sharpmaker technique?

S

skinnybenny

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Dec 6, 2005
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I want to get the best edge possible on a couple of my knives. each are sharp but wont really shave hair. Basically... I feel like I'm missing something. I see the video, and Sal goes slow and doesnt seem to use much force. Even on the Salt 1, I have to go fast with substantial pressure to get noticeable results. And I never notice whatever a burr is. Thanks in advance for any insight.
 
The Sharpmaker, while convenient, is pretty limited:
- Two angle choices, 30 or 40 degrees included.
- Two grit choices, medium and fine.
- A choice beween using the 'flats' or the 'edges' of the stones.

If you have a blade with an edge bevel of less than 30 degrees included, the edge is readily accessable with the stones set at either 30 or 40 degrees, and results will be fast.

If you have a blade with an edge bevel of less than 40 degrees included, the edge is readibly accessable with the stones set at 40 degrees, and results will be fast.

If you have a blade with an edge bevel of greater than 40 degrees, it will require a long sharpening session with the stones set at 40 degrees - simply because you have a lot of metal to remove to access the edge bevel. You'll have to remove a sizeable metal 'shoulder', and it takes an extended honing session (perhaps hours) to remove the volume of metal in that 'shoulder' - to allow access to the final edge bevel. It's much worse if you set the stones to the 30 degree positions, because you have much more metal to remove to access the final edge bevel.

There are ways to speed metal-removal:
- Optional diamond-surfaced hones.
- Abrasive papers over the stones.
- Small diamond hone held/fixed to the stones.

That's pretty much the way it is with the Sharpmaker.

Cool gadget - but limited.
 
The most common problem is not spending enough time on the medium stones. It should easily shave at that stage.

-Cliff
 
Im not sure if spyderco offers a 204 package with the diamonds, medium, fine and ultra fine stones but they should. I would also be nice if there was some sort of stand plug in that you could set one side of the sharpmaker on to increase it 5 degrees to give you 4 more angles to choose from. Granted you couldnt go back and forth but its better than 2 static options.
 
LHD. To adjust the Sharpmaker's honing angle by about 5 degrees lay one of the rods crosswise under the middle of the base. Insert a pair of rods in the normal slots and tip the base left and right over your fulcrum as you hone. If you tilt right and hone on the left rod, then tilt left and hone on the right rod you will be working at about 5 degrees less than the normal (level base) honing angles. It is easy to tilt back and forth as you work and you don't need to buy anything else. You might say that it is a easy as a teeter-totter.

skinnybenny,
What Cliff says is right (not that what gud4u said is wrong) basically it takes significant time to do serious work on a Sharpmaker. You should do most of your work with the coarsest honing option possible, don't switch to finer honing surfaces until you are essentially done. Using the edges of the medium hones can work the fastest, but don't apply hard pressure or you will weaken your edge. Just keep plugging away with those medium rods until you have an edge that works well (even if it takes up to an hour). After that you are ready to follow Sal's directions and proceed to the flats of the medium rods, the edges of the white rods, and finally the flats of the white rods. Only use light pressure.

Try the above and get back to us. If you aren't satisfied with your edge we can give you tips for moving up to the next level of sharpness, but you need to get the above working for you first.
 
Jeff Clark said:
LHD. To adjust the Sharpmaker's honing angle by about 5 degrees lay one of the rods crosswise under the middle of the base. Insert a pair of rods in the normal slots and tip the base left and right over your fulcrum as you hone. If you tilt right and hone on the left rod, then tilt left and hone on the right rod you will be working at about 5 degrees less than the normal (level base) honing angles. It is easy to tilt back and forth as you work and you don't need to buy anything else. You might say that it is a easy as a teeter-totter.
Click to expand...


Ive done this before at your suggestion but it feels like a rather poor fix. I mean it works but you'd think that spyderco would offer something more substantial to work with. Perhaps I should call vicki c and see what they think.
 
LHD. I wish that they just made the Sharpmaker with 10 and 15 degree slots, but most users wouldn't have the patience to remove that much material. The thing that I like about my method is that I can put anything I want under the base and adjust by any amount that I want. For some blades I have put flashlight batteries under the base. For some I just put one of the brass rods under the base and subsequently micro-bevel at 15 degrees.

I grew up sharpening freehand and using any honing fixture seems like overkill to me.
 
how does the 12.5 degree setting work? I just ordered a SM today, I was going to go with the Profiles, but I figured I might s awell get the same types of ceramic with the extra kit for a little more.
 
skinnybenny said:
I want to get the best edge possible on a couple of my knives. each are sharp but wont really shave hair. Basically... I feel like I'm missing something. I see the video, and Sal goes slow and doesnt seem to use much force. Even on the Salt 1, I have to go fast with substantial pressure to get noticeable results. And I never notice whatever a burr is. Thanks in advance for any insight.
Click to expand...

Only thing I would add to all these helpful posts is that AFAIR, on the Sharpmaker video Sal says it takes a while to get the "hang" of it, the "feel" of it. I haven't seen the video in a long while, but there's a lot of truth in that. Practice your technique with a few different beater knives, and soon enough you'll know how to use the Sharpmaker like an expert.
 
hardheart said:
how does the 12.5 degree setting work? I just ordered a SM today, I was going to go with the Profiles, but I figured I might s awell get the same types of ceramic with the extra kit for a little more.
Click to expand...

it's actually more like 78.5 degrees than 12.5. It's 12.5 from the horizontal (sticks out the side of the base) rather than the vertical.
 
I've been using my Lansky system first--getting everything pretty well sharp---then moving over to the Sharpmaker for final finishing and getting them ultra sharp.

Also some of my knives get unreal sharp after the Lansky using a cheap Gerber pull through.

The coarse Lansky stone makes quick work of most anything---the Sharpmaker finishes the job-----I also have been stropping on the edge of a cardboard box---I'll eventually get a better strop---will slice paper just by pressing on the edge.
 
yeah. i sharpened for a while on the medium grit sticks. and i got it to where it would barely shave long thich hair. but i havent been able to get much better after switching to the fine.
 
I've already E-mailed Spyderco about offering an optional extra base with 40, 30, 20 and 15 degree (inclusive) slots.

They never answered my E-mail.

But if enough of us E-mailed them, or if some enterprising person offered it as an aftermarket accessory, I'll just bet they would sell like hotcakes.

I would LOVE to reprofile some of my knives to 7.5 degree back bevel and 10 degree microbevel.
 
Ben Dover said:
I've already E-mailed Spyderco about offering an optional extra base with 40, 30, 20 and 15 degree (inclusive) slots.

They never answered my E-mail.

But if enough of us E-mailed them, or if some enterprising person offered it as an aftermarket accessory, I'll just bet they would sell like hotcakes.

I would LOVE to reprofile some of my knives to 7.5 degree back bevel and 10 degree microbevel.
Click to expand...


Perhaps we should start a new thread over in the spyderco forum about this. TazChristy seems to check that frequently and I could always call Vicki and point her to it.
 
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