Sharpmaker questions for Sal...

B

bryan123

Joined
Feb 7, 2017
Messages
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Hi Sal (and everyone),

I really appreciate your accessibility here. Wanted to post an update..

All my plain edge knives (SAK's, kitchen knives and AUS-8 Zancudo) are now razor sharp thanks to the Sharpmaker at the 40 degree setting.

I found that to resharpen my 12 month old Bug, I had to use the 30 degree setting to get the same great results. In the DVD you mentioned that Spyderco knives have a factory edge set at 30 degrees. Is this why? And when my new Delica 4 and Dragonfly 2 (both VG-10) need sharpening down the road, should I use the 40 or 30 degree setting?

I followed the advice about burrs and lying the stones flat, etc, but I can't successfully sharpen the chisel grind blade on my LM Micra. I'm thinking about having a professional sharpener do it, or even regrinding it from chisel to plain edge. Would this be a good idea?

BTW does Spyderco ever work on or sharpen other brands of knives?

Thanks

Bryan
 
First off, congrats with the sharpmaker, it's a hell of a sharpening tool.

To answer you're question;

The most used way, and recommended way is to first sharpen it at a 30 degree edge.

If it gets a little dull, you can just use the 40 degree setup to touch it up.

What you will do is create an micro bevel, and this is way more easy to sharpen.

When the microbevel gets dull again, you can just touch it up on the 40 degree setting very easily.

When you touched it up so many times that the edge is difficult to sharpen again, than you must set your intentional bevel on 30 degrees again by sharpening on the 30 degree setting.

And so on.


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By continously touching up his edge on the 40° setting he will eventually have a 40° edge and have to remove a lot of material to get back to a 30° edge.

I am not a Big fan of "microbevels" because you are essentially trying to skirt the function of a strop to get rid of the burr.

An effective apexing of your edge (when not too thin) will be plenty and not need anything other than a strop to maintain your edge.
--------
I would sharpen your edge until you have a burr raised down the flat side of your chisel ground blade, then take a few passes on th chisel ground side to flip the burr and create a (very) small assemetrical "V" grind, then strop to rid yourself of the burr once it's flipped a few times to weaken it.
 
It is possible that the angle of your leather man chisel grind is bigger than the 20 degree setting of the sharpmaker stone. In this case you must keep sharpening until you removed enough metal to reach the edge of the blade and create a burr that is feelable with your finger.

Take the burr of with a light stroke on the other site of the chisel and strop remains off.

It should be razor sharp than

See beautiful drawing [emoji317]
6c7b28784f96e2357fd72ea4e6e39b7e.jpg



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Hi Bryan,

Normally we don't work on other brands, but I believe we can get you knife sharp in discussion here. Some pretty sharp people here.

sal
 
iMarcoU said:
It is possible that the angle of your leather man chisel grind is bigger than the 20 degree setting of the sharpmaker stone. In this case you must keep sharpening until you removed enough metal to reach the edge of the blade and create a burr that is feelable with your finger.

Take the burr of with a light stroke on the other site of the chisel and strop remains off.

It should be razor sharp than

See beautiful drawing [emoji317]
6c7b28784f96e2357fd72ea4e6e39b7e.jpg



Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I understand this drawing. Thanks. I need to start with the coarse stone. Step 1the corner or step 2 the flat? I don't have the diamond stones
 
bryan123 said:
I understand this drawing. Thanks. I need to start with the coarse stone. Step 1the corner or step 2 the flat? I don't have the diamond stones
Click to expand...

Hmm doesn't matter much I think, in my experience the flat side removes as much as the corner of the stone. I would use the flat side.


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in my opinion, when the corners of the coarse stone are "broken in", they will remove more metal faster than the flat side of the coarse stone.

sal
 
Sal Glesser said:
in my opinion, when the corners of the coarse stone are "broken in", they will remove more metal faster than the flat side of the coarse stone.

sal
Click to expand...

Well, can't doubt Sals answer ;-) so, use the corners


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Sal Glesser said:
in my opinion, when the corners of the coarse stone are "broken in", they will remove more metal faster than the flat side of the coarse stone.

sal
Click to expand...

By the way, mr. Glesser, if the corners from the coarse stone are broken in, does this means there aren't some sort of rounded corners anymore?


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Yes, but with this grind you should only stick with the 20 setting. Otherwise you'll be sharpening an age.

