The Bears' Den--Shirogorov Showcase

Just wanted to give a quick but very well-deserved shout to Josh @razor-edge-knives (not that he needs any further intro) for fixing the messed up tip on my 95T plus putting a truly "wicked edge" on it. Despite the fact that I decided to not go with a fancy mirrored edge and that kinda jazz, this reprofiled edge (15* preside with a 17* micro) is now my sharpest and most slicey pocket knife with a super focused tweezer-like tip. I really love the look of the 95T, specially when they start getting that used look on the Ti handle scales!

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Very, very well done Josh :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
 
Are you going to reprofile it too? TBT, I find the cutting edge of Shiros to be really narrow. I'm no expert but is that because Shiros with their FFG are just really thin behind the edge anyway at their 20* per side? But yeah, ultimately I may have to invest in some sort of W.E. system for my fancier knives. The free-handing thing gets me going on my cheaper stuff and the Sharpmaker has been good for quick maintenance, but in no way, shape or form I could come anything close to this. I am also sure that with a guided system, it will take copious amount of practice, practice, practice to get decent results.

BTW, my edge was finalized with 600 grit according to Josh, for those interested.
 
I reached out to Shirogorov knives through Instagram and they said they sharpen 20-22 DPS. I will sharpen it to about that degree. I will start with 50/80 grit, then work my way up(100/200, 400/600, 800/1000 grit stones). I have 1200/1600 ceramic and I have 2000/3000 grit water stones. I will finish it off with diamond spray on my kangaroo leather strops. It will be razor sharp and have a mirror edge!!
I will post pictures when I do it. I might do it tonight.
 
That's very nice set up JH79. I'll be looking into something more basic with a base but has to be their newest (2017?) with the most recent bells and whistles, most likely up to the 800/1000 grit stones. Looking forward to seeing how your F95NL turns out :)
 
Of the seven Shiros I've owned and six that I still have, only my 111 was sharpened at greater than 20 DPS. None of them were really screaming sharp when I got them--two brand new and of the others, one BNIB and the rest with some use or touched up. The six at 20 or slightly less touched up easily on the SharpMaker, most without the use of the diamond hones, and yielded wicked keen edges.

The 111 seemed to be in the neighborhood of 22 DPS and I went to my EdgePro, reprofiled its M390 blade to 15 DPS, starting with the Fine and Superfine diamond hones I bought some time ago (meant for ceramic knives), worked up through 220, 400, and 1000 grit hones, and finished the 15 with the 3000 polishing tape. I added a 20 DPS micro bevel with the SharpMaker to make for easy touch-up with the brown, fine, and extra-fine rods, finishing that on a green-loaded strop block. I like the narrow look of Shiro's factory edges, but the 15 DPS re-profile doesn't look out-of-place broad as their primary grinds are so thin behind the edge. Cuts like a lazah now and I need to be very careful with it since I re-worked the action and made my pocket sword my most free-dropper.

Your Turtle looks great with the use showing on its handle slabs, Casinostocks Casinostocks . Mine is one of my favorite work users and I like the way the Ti looks as it ages. I only clean mine with alcohol or windex when it gets mungy.

And yeah, Josh's edges are awesome. He reground my RHK XM24 Spanto to a large radius high hollow and put his scary-sharp WE edge on it. I'm kinda afraid of it honestly. It went from sharpened pry-bar to light saber. :eek:
 
I'll be searching for the "after" photos of your 111 in this thread. Hopefully I can find those end results on here :)
 
Casinostocks said:
I'll be searching for the "after" photos of your 111 in this thread. Hopefully I can find those end results on here :)
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I may have posted that here, Cstocks, but I seem to recall I never got a good pic. I'll look through my files and see what's there.

Edit: I did find a couple pics way back in my Imgur files, but I was right--they're not very good. I copied 'em here and checked the Preview. They sucked. :thumbsdown: I'll see if I can get some better shots tomorrow.
 
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BBW said:
ChazzyP ChazzyP I have had 2 shiros and I only touch them up with the sharp maker. A couple passes and keep going. Super sharp due to the FFG!!!!!

Cheers!
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I would have been greatly pleased if my 111's factory edge hadn't been sharpened at an angle that rendered the use of the SharpMaker nigh onto impossible. The difference between 20 and 22 DPS required re-profiling M390 and that's a task best left for the EdgePro. I figured I might as well go all-out and see what the more extreme angle would yield. The easy touch-up on the others gave me, like yours, super-sharp edges. I really like Shiro's full or all-but-full flat edge grinds too!!!!
 
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Surprised there haven’t been any collabs between Shiro and any of the high end production companies like ZT or Spyderco.
 
John_0917 said:
Surprised there haven’t been any collabs between Shiro and any of the high end production companies like ZT or Spyderco.
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Don't think you'll see those collaborations done straight up. Spyderco and ZT make excellent production knives while Shirogorovs are upper-end mid-techs, semi- and full customs. Shiro collabs are generally done with custom-makers or individual designers.

There have been a number of Shirogorov collaborations with Dmitry Sinkevich who also designs for ZT as well as the Russian Flipping Tanto done with Brad Southard who designed his namesake and very popular knife for Spyderco
 
ChazzyP said:
Don't think you'll see those collaborations done straight up. Spyderco and ZT make excellent production knives while Shirogorovs are upper-end mid-techs, semi- and full customs. Shiro collabs are generally done with custom-makers or individual designers.

There have been a number of Shirogorov collaborations with Dmitry Sinkevich who also designs for ZT as well as the Russian Flipping Tanto done with Brad Southard who designed his namesake and very popular knife for Spyderco
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I was thinking something along the lines of what Spyderco and Sinkevich have recently done, a production model of a design by the designer (the Drunken) at a lower price/higher quantity than a full custom but still very premium in material/build/price.

No one thinks the Drunken is a “budget” knife.
 
John_0917 said:
I was thinking something along the lines of what Spyderco and Sinkevich have recently done, a production model of a design by the designer (the Drunken) at a lower price/higher quantity than a full custom but still very premium in material/build/price.

No one thinks the Drunken is a “budget” knife.
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So you're thinking of a Sergey Shirogorov design for Spyderco or ZT like the Drunken or or maybe one of the Hinderer ZTs? So the price point would be higher than a Spydie or ZT but lower than a Shiro?

I don't think of Spydercos or ZTs as "budget" knives and it wasn't my intention to suggest that any collab would be that. It's just that so far all the Shiro collabs are priced considerably higher than their serial knives, more or less in the neighborhood of their Custom Division offerings. I hadn't thought of a Shiro designer credit on another maker's knife.
 
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