Sharpmaker Sharpening Question

J

Jdturner697

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Sep 3, 2015
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Today I was sharpening a knife on my sharpmaker on the 40 degree angle while doing the sharpie trick to see if I'm hitting the edge correctly,but I had a thought....the 40 degree angle is normally for the micro bevel right?So while I'm sharpening the knife I see that I'm hitting a little high on the edge so I adjust the angle out a little more on the knife so that it would hit the whole edge.But is that right way to do it? or is it since the 40 degree is for the micro bevel do I adjust the angle out a little more than that until I see that I'm just taking metal off the the very lower edge, like the micro bevel is supposed to be?
 
Well I'm wondering if I tilt the angle out a little more until I see that I'm taking off metal on the very lower part of the edge on an edge with an inclusive of over 40 since the 40 is for the micro bevel?Because some knives I get from the factory have an inclusive of over 40 according to the sharpie test.
 
Last edited:
Jdturner697 said:
Well I'm wondering if I tilt the angle out a little more until I see that I'm taking off metal on the very lower part of the edge on an edge with an inclusive of over 40 since the 40 is for the micro bevel?Because some knives I get from the factory have an inclusive of over 40 according to the sharpie test.
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Definitely a lot of knives come from the factory with over 40 inclusive.
 
No, the 40° is not "normally" used for micro bevels.

It can be used for micro bevels but there are lots of blades with 20°dps primary bevels.

Yes, you can tilt the blade to match edge bevels with either angle setting. You can also put coins under the base to alter the preset angles to a desired angle so you don't have to change your hand/forearm technique.
 
First time I ve heard of the coins under the base to adjust the rod angle a bit . Great idea.
 
If sharpening freehand you can tape a coin (dime, nickel, penny, etc.) to the back to establish the angle you want. Works the same as an angle guide, tho' not as elegant.
 
If you are tilting the blade away from vertical, then the angle control becomes more up to your own ability to judge that angle. Vertical is pretty easy to judge. 5 degrees off of vertical is more of a judgement call. If you can do it, cool. If your results aren't all that impressive, it's probably because your angle control isn't super precise; which is pretty normal for human beings.

The idea of the sharpmaker is to let it do the angle control. If the edge bevel on your blade is ground at (for example) 25 degrees per side instead of 20, then the normal remedy is to reprofile the blade so that it has 20 degree per side (dps) bevels, or lower. This is generally done with a bench stone or other separate sharpening tool. Because the medium rods on the sharpmaker take a very long time to reprofile blades.

If you were going to try to do the reprofile with the sharpmaker, you'd want to get the CBN or Diamond rods, which are much faster. Personally, I'd just bring the angle down to closer to 20 dps using a bench stone, or my worksharp KO.

Using the sharpmaker as intended, with the blade vertical is going to give you the most consistent results. You might do fine with an adjustment "tilt". Or your results might be pretty bad. <shrug>

Brian.
 
Reprofiling to 30° inclusive and touching up at 40° will bring better performance. You can reprofile using the diamond/CBN rod, or do it free hand. Once the bevel is set, touching up at 40° inclusive will be very easy.

Alternatively, you can send it to Josh (member here) at REK (Razor Edge Knives) for the reprofiling and tell him you'd be maintaining on sharpmaker. He'll do that and you can enjoy the better performance.

Similar questions asked here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1430959-still-having-problems-with-the-sharpmaker
 
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