- Joined
- Oct 11, 1998
- Messages
- 707
I have been waiting for Joe Talmadges review of this system for a long time. About a month or so ago I bought one. Since he has yet to post his, I thought I would give my initial thoughts.
At the outset, I like the Skarb. Rather than my trying to describe it follow this link to see it. http://www.skarb.com/
The Skarb is constructed of high-grade aluminum and tough plastic are used. The cost is $75.00. It comes with a very good video and very brief written instructions, a couple of pages. After the initial set up is done, set up thereafter is minimal and fast. I do not like the way the angle is measured and marked. This is done with stick on tape, which is left to the user to apply. Why not emboss the angles on the hard plastic housing at the factory. This is my only criticism of the way the Skarb is built.
Any flat bench stone can be used with the Skarb. It comes with a combination coarse / fine oilstone but I got bench stones out the wazoo from my wood working activities. My favorites are waterstones. One of the things I noticed in sharpening pocketknives is that very little of the waterstone is used. This is not good because waterstones dish out fast and its best to try to use the whole stone if possible. Its easy to true a waterstone, so I still use them even though they do dish out. What I do is to start with a coarse diamond DMT. The base has a depression that takes 2 stones but any size stone can be used. My DMTs are 8 by more than 2 so I clamped the stone on the base with a large C clamp at the edge of the bench. The clamp system on the Skarb is 6061 aluminum, I think. Its a far better clamp than on theLansky or Gatco. The manufacturer claims you can tighten the clamp as much as you want the Allen head screw wont strip. It holds firm. The first thing I do after clamping a knife was to set the angle using a General angle guide to verify the angle. The angle is easy to set with the thumbscrew. I dont trust the applied angle markings yet but theyre pretty close. To day I sharpened a Calypso Jr. I set the angle at 15 degrees because this knife is not a hard use knife and I plan to maintain the edge on the Spyderco 204 set at 20 degrees.
Knives are sharpened by rotating the knife-edge across the stone. At first it feels a little unusual but you quickly get used to it. You press down on the spring and rotate the knife across the stone while raising the handle of the knife to get the edge to contact the full bevel of the blade. The first thing is to get an even burr on one side. The Calypso is short and it does not take many strokes before a burr is produced. Its not even though and I have to work on the point and the rear of edge. I get it acceptable but not what I guess is perfect but this only done by touch. The knife is flipped over and the process is repeated on the other side of the blade. After the coarse stone progression through medium and fine diamond goes fast.
I like the edge that waterstones produce so I repeated the process with 1200 and 6000 grit waterstones. I find the 1200 produces a more uniform and perhaps finer edge than the green (fine) DMT. I take it to the 6000. I flip each stroke toward end so that the burr is minimal. I just touch the edge to a leather strop not so much to sharpen it but just to take of the burr. Its sharp. I can feel it grab hair with out touching it too the skin. I dont think its as sharp as Joe Talmadge got his but I think its close. I have a feeling that the difference may be sensitivity to the evenness of the burr or it could be that he used an 8000-grit waterstone. But probably his sensitivity to edges is sharper from experience. The knife is sharper now than it ever was before.
I have done a few knives now but only pocketknives. In my opinion this system beats all on pocketknives. I like it better at least on pocketknives than the Edge Pro. I have yet to do fixed knives or kitchen knives so I am not sure if it will out perform the Edge Pro on long knives. The advantages it has over the Edge Pro on pocketknives is that there is often little flat surface area on the blade to hold to the Edge Pros table. Also it wont scratch the knives like the Edge Pro is prone to do. You use it with the stone below like you would do by hand. You can use bench stones. I am not sure yet if I will sell the Edge Pro. I have not sharpened the Calypso on the Edge Pro and thus far I have not directly compared the two systems on the same knife. But I intend too.
The system is a lot better than the Lansky Gatco type. Set up is much faster. The angle is infinitely adjustable between 15 to 30 degrees per side. It holds the angle over the full length of the blade. You can use any bench stones.
I may do my BM710 next. I have some slip stones and I think I can clamp them vertically on edge and use the rounded edge to set the bevels on the recurved edge. The slip stones are short but they still may work.
I will update the review later as time permits and I get more experienced.
Feb 14. Another complaint. One of the nylon feet glued to the bottom of the aluminum base fell off. I tried to glue it back with Cryanite (super glue) but it did not take and fell off again. I cut / scraped the other three off. Not a big thing but it deserves mention. As I continue to use this thing I am finding no need to go beyond the green DMT stone.
