? Slow down? Choke up on the blade to sharpen the tip portion?
If you hold a pencil like you would a knife, can you draw a line on the stone (or paper wrapped around stone) without pulling the pencil point off the stone?

If you focus on the blade/stone contact sight picture, what the handle ought to come naturally

A karambit version , slight modification compared to spydercosharpmaker.pdf

So instead of pivoting the knife vertically around its middle, I pivoted it horizontally around its middle. In other words, I rotated the butt end of the knife towards the opposite rod. I wonder if this method is better for smaller knives, but the other way is better for medium to large knives.

Hi,
Increasing the angle over the sharpmaker setting is indeed one way to speed up sharpening
The same can be accomplished by tilting the sharpmaker instead of your hand,
put a coin or coins under one corner,
or make a see saw like pictured below
with a pencil or the brass rod or one of the sharpmaker triangles,
it gets you both higher and lower angles depending on which side you use,
and just hold knife vertical/perpendicular as normal
from Tilting the sharpmaker - Spyderco Forums