Uneven bevel on a spyderco ladybug

B

ben317

Joined
May 10, 2011
Messages
111
So I had my sharpmaker out last night and I told my girlfriend I'd touch up her ladybug. I expected it to be a 5 minute job but it turns out the bevel was really uneven. I marked it with a sharpie and the sharpmaker turned out to only be touching the very edge on 1 side and the shoulder on the other, making it less that 20 degrees on one side and greater than 20 on the other side. Upon further inspection it was pretty obvious even to the naked eye that the bevel was way uneven. I'm now probably over an hour into the job total on the diamond rods and still haven't gotten the bevels totally correct yet. I was suprised by this because I thought spyderco usually did a good job on it's edges from the factory. Seems weird that the way it came the spyderco ladybug wont sharpen on a spyderco sharpmaker. Anyone else have similar experiences with spyderco?
 
one a few knives, with uneven bevels, but with every other brand on almost every knife i have gotten. i own more spyderco's than anything else, so my sampling is warped, but most of my spydercos came good from the factory.

what steel is the ladybug the vg-10 or zdp-189, or h1? h1 shoudl be easy to reprofile...same with vg-10 all things relative. zdp-189 will be much harder, take longer.

i'll assume you have used the 30 degree side to reprofile the bevel so that the 40 degree side will hit the edge? right? if not do that. if you have tried that move to the belt sander.:) you could also send it back to spyderco for a sharpening and the $5 i think they charge for shipping back. or find a local sharpener....lots of options to reprofile it....
 
i assume it was sharp initially and your just sharpening it cuz its dulled from use. I reprofile the back bevel by hand on a diamond hone. really speeds things up i dont find the stock triangles of the sharpmaker real good at reprofiling.
 
jbmonkey said:
one a few knives, with uneven bevels, but with every other brand on almost every knife i have gotten. i own more spyderco's than anything else, so my sampling is warped, but most of my spydercos came good from the factory.

what steel is the ladybug the vg-10 or zdp-189, or h1? h1 shoudl be easy to reprofile...same with vg-10 all things relative. zdp-189 will be much harder, take longer.

i'll assume you have used the 30 degree side to reprofile the bevel so that the 40 degree side will hit the edge? right? if not do that. if you have tried that move to the belt sander.:) you could also send it back to spyderco for a sharpening and the $5 i think they charge for shipping back. or find a local sharpener....lots of options to reprofile it....
Click to expand...

It's vg-10 steel. And yes, I'm using a 30 degree (15 degrees per side) angle. Even with the diamond rods it seems to be over an hour's worth of work to fix this bevel. I don't like to mail the thing back because 1) I want to hone my own sharpening skills and 2) I don't like to be without the knife for a few weeks or more.
 
bada61265 said:
i assume it was sharp initially and your just sharpening it cuz its dulled from use. I reprofile the back bevel by hand on a diamond hone. really speeds things up i dont find the stock triangles of the sharpmaker real good at reprofiling.
Click to expand...

Yes, it was sharp from the factory. The bevel was just uneven. It was less than 15 degrees on 1 side and over 20 degrees on the other side. This makes it just about impossible to touch up with the sharpmaker until the bevel is reprofiled.
 
If you don't have a belt handy, (which is by far the easiest way to fix it) then you can always get some rather aggresive wet-or-dry sandpaper, I'd start with 220 or so, and tape or clip that tightly around your Sharpmaker's rods. That will increase the grit enough to get your re-profiling done before you're going gray around the ears. Then you can use some 400 or so to bring the finish down before going to the rods.
 
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