Hello There,
All CRK as well as many others have their final blade grinds done by hand, so there will always be some slight variance in blade angles from one side to the next. When I made knives years ago, One side you can always get perfect as I always thought of it as my strong side, then when you go to the other, its always off slightly. In human hands, its virtually impossible to hold a knife at a perfect 20 degree angle. Not 19 and not 21, but 20 only, not going to happen, even with a company as great as CRK. But from all the knives I have ever owned from virtually every maker out there within reason, CRK is the closest.
I have had knives, including sebenzas, ZT, Strider, Hinderer, even the Neil Roberts I use to have where one side is perfect and the sharpmaker hits the blade where it should at a perfect 20 degree. The other side it will hit the top of the blade bevel and will not sharpen the edge. This is common in many knives as I stated above. Sometimes if its close, after a couple of sharpening's, it will be right where its supposed to be. Other times its way high up and basically needs a re-profile. If its that far off though, you can sharpen to your hearts content and you will not get a sharp edge. They only thing you will get is wasted time and aggravation in both the knife and sharpener in question.
I will mention that I only use the sharpmaker for knife sharpening. I have also used the vintage crock sticks, smiths, case crock sticks and the like ( all just like the sharpmaker or very similar ) for 25+ years, so I am very experienced in using this style of sharpening advise. With the sharpmaker and a sharpie, you can sharpen a knife to a perfect edge every time if you take your time and understand the sharpener and blade angles.
Far too many times I see beautiful knives ruined on the edgepro and wicked edge because people get carried away. You will see where the rounded part of the blade ( belly ) has had so much metal removed that the blade bevel is 2-3 times wider than near the tip or near the choil. Poor sharpening with poor sharpening devises. I am not about to ruin a $400 knife on such gimmicks. You can also do this on a sharpmaker if you don't know what your doing either.
With the sharpmaker's stock set ( brown and white stones ) you can do a full re-profile if your willing to put the time in. I re-profiled a strider smf on the sharpmaker. For those that have seen one, the blade is super thick. But when I went to sharpen it, it has the goofy strider 23 degree blade angle which the sharpmaker stones were hitting the very top of the blade bevel. I decided to re-profile it to a normal 20 degree angle. I used the brown stones and it took me 2 full hours. It was S30V and there RC is in the high 50's low 60's. So it is indeed hard............Sharpie the edge and then rather than work each side like I was sharpening it, I concentrated on each side individually. So you could say it took 1 hour per side. I have not invested in the diamond stones, so I cannot say much about them. I did look into getting them and have heard that you want to avoid using the triangle corners as the diamonds will flake off eventually and to use only the flats. I have also heard that they do speed up the re-profile time, but for their high price ( almost as much as the whole sharpmaker set ), I will just stick with the brown stones. ( I no longer have the smf as I sold it to buy another CRK, but I do have some pics in my photobucket for those wanting to see the results ). Just PM me and I will get em to ya.
As I said, sharpie the edge and sharpen one side down to where the sharpie is just getting removed from the blade edge. Then go to the other side. Make sure you use controlled strokes and are not swiping away on the ceramic rods like there is no tomorrow. Take care in what our doing. Once you get both edges to where the sharpie is just getting removed, then go to the white stones. Sometimes you have to reapply the sharpie a couple times during this process. The white stones supplied with the sharpmaker will give you that hair popping edge in no time. The 20 degree bevel is easy to maintain and is a strong blade bevel for normal applications. I did invest in the ultra fine rods and this will give you a mirror polished edge.
I will note: that when your sharpening the belly of the blade, you have to slightly tilt the blade inward to follow the curve of the blade. By NOT doing this, you will remove steel above the blade grind and thus having the high blade edge in the belly of the blade. This to me is where learning to use the sharpmaker and similar sharpeners excel. On the other sharpeners, it holds the blade flat and you cannot compensate for the belly of the blade. I saw several XM's lately that were ruined because of someone using the edge pro and wicked edge. The belly of the blades had so much metal removed that if measured, the belly of the blade probably had a 15 degree angle. Super sharp yes, but a very brittle blade edge very prone to nicking and rolling and chipping. Not what I want on Any knife.
I am going to have to do a video one of these days. I have had people ask in the past and now that I got a new digital camera, I am going to have to do so to help out my fellow forum friends. I just gotta get a small tripod.
I know I have rambled on here a little, but heed my advise and you will have a perfect edge with the sharpmaker in no time. With doing what I stated, you could have a perfect edge on your umnumzaan. Since you got it new and since you mentioned you spoke to CRK, by all means send it in as its something they will fix via warranty. Yes, the brown stones take longer than the diamond stones, but it can be down with some time.......I have read where someone stated I was crazy for spending 2 hours doing a reprofile...!!! To each their own. Anytime you want excellent results, you have to put the time in. This goes with Anything you do in life, knife sharpening included. Once done, you should not have to do it again. So if you do it right the first time, your knife edge is good to go for the long haul. Don't you think a knife costing $400 + is deserving of such time....? I think so......!!!
