What's not working: my sharpener or me?

D

dingobaby

Joined
Jan 29, 2011
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6
So I recently acquired a Benchmade 710 in D2 that came with a disappointing factory edge; sharp, but not shaving hair sharp. I have a Lansky diamond deluxe sharpener, but I an unable to put a scary sharp edge on it. My question is, does the error lie in my technique or the sharpener itself? I've been practicing on a Spyderco Tenacious and while I've gotten it reasonably sharp, once again it is no where near the level of desired sharpness.

I think I'm going to get the ultra fine hone (which I believe is 2000 grit ceramic), but is that even going to help?

Also, due to the nature of the blade on the 710 I am unable to use any angle smaller than 30 degrees, as the hone would otherwise rub on the blade and scratch it. Is this a common problem with the Lanksy (or sharpeners in general)? And if so is there some common remedy?

Some input and guidance would be much appropriated. Thanks.
 
Generally speaking, that tool (Lansky) is not known to have many problems, and should be more than capable of sharpening D2.

Adding the ultra fine hone is a fine idea, but you should be able to hone an edge that will shave arm hair with a coarse stone.

Have you ensured that your efforts are reaching the edge? Perhaps try the magic marker test and verify where the grinding is taking place. Here is a video to demonstrate the marker test...it is a different sharpening setup, but it demonstrates the marker concept.

[youtube]mvl-Y5bZwtw[/youtube]

There could be other problems, but check this first and report back if you need more.

Welcome to the forum by the way. I hope you find your stay here enlightening and helpful.
 
Well, it is very much the case that the hone is NOT reaching the terminal edge. How exactly do I fix that? My vague understanding of knife sharpening tells me that maybe I need to grind a lower angle relief edge?
 
Keep grinding with the coarse stone till you reach the edge, or sharpen at a higher angle. I'd keep the edge somewhere around 15-20 per side. I think most benchmades come 30 per side. So it's a bit to reprofile compared to a spyderco or kershaw etc..
Just keep at it for a bit longer.
 
Yup if you are not reaching the edge you need to stay at it with the coarsest stone you have until you do reach the edge. Only then do you advance to the next grit.

You do realize that a lower angle has pros AND cons right? As a guy that loves low angles, I am all for going thinner, but you need to understand that your edge will require more care with a lower bevel angle.
 
I could never get a really scary sharp edge with the lansky partially because of the variation in the possibly angles and because the stones just dont go high enuf in grit to give you that edge you want. Get a paper wheel system and get that scary sharp edge in just a few mins instead of a few hours!
 
Hm, now I'm confused. I just finished wailing on my Tenacious and it's still not reaching the edge. I went through all the hones at 25 degrees (at least 15-20 times a hone), put marker on the edge, and when I started to grind the secondary edge at 30 degrees, it still wasn't reaching the very edge...

What is going on here?
 
It takes time to reprofile an edge, you must keep working at it till you get a burr on the edge. I also have the D2 710 and reprofiled it, it took a long time to get it to where I was happy with it, now it takes nothing more than a touch up to keep it slicing like a laser. Keep working it and remember what you do to one side you must do to the other to keep the edge centered.

I use to use the guided systems but switched to water stones, I just like them better. I did have to profile a set of stones to get good contact with the recurve of the 710, but it was a cheaper set of pocket stones and the 710 is the only knife I sharpen with them, the rest I do on Norton stones.
 
Do not use anything but your coarsest stone until you reach the edge.

You probably need MANY times the number of strokes you are using. The idea of counting strokes ONLY applies to ensuring that you use approximately the same number on the other side of the blade.

Use the marker as your guide, not the number of strokes.
 
Will do. I'm going to go to town on this baby. Thanks for all the help guys. I'll update this thread as I progress.

One thing though, while sharpening the Benchmade at 25 degrees the hone leaves some upward sweeping scratches about 1/16th of an inch above the edge. Are these scratches just the price of sharpening your own knives? Can they be buffed out? Or am I doing something wrong?
 
Have you tried marking the edge with a sharpie and seeing if you're actually grinding away metal at the edge? How far is the knife clamped on to the system?

Secondly, D2 is a fairly hard steel, if you're doing 15-20 passes that might not be enough time to raise a burr and refine the edge. Also, the higher up you progress in grits the lower amount of pressure you want to use.
 
It's you man...sorry. Although the Lansky is not great, it does work. It's kind of limiting and those stones are so small. As such, you are probably, as stated above, not spending near enough time with the grits.

I freehand on diamond plates and to reprofile a 1095 blade, it takes about 2 or 3 hours...and an astonishingly high number of strokes on each side.

I don't start counting until I am done with my courses grit with which I do all the reprofilling. Then as I work down is grit size (up in number) I start doing even amounts on each side.

Stropping I don't count, just keep at it. Stropping is the only action that I go from one side to the other on every other stroke unless I have a patch of stubbord burr that needs to come off and then I'll repeat a few times until the strop shines and then get back to alternating.
 
