Spyderco 204 Sharpmaker Stones: The Grooved Side?

J

JD Spydo

Joined
Nov 20, 2004
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Most of you who have a Spyderco 204 Sharpmaker know what I'm talking about. The stones regardless of the grit selection all have one side that has the groove running down the center of the stone. That groove is mainly made for sharpening fish hooks, ice picks, darts and other items with precise "points" on them.

There are two things I would like to ask you all about. What do you all use your grooved side of those 204 Sharpmaker stones for other than sharpening the items I mentioned? Also I've been using my grooved side of my 204 Sharpmaker stones for sharpening or tuning up plain edged blades that have slight wear on them. I've had some most interesting results using the grooved side of the stones for PE blades. I was wondering what results you all might have had using them?

Also I've had to replace a couple of sets of medium stones on both my 204 Sharpmaker units. I used the worn out medium stones mainly as a de-burring tool. What all do you use your discarded medium 204 Sharpmaker stones for?
 
I treat the flats with grooves the same way as I treat the flats without grooves, unless I need the groove for a point. It's just a third flat side in my routine. The swarf marks left on the flats tell me I'm not using a 100% of the flats anyway, so turning to a clean grooved flat seems comparable to a clean non-grooved flat to me.
 
I sometimes use it on the spine near the point where I want to thin out a swedge. Works pretty good on thin blades if the steel is not too hard.
 
kwselke said:
I treat the flats with grooves the same way as I treat the flats without grooves, unless I need the groove for a point. It's just a third flat side in my routine. The swarf marks left on the flats tell me I'm not using a 100% of the flats anyway, so turning to a clean grooved flat seems comparable to a clean non-grooved flat to me.
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Yep! This is pretty much how I use the grooved side. I use them just like the other flats.
 
kwselke said:
I treat the flats with grooves the same way as I treat the flats without grooves, unless I need the groove for a point. It's just a third flat side in my routine. The swarf marks left on the flats tell me I'm not using a 100% of the flats anyway, so turning to a clean grooved flat seems comparable to a clean non-grooved flat to me.
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Depending on the blade steel I've had some really interesting results using the grooved side of a 204 Sharpmaker stone. With VG-10 blades for example I've been able to restore a slightly dinged edge really quickly. But it doesn't do quite as good in that respect on those supersteels like M390 and S110V as it does with VG-10 and a couple of old AUS-8 Spyders I've used it on.
 
JD Spydo said:
Depending on the blade steel I've had some really interesting results using the grooved side of a 204 Sharpmaker stone. With VG-10 blades for example I've been able to restore a slightly dinged edge really quickly. But it doesn't do quite as good in that respect on those supersteels like M390 and S110V as it does with VG-10 and a couple of old AUS-8 Spyders I've used it on.
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The diamond rods have a grooved side too. :D The edges are supposedly more aggressive than the flats, but if you get good results with the grooved flats that's great. If it works, it works.
 
kwselke said:
The diamond rods have a grooved side too. :D The edges are supposedly more aggressive than the flats, but if you get good results with the grooved flats that's great. If it works, it works.
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Yeah that's a good point about the diamond 204 rods also having a slot/groove. I haven't tried doing much with them yet. But now I did use those grooved diamond rods once on a big fixed blade knife and it seemed to do all right. But I am going to have to try to see what they would do with a folder.

Also the GOLDENSTONE has a slot/groove on the front side of it. I've tried a couple of fixed blades on the front part of the GOLDENSTONE and it seemed to have some encouraging results.
 
jstrange said:
I sometimes use it on the spine near the point where I want to thin out a swedge. Works pretty good on thin blades if the steel is not too hard.
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I've also used it to remove a burr off the tip of a knife that I put through really hard use. I also like the grooved side of the 204 Sharpmaker stones to run a really badly burred up blade through it to remove outward nicks and dings and it seems to work well for that.
 
JD Spydo said:
I've also used it to remove a burr off the tip of a knife that I put through really hard use. I also like the grooved side of the 204 Sharpmaker stones to run a really badly burred up blade through it to remove outward nicks and dings and it seems to work well for that.
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Good idea!
 
I've not yet used the grooves, but now I'm bashing myself in the head for not realizing I could have just used that side as a third flat. I suppose the good news is I have a like new third of my stones left.
 
From my understanding, the grooved side should be sligthly more agresive on the steel than the totally flat ones. After all, that grove provides yet another two corners (even though they are marginally taken advantage of, the more curved the blade, the better).

Mikel
 
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