Spyderco Sharpmaker users?

Z

Zeasor

Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
386
To anyone with experience using the Spyderco Ultra-fine rods for the Sharpmaker. Do the ultra-fine rods seem to significantly refine the edge beyond the fine rods?
 
Ultra-fine? Mine came with gray and white rods. Start with gray if the knife is blunt but if you're just touching up just use the white. The important thing is to clean all carbon residue off the rods otherwise they won't work properly.
 
I have wondered the same thing myself. I kinda thought that you could achieve almost the same thing by adjusting your pressure on the regular fine rods, but I have read reviews of people who buoght the extra fine rods and all of them said that they had gotten there knives sharper then they had been in a long time.
 
My best results have come with very light to very little pressure on the fine rods. Seems the lighter the touch, the sharper they get.

Oh, and buffalo is correct...if they're not clean, they will not work properly. Comet and a scotch brite pad on a regualr basis works wonders.
 
The corners of the UF seem to be similar to the corners of the F, but the flats are a good step up from the flats of the F. How much of a difference it makes is difficult to say. The edge can be easily shaving coming from the fine, after the UF stones it is "more-easily-shaving"..... The edge is definitely more polished (I have looked at the scratch pattern under a microscope) how much of a difference it makes in practice is probably more of a personal decision, how highly polished a blade you like.
 
This isn't meant as a knock on your sharpening skills. The Ultrafine rods won't significantly improve your edge unless you have a significantly sharp edge on the medium rods to begin with . If you are looking for a finer stone because you can't seem to get your knives sharp on the stones you have, then you need to refine your technique some until you produce shaving sharp edges with your medium stones. The fine and ultrafine will only refine and polish that edge even more. How fine of an edge you want is personal preference. I have polished my edges to some degree of scariness, but I wasn't pleased with how the nylon mule tape I cut at work seemed to slide off of the edge. I leave my edges with some degree of coarseness for this reason.

The coarser edge grabs fibrous materials in a manner similar to a serrated edge.
 
the ultra fines do polish the edge beyond the fine. I freehand with one when I don't feel like soaking the 4000 King.
 
I've also noticed a significant difference in testing the sharpness of the blades that I polish using the UF rods as opposed to the ones where I stop with the F rods. Those blades push cut and filet paper much more cleanly after polishing with the UF rods, and they actually cut that kind of material in real life more easily for a while.

Whether or not to use them for the type of edge you want is another matter. Not every cutting task benefits from a highly polished edge and not every steel takes to being polished. Some like to be left toothier and they work better that way.
 
I was surprised when I found that the UF rods definitely improved the shaving performance of a thinly honed blade. That said, I find the finish left by the Fine rods to give better general performance. The edge left by the Fine rods slice better in normal usage. I use the UF rods when I am trying for a bragging edge to impress my friends. I also strop with submicron diamond grit for that purpose. For a using edge I will usually stop with the fine rod.

When I use the UF rods I only use the flats and use very light pressure.
 
For general kitchen (food prep) use, would you say a Fine-Rod finish works best for slicing knives and an Untra-Fine-Rod finish works best for chopping knives (like rocking a chef's knife)?
 
That would follow the general guidelines that a smooth polished edge works better for push cutting while a coarser edge is better for slicing. A smooth edge is also stronger in that it has smaller weak spots that can lead to damage if that makes sense. However I don't do enough food prep to know how much push cutting versus slicing is actually going on when you are chopping food with a rocking motion.
 
Thanks for the explanation. FWIW the rocking motion is primarily chopping (push cutting)
 
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