WHat is the truth on sharpmaker?

[sniperboy]

There are two sharpening faqs on my hard drive.. one of them hails that the sharpmaker makes microserrations which aids the sharpness of your blade while the other shuns away 'magic' sharpeners and say that the microserrations only give you an illusion of sharpness but only deteriorates your blade. saying that flat sharpening is always the way to go.. maybe using the razor edge angle guide among other things.

a friend of mine is too humble to say that he is good at sharpening and says that magic sharpeners are good for periodically touching up your blade but wont work if you have a forgotten butterknife. He usually uses the arkansas and diamond stones.

The sharpeneing debate has been debated so much already but the search strings I found seem to be so long and dont give me the answer i need.

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</A> If you play with love you will be heartbroken; if you play with knives you will [bleed]

 

[Paracelsus]

Go back and search for 'sharpening' and 'strop' in the general forum. There have been several really good threads recently covering this issue.

All edges are saws. They All have teeth. The size of the teeth depends on the final grit size of the sharpening stone and the characteristics of the steel.

I prefer free hand sharpening, but it takes a lot of practice to do properly. The Spyderco sharpmaker will do a fine job of sharpening plain and serrated blades. Other systems will also work. What sharpening angle and stone grit to use depends on what you are going to be cutting, and the type of steel you are working.

There are no simple ways to teach sharpening. Read, practice, and practice some more. Systems like the Sharpmaker may help. Warning, sharpening is Addictive.

Paracelsus, nearly blind compulsive sharpener and stropper

 

[Jeff Clark]

Ceramic rod sharpeners are very useful, but are not abrasive enough to "do it all". Ceramic rods tend to come in medium to extra-fine grits. The ceramic rods are sort of medium speed at material removal (slower than diamond and silicon carbide, faster than natural stones). If you have a very dull knife you probably want to use something coarser and faster cutting to restore the edge bevel. If you could get some diamond rods (or sleeves) you could usually handle most moderate-sized knives with a V-shaped sharpening fixture. (You might tend to wear the diamond coating down a bit fast).

You would want at least a couple options for rod angles. You also need to feel free to tip the blade a little off of vertical for shallower and steeper bevel angles. The rods allow you to apply relatively high pounds-per-square-inch to the honing surface without a lot of pounds of hand pressure. This allows you good control and cutting speed as you work. I don't think of the Sharpmaker design as a gimmick, it is a very useful fixture for doing 90% of your honing. It is rather precise, without being needlessly slow or fancy. I use round ceramic rods as a final step in most of my sharpening.

Paracelsus is right, all edges have some degree of roughness, and a little roughness usually helps without much durability cost. To enhance durability of a "rough" edge I hone (sort of strop) edge-trailing a few strokes on my medium grit rods after I've got my edge down to sharp. This aligns or removes any tipped-over burrs from the edge. Then I do a few light strokes edge-leading with an extra-fine grit to remove loose material. On the triangular-shaped sharpmaker rods I would do all these finishing steps on the flat sides rather than the corners of the rods (assuming you aren't working on a serrated blade). To leave that toothiness, I do a few light strokes on a leather strop without any abrasive compound.

PS. I have given up on the Arkansas stones entirely. They just don't cut fast enough and the edge they leave does not seem to cut as agressively as the edge from a ceramic hone.



[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 02-27-2000).]

 

[Joe Talmadge]

In all honesty, I think you're asking about two different things.

First, regarding the sharpmaker. There's nothing "magic" about it. It uses basic, fundamental sharpening principles, and it works extremely well.

Second, regarding edges. Rougher, "microserrated" edges are significantly better than razor-polished edges for a number of jobs, such as slicing. Razor polished edges are better for push cuts, like shaving, but suffer badly in performance when slicing. These are facts.

Okay, bringing the two subjects together. If you use the Sharpmaker right, you will end up with a very good edge. If you finish up on the darker grey stones, you will have a coarse, micro-serrated edge that will slice like you won't believe. If you finish up on the white stones, you will have polished the edge a bit, and lost some slicing ability but gained some push cutting ability. If you take the knife from the white stones and then strop it, you will end up with a razor-polished edge, great for shaving, lousy for slicing.

In short, use the right edge for the right job. My belief is most people do more slicing than shaving, and so a coarser edge works better. However, if there's more shaving being done, a razor edge will work better. Neither edge is better than the other for all jobs, they both have their place.

And forget about the Sharpmaker being a "magic" sharpener ... it's a very sound piece of equipment. What makes you think it's magic [by which I think you mean, it makes claims it can't keep], anyway?

Joe

 

[sniperboy]

THanks for the great info. Joe: (nice faq by the way

). I was merely repeating what most of these faqs were saying that a magic sharpening system (the way I understand it) is analogous to a 'point and shoot' camera. Dummies like me can use it no problem. I am not making any claims only parroting things I understood (or maybe was not to clear on) from what I read.

However one faq said that the sharpmaker gives the "illusion" of a sharp blade with its microserrations, I got the impression that the sharpmaler could not achieve a polished edge and thus the microserrations were bad compared to a polished edge.

Thanks for clearnign things up sirs.



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</A> If you play with love you will be heartbroken; if you play with knives you will [bleed]

 

[AlaChoctaw]

If you have no one to teach you freehand sharpening,or for some reason you can't do it(I have arthritis in both hands, which limits what I can do),the next best thing is to get a Sharpmaker 204 and follow the instructions and video.You will need something else (I have a Lohman diamond sharpener) for really dull or damaged blades to work them down and then switch to the Sharpmaker to get the fine edge we all want. If you are planning to collect or use knives on a regular basis, you truly NEED a Sharpmaker, even if you have other sharpening devices on hand. You will never regret the investment.

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AKTI Member #A000934
"Always just one knife short of perfection!"

 

Unless you have to remove a lot of steel, the sharpmaker is an excellent choice.
To remove more steel try Lansky/Gatco.
But do not believe the indicated angle values too much. They depend on several factors....

Happy sharpening, yes it's addictive.

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D.T. UTZINGER

 

[Joe Talmadge]

Ah, okay. There's actually nothing "magic" about these sharpeners. All they do is help you hold the edge. YOu still have to know enough to choose the right angle and finishing grit. You can seriously affect performance this way -- when I changed the angle and grit on my Axis, I was able to get 7x the performance of the factory grind for certain types of cutting (i.e., I could do in 1 cut what used to take 7). So don't get confused about sharpeners, helping you hold the angle isn't "magic", in fact, it merely gets you to the point where you need new skills (choosing angles and grits).

Saying a coarse-grit (microserrated) edge is somehow worse than a razor polished edge is kind of like saying hacksaws are good but woodsaws are bad. Well, hacksaws might be great if all you cut is metal. But if some day you have to cut wood, you are ignorant at best if you refuse to use a wood saw, right?

Lastly, someone who thinks the Sharpmaker always leaves a coarse microserrated edge just doesn't know quite enough about sharpening. The white stones don't leave a very coarse edge, but if you want even more polished than that, you can 1) strop, or 2) lean an x-fine stone against the spyderco stick and take a few extra swipes.

Joe