Spyderco Sharpmaker Diamond Triangles

[Plumberdv]

I broke down and bought a Spyderco Sharpmaker and so far I've not ruined a knife yet with it.:thumbup: I've also not been able to get some of them sharp either.

I've been trying to get an edge on some "off brand" knives that I have (Queen's with D2 blades) that the manufacturer saw fit to send out so dull they wouldn't make a good letter opener. That's a problem I've never ran across with a Buck.

Do the diamond triangles for the Sharpmaker last awhile or does the diamond coating come off with use? I'd like to know before I invest almost as much in them as the whole thing cost.

 

[THE PUNISHER]

I have had a set of diamond rods for a long time,they take a little push,it takes no hard pressure to bring your edge back up,some times on a sharp knife but the edge is rolled a few hits and itz razor sharp............

 

[2manyknives]

I have had diamond rods for a year or so and they are still ok - one of the rods cuts more aggressively than the other. As many new knives don't have symmetrical edges this often works out ok as I find I need to remove more metal on one side than the other to get it to a stage where the regular sharpmaker rods can be used to maintain the edge.

 

[knarfeng]

I don't know about the diamond triangles, but judging by comments from other users they last well if you do not use a lot of pressure. Let the diamonds do the cutting.

Since the Sharpmaker only works at set angles, if you want to use a Sharpmaker on your knives, the edge angles of those knives have to match the 30° or 40° inclusive angles of the Sharpmaker, but you knew that of course. Until the angles match, you aren't sharpening, you're just rebeveling the edge.

While I often freehand, there are some blades that I specifically want to sharpen on the Sharpmaker. The "coarse" rods of the Sharpmaker are fine once the edge angles match, or if the steel is easy to remove. But something coarser is often needed for changing edge angles on a robust steel such as D2.

I said all that to say that there are other options aside from the Spyderco diamond rods.
1) you can get wet-dry sandpaper (the black stuff. It's normally silicon-carbide.) bend the sandpaper around the rods and pull the blade instead of slice in your motion. I've gotten some good results that way.
2) you can also get a 6" DMT extra-coarse stone and lean it against one of the rods so that the stone angle matches that of the rod. Use a regular sharpening slice for this one. You have to do one side at a time, but it works well. This is what I do for changing Queen D2 edge angles.

With either method, check how well the angles match the rods with a Sharpie. Once you see they match you can switch over to the regular dark rods and proceed from there.

Hope that helps.

 

[Plumberdv]

Thanks for all the tips. I've decided that the best use for the Queens is to just keep them as they come from the factory.

That way when I have visitors with a kid that wants to handle a knife, I''ll hand him one of them. I know he can't cut himself with it!