Man, is there some place I could send my BM and get it profiled to a certain degree? I attempted to re-profile my Tenacious yesterday (just as a practice run), but it is took an ungodly amount of time. I think I have one side just about done and the other maybe two thirds of the way there and that took me upwards of 4-5 hours... I can't even imagine how long it would take on D2...

Would it be a good idea to get my BM re-profiled and then do the secondary edge myself on the Lanksy?
 
Why are you wanting to re-profile it? Just curious as to why you're wanting to change the primary bevel? Also, are you trying to do a microbevel on the knife? If so, what is the purpose of sending the knife out for a week and a half, and then trying to put a microbevel on the knife. You could just have the person you send it to do the whole thing - since they possess a skill you don't necessarily.

More information about your technique would be good, it just doens't sound like you're grinding away in the right areas. When you say that one side is done and the other is two-thirds done, I'm confused by this. Each side should progress at the same rate... otherwise you'll be chasing to center the edge the whole time...
 
I've had a knife that I wasn't happy with - it wasn't all that sharp and my sharpening attempts weren't doing much. So I said - stuff this, the knife has no appeal to me whatsoever unless I get it sharp.
So I get a DMT Aligner (similar to the Lansky, I believe) and using the course stone I grind & grind & grind (using marker on the edge more than once) until I can feel a noticeable burr on the opposite side, I turn it over and grind and grind and grind on that side until I feel a burr on the opposite side. At this point I am happy that the angle on both sides is now lower and matching what the aligner is set to. So I grind with less pressure and do a few strokes on one side then a few on the other, test the sharpness and find it is now sharp and will shave hair. So at that point I swap to a fine stone and do some light strokes on each side until I am happy with how the edge looks and cuts. Then I swap to the extra fine stone & repeat. Then the extra extra fine stone. Then I used my strop to give the edge a nice polish and make sure that the knife will shave easily and push cut newspaper cleanly & easily.
This took a lot of time on the course stone and initially I was really grinding hard out - but now I am happy to carry that knife and use it as needed, it has a good edge.

There is no way in hell I am going through all that again for any knife! I have since bought an XC & an XXC stone for my DMT Aligner. They can grind steel like you wouldn't believe!

My knife that I ground away on is only 154cm, but I can't see how that would make any difference - the way you sharpen D2 would be exactly the same as any other steel.

Now that the knife has be reprofiled to how I like it there is no need to ruthlessly grind steel off its edge. Now and then I'll strop it to touch up the edge, but that is all it needs. I only play rough with a knife the one time to show who's the boss, after that I treat them right!
 
I've been having the exact opposite of this problem.

I have both the Lansky and the Sharpmaker, and I get great results with the Lansky, and bad results with the Sharpmaker.

My Lansky is the Diamond abrasive variety, so that may make a difference.
 
You have to still be doing something wrong. I was able to back the bevel up on my paramilitary2 and bradley alias2 with a similar smiths system and go through 3 different grit hones in under an hour for each. In the end I can easily shave hair (still does after 2 weeks) and fly through paper. This was with a 20 degree edge per side. And S30v is harder then the 8cr on the tenacious.

I am able to shave hair after JUST THE COURSE stones. Dont stop with the course till it shaves hair. it will be more grabby depending on the grit but it will shave. Count strokes, maybe 20-40 at a time per side but dont stop till you can see the result. I can tell by the look of my egde when I do it on a coarse as opposed to a fine.

How much pressure are you applying? should be a couple pounds of force, more then just the weight of the hone. You CAN do this, keep at it. Dont bother with any other stones until the coarse shaves hair.
 
The inherent problem with jigged systems like Lansky, Smith, and DMT Aligner is preset angles. If the knife angle doesn't closely match any of the presets, you'll have to go with a smaller angle setting and reprofile or go larger and make it slightly less sharp. Reprofiling can take a long time with a manual system, definitely much more than 20 passes.

The other complication is the blade curve radius never matches the sharpener's. This means the sharpener will touch the edge at slightly different angles along the length of the blade.

In short, unless you settle with a larger angle you will reprofile the first time around. If you're lucky (angle & radius aren't too different) it's not gonna take too long, but if you're not then it could easily mean 1-2 hours with the coarsest stone. The reason I got the extra extra coarse DMT is to reprofile faster. The rest of the grits after XX coarse don't take many passes.
 
I too have spent hours with a coarse stone to set a new edge. That is one down side to guided systems. If an angle doesn't line up once you have it clamped in you have to grind a new edge. The good news is that once you do this the first time all you need to do to maintain it is clamp the knife in the same position as before. Keep at it. Set a new edge and learn a lot in the process.

Unit, I have seen your vids on YouTube. Neat little jigs you have put together. Can you tell me what size PVC pipe you used on the Second version? Thanks.
 
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