Marthinus & Bartje123...
The Sharpmaker is excellent for keeping Spyderco edges very sharp. The Sharpmaker will have two settings (holes in the base) for the rods, a 40 degree setting and a 30 degree setting. These are inclusive angles, so you are actually sharpening at 20 & 15 degrees per side.
I have found that all of my Spydercos and Benchmades can be sharpened at the 30 degree setting and will hold their edges quite well for the types of cutting that I do, so I don't do anything from these companies at 40 degrees.
Just stand the rods in the appropriate holes for the angle that you want, hold the knife straight up and down with the heel of the blade against one of the rods, and then draw the blade back toward you while dragging it down to the bottom of the rod. Do a few strokes on one side and then move to the other rod for the other side of the blade. Some folks like to alternate sides after each stroke, others like to sharpen only one side until they raise a burr, and then remove the burr by sharpening the other side of the knife until the burr is gone.
The only things to watch are 1) don't let the point drag across the rods or it will get rounded off, 2) go easy on the pressure. The Sharpmaker doesn't need heavy pressure to work, especially when you are finishing the edge by removing the burr, and 3) don't let your knives get dull to the point where they need a significant amount of work. As it comes from the factory (w/out the diamond rods or ultrafine rods), the Sharpmaker is great for touchups and minor resharpening, but it can be time consuming to try to do a major resharpening or reprofiling job with it. I touch up my EDCs weekly, at least, and the Sharpmaker (with U/F rods) is all I use for that. Anything requiring heavy work gets done on an Edge Pro.
HTH...
Dale
