Thinning bevels w/Sharpmaker: Takes forever?

A

AlphalphaPB

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Apr 29, 2002
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I've been trying to get my Sharpmaker to lower the back bevel of a blade to 30 degrees, but it's been taking forever. I'm using the medium rods. Is this normal?

If it is, I guess that's the reason they came out with diamond rods! I would use a stone to lower the bevel angle, but I'm not sure if I could hold it at 15 degrees consistently.
 
Yes, it can most definitely take forever, depending on what kidn of steel the blade is, and the original angle you're trying to reprofile. The diamond sleeves will make pretty quick work of reprofiling. Or, you can buy any x-coarse hone you'd like, and lean it up against the 15-degree spyderco sticks, and you'll accomplish something similar.

Joe
 
Oh yeah...it's gonna be awhile with the mediums. I just broke down and bought the Diamond rods and have saved myself a whole lot of time and swearing...
 
I think the diamond rods are the "missing link" in the Spyderco sharpening system. Now that they're here, you can profile to your angle of choice and maintaining that angle for touch-ups should be a snap.
 
I have an older sharpmaker (203), but I won't buy diamond sleves for them. Why? Because back beveling, profiling, grinding in relief, or whatever you want to call it, doesn't need to be perfect. Buy a coarse stone from Walmart for a few bucks, hold your knife at a 12-15 degree-ish angle, and scrub away until you get a full burr. Flip your knife over, and do the same on the other side. At this point I'll do a few alternating strokes, just to get that burr filed down a bit. Then take your knife to the sharpmaker, and you'll have no trouble setting an edge. I bet this method is still faster than using diamond sleeves on a sharpmaker. If you can, read John Juranich's sharpening book, specifically the sections on grinding relief.
 
That is an excellent point. I often sharpen in my backbevels on an x-coarse diamond hone freehand. I don't even bother to watch the angle too closely, just to make sure it's less than the primary angle I will eventually end up choosing. There's something satisfying about making your backbevel perfect, but deviating on it isn't a big deal. Any big x-coarse hone will do.

Joe
 
I also use a freehand hone (coarse/fine diamond) to do my backbevels. If you want, you can kind of control the angle by using the magic marker method with the Sharpmaker rods set at 30 degree and then using that as a guide -- or, for that matter, just do a few strokes with the fine rods every now and check to see whether it's shiny where you've been grinding with the coarse hone.

What usually happens for me is that I end up with a pretty fair approximation of a convex grind. :D
 
I bought a Gerber diamond pen hone and took the diamond part off it (slides in and out). I stuck it with tape (top and bottom) to the white hone of the sharpmaker (sits perfectly in the groove). The result is a diamond rod for the sharpmaker for a few dollars.
 
dsvirsky, I've been doing the same. Freehand hone, I just used an arbitrary angle around 15 degrees. Problem with this was that it made the bevel look dang ugly :) Uneven, nasty scratches, and terribly convex.

I tried standing a stone on the Sharpmaker's rods. It works perfectly! Took about 10 minutes to thin the bevel (after hours of nearly useless medium rod work). After that, the thinned bevels + 40 degree edge have been popping hair like mad.

Thanks for suggestions, everybody!
 
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