Memories of the Galley V

[JD Spydo]

For all of you "newcomers" and for many of you who are not familar with many of Spyderco's older discontinued Sharpening products there is one that I believed that was a gem of a sharpener and was just outright overlooked.

I am speaking of the old Galley V Sharpening kit. In particular what I really adored about the kit were the extremely unique "cat's eye" shaped ceramic sharpening stones that were used as the sharpening rods.

I was lucky a while back and was able to obtain one of the very last Galley V kits along with 2 extra stones after they were discontinued. The "cat's eye" ceramic fine sharpening stones have been great for sharpening some of my more non-conventional blades like the Dodo, PE Tasman salt, PE Spyderhawk and a few other blades. The geometry of the stone has been perfect for my PE Dodo in particular.

As far as I'm concerned it is the best stone to sharpen the Dodo with that I have ever come across. I would love it if they would just starting making those stones again for sharpening the unusual blade designs. Not to mention the kit itself was great for sharpening and touching up bigger kitchen & chef's knives.

I think the Cat's Eye stones are a geometric wonder for sharpening many unusual blade geometries.

[shu]

I have a Galley V sitting in a box in my basement; eventually it will be mounted over the bench in my shop. (First I have to build a shop.)

In the meantime, the 'teardrop' ProFiles, while a bit shorter, do a fine job and are nice to have in the pack.


Good to see you back, JD.

[JD Spydo]

I have a Galley V sitting in a box in my basement; eventually it will be mounted over the bench in my shop. (First I have to build a shop.)

In the meantime, the 'teardrop' ProFiles, while a bit shorter, do a fine job and are nice to have in the pack.


Good to see you back, JD.

Hey Shu you just brought to my attention the fact that there were 2 different lengths of cat's eye stones that were made with the Galley V. The older units had a somewhat shorter stone and I almost forgot about that.

THe later units like mine came with 12 inch stones which made them great for sharpening longer blades. I do believe that other than length the geometry was the same on the longer and shorter Galley V stones.

Talk about something hard to find: I've only ever seen 2 Galley V sharpening kits on Ebay in a 4 year period. I heard one Bladeforums member bragg that he found one that a knife dealer had in stock and couldn't sell it. Just like the 701 Profiles it was a great sharpening tool that most people were just completely unaware of. Maybe we can change that.

[jujigatame]

Were these made/marketed in part for the foodservice industry since the foot long stones could handle big knives, or am I confusing it with another product?

I'll also say that it's nice to have you around the forums again JD.

[JD Spydo]

I spoke to Mr. Glesser about the Galley V at a knife show in 2004 and he told me that the unit was primarily targeted at the food industry i.e. chefs, meat cutters, culinary, food processing ect, ect,. He also told me that to manufacture that particular cat's eye stone was sort of expensive for what you could end up selling it for.

What's funny is that they sold that unit for at least 3 years that I am aware of and it amazes me that there are so few of them around. I would guess that the majority of them were indeed sold to restaurants because you hardly ever talk to someone in our hobby that ever had one or even knew of them as far as that goes.

But the stones truly are a gem when it comes to sharpening curved blades of all varieties.

And thank you for the welcome back Sir. :)

[tonydahose]

pics??? pretty please :)