------------------
Roger Blake
[This message has been edited by beam (edited 02-14-2000).]
At the outset, I like the Skarb. Rather than my trying to describe it follow this link to see it. http://www.skarb.com/
The Skarb is constructed of high-grade aluminum and tough plastic are used. The cost is $75.00. It comes with a very good video and very brief written instructions, a couple of pages. After the initial set up is done, set up thereafter is minimal and fast. I do not like the way the angle is measured and marked. This is done with stick on tape, which is left to the user to apply. Why not emboss the angles on the hard plastic housing at the factory. This is my only criticism of the way the Skarb is built.
Any flat bench stone can be used with the Skarb. It comes with a combination coarse / fine oilstone but I got bench stones out the wazoo from my wood working activities. My favorites are waterstones. One of the things I noticed in sharpening pocketknives is that very little of the waterstone is used. This is not good because waterstones dish out fast and its best to try to use the whole stone if possible. Its easy to true a waterstone, so I still use them even though they do dish out. What I do is to start with a coarse diamond DMT. The base has a depression that takes 2 stones but any size stone can be used. My DMTs are 8 by more than 2 so I clamped the stone on the base with a large C clamp at the edge of the bench. The clamp system on the Skarb is 6061 aluminum, I think. Its a far better clamp than on theLansky or Gatco. The manufacturer claims you can tighten the clamp as much as you want the Allen head screw wont strip. It holds firm. The first thing I do after clamping a knife was to set the angle using a General angle guide to verify the angle. The angle is easy to set with the thumbscrew. I dont trust the applied angle markings yet but theyre pretty close. To day I sharpened a Calypso Jr. I set the angle at 15 degrees because this knife is not a hard use knife and I plan to maintain the edge on the Spyderco 204 set at 20 degrees.
Knives are sharpened by rotating the knife-edge across the stone. At first it feels a little unusual but you quickly get used to it. You press down on the spring and rotate the knife across the stone while raising the handle of the knife to get the edge to contact the full bevel of the blade. The first thing is to get an even burr on one side. The Calypso is short and it does not take many strokes before a burr is produced. Its not even though and I have to work on the point and the rear of edge. I get it acceptable but not what I guess is perfect but this only done by touch. The knife is flipped over and the process is repeated on the other side of the blade. After the coarse stone progression through medium and fine diamond goes fast.
I like the edge that waterstones produce so I repeated the process with 1200 and 6000 grit waterstones. I find the 1200 produces a more uniform and perhaps finer edge than the green (fine) DMT. I take it to the 6000. I flip each stroke toward end so that the burr is minimal. I just touch the edge to a leather strop not so much to sharpen it but just to take of the burr. Its sharp. I can feel it grab hair with out touching it too the skin. I dont think its as sharp as Joe Talmadge got his but I think its close. I have a feeling that the difference may be sensitivity to the evenness of the burr or it could be that he used an 8000-grit waterstone. But probably his sensitivity to edges is sharper from experience. The knife is sharper now than it ever was before.
I have done a few knives now but only pocketknives. In my opinion this system beats all on pocketknives. I like it better at least on pocketknives than the Edge Pro. I have yet to do fixed knives or kitchen knives so I am not sure if it will out perform the Edge Pro on long knives. The advantages it has over the Edge Pro on pocketknives is that there is often little flat surface area on the blade to hold to the Edge Pros table. Also it wont scratch the knives like the Edge Pro is prone to do. You use it with the stone below like you would do by hand. You can use bench stones. I am not sure yet if I will sell the Edge Pro. I have not sharpened the Calypso on the Edge Pro and thus far I have not directly compared the two systems on the same knife. But I intend too.
The system is a lot better than the Lansky Gatco type. Set up is much faster. The angle is infinitely adjustable between 15 to 30 degrees per side. It holds the angle over the full length of the blade. You can use any bench stones.
I may do my BM710 next. I have some slip stones and I think I can clamp them vertically on edge and use the rounded edge to set the bevels on the recurved edge. The slip stones are short but they still may work.
I will update the review later as time permits and I get more experienced.
Feb 14. Another complaint. One of the nylon feet glued to the bottom of the aluminum base fell off. I tried to glue it back with Cryanite (super glue) but it did not take and fell off again. I cut / scraped the other three off. Not a big thing but it deserves mention. As I continue to use this thing I am finding no need to go beyond the green DMT stone.
------------------
Roger Blake
[This message has been edited by beam (edited 02-14-2000).]