What comes around goes around...

markhait

markhait

Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
297
Let me explain my title as it will lead into my problem.
I've been reading posts here about "problems" with the Sharpmaker. As I read these "problems", I thought to myself, how could anyone have a problem with this knife sharpener. I didn't after all and I kind of suck at sharpening. Well...now I do..
I just received a Manix and love it! Came out of the box shaving sharp. Impressed! I used it for some very "light" work around the house and would strop it to touch up the blade. All seemed well.

I noticed that it wouldn't shave hair the other day and so began to strop it. It still wouldn't shave hair. Stropped some more...no better. Stropped some more and yet it didn't help. Ok, I need to take it to the stones. I put the magic marker on it and discovered that the Manix is set to 30 deg! Kind of surprised me. Anyway...away I went with my sharpmaker. 40 times on the brown and 40 times on the white...still no dice! Now I'm mad....I did another 40 on each stone and I can just begin to cut hair with it, but not easily. I gave up for the night.
After my last attempt, I decided to strop it for the heck of it. I used a hanging strop and laid the blade flat and took light strokes. No difference!

I can't believe it!!! I will no longer think less of someone just because "they don't get it". PLEASE help me....I'm at a loss!
 
You said the backbevel was set at 30 degrees (common for Spyderco factory edge) but you didn't say which angle you were using to sharpen it. If you are using the 30 setting, you are reprofiling. S30V is fairly wear resistant, so it is going to take a while. If you set the stones for 40 degrees, you will be sharpening just the very edge, so it shouldn't take very long at all, just a few light passes on each side (emphasis on the light, the most common mistakes made with the Sharpmaker are trying to hurry by using too much pressure and dragging the tip off the stones, rounding it off).
 
I think Yablanowitz nailed it - If you have a loupe you could look at the edge, and see that you are not sharpening the edge yet. Go at it with the coarser stones for a while longer, until you can tell it's getting sharper. Then finish. After doing this your angle will be zeroed in for your sharpmaker and it should take a lot less time for future resharpenings.
 
I used some magic marker on the edge and when I began to sharpen, I used the 40 deg side, but it seemed to be only cutting on the very edge. I then switched to the 30 deg side and when I started again, all the magic marker began to be removed. This is the angle I should sharpen with....no?
I also tried like crazy to feel for a bur, but I couldn't. To keep my first post short, I did omit the fact that I actually sharpened the Manix a lot longer than I actually stated. I read in a post that you should stroke one side of the blade until you feel that bur and then switch to the other side. I bet I stoned each side 50-60 times. Is this steel that hard? I wonder if the blade was ever that sharp to begin with. Maybe it only had a bur and I thought it was sharp?

I find it difficult to believe that I could have dulled it that much with only the "minor" cutting I did with it.

Thanks for your comments.
 
Do you clean your sharpmaker rods? They do load up over time.

What you want to concern yourself with is the cutting edge, not the back bevel. Hit it on the 40 deg. for a while and see what you get. I bet if you looked under a loupe your time with the 30 deg. is grinding away at your secondary bevel but doing nothing for your edge. You need to work that micro bevel.
 
Yes, my sticks were clean. What everyone has told me though is that once you find out the blades edge, you sharpen it at that. Thats why you put on the magic marker right? Or do you do that just so you know the angle and how to get back to it? You then sharpen it a lesser angle so that you get your micro bevel? If this is correct, then I have been mis-understanding all this time about the knife edge angle and what to do with it.
 
If you sharpen it at the same angle that the back bevel is set at (in this case 30 degrees) you have to take the entire bevel down to get the edge sharp. If you use the greater angle (40 degrees) you will be sharpening only the edge area which will produce results much quicker. If the bevel is set at 40 degrees and you try to sharpen at 30, the Sharpie will show that you are working on the shoulder between the main grind and the edge bevel, so you have to grind a whole new bevel to get to the edge. This is called reprofiling.

S30V is pretty hard, and it is fairly wear resistant as well, meaning it doesn't give up material easily, so it takes longer to sharpen.
 
Thanks yablanowitz. I guess I never fully understood what was going on. I know some of my confusion goes to the video on the Edge Pro site. There it shows the magic marker trick and then they continue to sharpen at that angle till the blade is sharp. I now understand the "micro edge" thing and how it relates to sharpening. I assume that after a point of sharpening this micro bevel, you'd have to relief the shoulders as the edge would start to get closer and closer to the shoulder.
Thanks for your help!
 
I drew these sketches based on the posts above. Of the three frames shown, the middle one is the least productive on the sharpmaker. The first frame should give quick results. The last frame should also work, but it may take a little longer. (The last frame is the approach described in the EdgePro video which recommends matching the bevel angle. The EdgePro cutting angle is fully adjustable, so matching the angle is possible.)

Referring to the last frame, if the angle is flat by a degree or two you may appear to pass the marker test even though you haven't really touched the edge. A burr is proof positive and can be created by working on one side only. If the extreme edge is rounded, it may take a while to work down the entire bevel face to expose a new clean edge.
62qxz13.jpg
 
Matt, thank you for saving me the trouble of attempting to illustrate :thumbup:

Mark, you are correct in thinking that if you keep sharpening at the 40 degree setting, you eventually have a 40 deg primary bevel, and you will want to reprofile back to 30. Then you get to start the whole process over ;)

Sharpening at 30 degrees will give you a sharper edge than sharpening at 40. Some of my knives with better steels that can stand it get a twenty degree included (ten degrees per side) primary bevel, with a twenty-five to thirty degree microbevel. I don't do that with many, because I use my knives too hard for the edges to last long at those angles. They sure cut nice, though :D
 
Hey matt321 and yablanowitz, thanks for all your time that you put into answering my questions. I really appreciate it! Last night, armed with this new information, I went down and began to sharpen at 40 deg. That hair shaving sharpness did come pretty quick. With matt321's illustration it has become obvious why it takes so long to get where I was trying to go. I was actually trying to sharpen the entire bevel. Thanks guys for your help and I hope maybe some day I can repeat this information to help another newbe!
Thanks again!
 
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