But isn't it wise to tilt the blade a bit so. You keep the standard angle? Because a edge of 20 degrees will be super sharp but also super fragile


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Sal Glesser said:
in my opinion, when the corners of the coarse stone are "broken in", they will remove more metal faster than the flat side of the coarse stone.

sal
Click to expand...

Interesting. I love learning something new that interests me. :thumbup:

To the OP:

Not sure if anyone has answered this directly, but yes, the Sharpmaker is, IMHO, an exception tool to sharpen most any knife. Some folks find initial difficulty with it for reasons I don't fully understand, but I think that most folks get the hang of it fairly quickly if not from the beginning. It is my "go to" sharpener for touch ups--quick, easy, & effective.
 
iMarcoU said:
By the way, mr. Glesser, if the corners from the coarse stone are broken in, does this means there aren't some sort of rounded corners anymore?
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Click to expand...

True. They will flatten out with a slight radius on the edges and they will eventually wear to the point where they are too wide to be a "corner" and will have to be replaced. But that's when they cut the best.

sal
 
OP here again. I've been at it for about 45 minutes trying to sharpen the chisel side of the blade with the corner of the stone, cleaning the stones periodically. Not close to raising a burr and I'm thinking that I will wear out the stones before I reach the edge. Calling it quits for today. I will never buy another knife with a chisel grind.
 
Hey Bryan, I bought a Sharpmaker a while back. Take a sharpie marker and mark the sharpened side of the blade and make a couple passes on the stones to see where it is making contact. I have had to sharpen several knives by tilting the blade at a different angle.
 
TheEdge01 said:
Hey Bryan, I bought a Sharpmaker a while back. Take a sharpie marker and mark the sharpened side of the blade and make a couple passes on the stones to see where it is making contact. I have had to sharpen several knives by tilting the blade at a different angle.
Click to expand...
I tried that and I'm not contacting the edge. Difficult to see even with 10x loupe on such a small blade. Fortunately I have other keychain size tools with blades that the sharpmaker was able to make razor sharp. My classic Swiss army knives all worked at 40 degrees and my Spyderco Bug worked but at 30 degrees, not 40.. anyone know why?
 
bryan123 said:
I tried that and I'm not contacting the edge. Difficult to see even with 10x loupe on such a small blade. Fortunately I have other keychain size tools with blades that the sharpmaker was able to make razor sharp. My classic Swiss army knives all worked at 40 degrees and my Spyderco Bug worked but at 30 degrees, not 40.. anyone know why?
Click to expand...

Anymore, if I'm sharpening a particular knife for the first time, I mark the edge with a marker, stand in front of a mirror to be sure that I'm holding the knife correctly and make a couple passes on the stones to find the angle of the blade. I have learned that some knives can have different angles on the same blade. One of my co-workers had a cheap folder that he wanted me to sharpen for him. It was a four bladed congress and every blade had to be sharpened at a different angle. However, I recently sharpened a Black Label Browning folder and a Case XX stockman on the 40 degree stones, all I had to do was hold the knife straight and swipe it on the stones. I would like to add that the case xx tru-sharp surgical steel takes a killer edge.
 
There's a ton of information in this forum, some is better than others.
In my experience knives seldom come out of the box at a consistent
20 or 15 degrees per side, chisel grinds could be inconsistent as well.
Use the search feature on this forum and a sharpie, also a loupe or magnifying glass is helpful,
start out with the 20 or 30 angle, which ever is closest to removing the sharpie and adjust accordingly from there.
If you need to remove a lot of material, the diamond rod's are helpful and worth getting...
You can reprofile with the diamonds, a minor "evening out" a bevel isn't bad, more than that can take quite a while.
For my needs the ultra fines were a kind of a waste of money, YMMV
 
D-der said:
There's a ton of information in this forum, some is better than others.
In my experience knives seldom come out of the box at a consistent
20 or 15 degrees per side, chisel grinds could be inconsistent as well.
Use the search feature on this forum and a sharpie, also a loupe or magnifying glass is helpful,
start out with the 20 or 30 angle, which ever is closest to removing the sharpie and adjust accordingly from there.
If you need to remove a lot of material, the diamond rod's are helpful and worth getting...
You can reprofile with the diamonds, a minor "evening out" a bevel isn't bad, more than that can take quite a while.
For my needs the ultra fines were a kind of a waste of money, YMMV
Click to expand...

I thought about getting ultra fine rods. What didn't you like about them?
 
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