Sharpmaker best value?

[jackknifeh]

Dia-Sharp® Magna-Disc™ System

The Magna-Disc™ system allows your Work-Sharp™ powered sharpener to perform faster, cooler and more economically than with paper disks.

The above was pasted from DMT's site. This is the setup I was thinking of. Now I don't know if the "Work Sharp" is a DMT product or another sharpener and DMT came up with disks to work on it. More research required but don't want to do that right now. All I do know is I was WAY off base earlier. :) Sorry.

[Evil D]

Alright EvilD, I will ask some questions. What are the limitations on the small end of blade sizes and could you do touch ups on the Lansky if you had to, without screwing up the micro due to not positioning the clamp perfectly?

Ok man, you asked for it. It's gonna be a bit long winded but hopefully not hard to follow..


I have sharpened the Victorinox Classic on my Lansky, which I think is about as small of a usable blade as you can get. The biggest limitation with these style sharpeners is blade length (meaning longer 4+ inch blades) and angle options since you're stuck with a set number of degrees you can sharpen at. T

That said, there are ways you can overcome the angle options and change what angle your stones hit the blade, but you may not have a way of knowing exactly what angle you're hitting it at.

As far as doing touch ups, the one real problem with these sharpeners is clamp positioning. If you can come up with a way of clamping in the same spot every time, then you won't have any problems. For me, the solution was using a clear ruler to measure exactly how far my edge was from the clamp every time I clamped, and make sure you center the blade left and right in the clamp. If you're really particular about this one step, you can get pretty accurate touch ups. This is probably easiest to explain if I just explain step by step how I used the Lansky:

1. Tape the inside clamp surfaces with blue painters tape. This will help to keep from scratching your blade, and it helps to clamp it into position.

2. I liked to clamp my blades all with the same amount of blade sticking out from the edge of the clamp. Some people will tell you to just clamp on the edge of the spine, but the distance between the edge and the clamp has a pretty significant effect on what angle the stones hit the edge. The further out from the clamp, the lower the angle. The further into the clamp, the steeper the angle. If I remember right, I typically sharpened with the edge 1cm out from the clamp. When I would touch up an edge or apply a micro bevel (or to help remove burrs) all you need to do is loosen the clamp and slide the blade in 1-2mm and tighten it back down. This will increase the angle just enough that you hit more of the edge apex than the bevel.

3. You need to make some improvements to the Lansky clamp itself. The red thumb dial to tighten the clamp down on the blade just isn't strong enough to hold the blade secure. Your worst enemy with this system is a blade that moves ANY direction while sharpening, as it will prevent you from hitting the edge at the same spot with each stroke. I went to the hardware store and bought some screws that were the same thread/size and used a screwdriver to tighten the clamp down. A few words of caution when doing this: 1) The clamp is made of aluminum, and over time the threads where this screw goes in are for sure going to strip. Fortunately, you can buy new clamps separate from the rest of the sharpening system for very cheap. My local knife shop sells them for $7. 2) You want to buy a selection of different lengths of screws, because if they stick up too far they'll hit the rods on your sharpening stones, and because of the thickness of different blades, the same screw won't work for every knife. 3) If you over tighten the clamp, you can actually bend the halves of the clamp, which will basically ruin it.

Now...the first thing you need to do is upgrade the clamp with the screws I mentioned. This makes all the difference in the world. Another really important detail which is often a source of debate with these sharpeners is FFG blades....Do you clamp onto them with the halves of the clamp parallel with each other, or do you adjust it so that the clamp halves lay flat on the sides of the FFG grind? For me, I found that the most secure way to clamp was to adjust the clamp so that the halves lay flat on the sides of the grind itself. If you try to clamp with the halves parallel to each other, no matter how tight you clamp the blade it can wobble left and right which will alter the angle of your stones. However, clamping onto the sides of the FFG also changes the angle that your stones hit the blade, but it's actually only a couple degrees at best and IMO is not something to really worry about. What you want to focus on with all of this is repeatable results. You can tinker around with the clamp and use a sharpie on the bevel to figure out exactly where the clamp needs to be in order to hit the bevel at the same angle that it came from the factory, then measure the distance from the clamp to the edge and mark it down, and then just clamp in this exact same spot every time and you'll always be at the same angle. If you reprofile an bevel, you just need to measure and make a note of where you clamped the blade to get that angle, and always clamp in the same way and you'll always get repeatable results. The only time any of this really makes any difference at all is if you take a knife from one sharpener to another. For example if you later buy a Sharpmaker to use for easy touch ups, it would be nice to know if your bevel coming off the Lansky was around 30 degrees or not so you can then take it to the Sharpmaker and touch it up on the 30 degree setting. If you only use the Lansky, who cares what the actual degree is unless you're OCD about it (which for the record, I am, which is why I eventually broke down and bought an Edge Pro).

There used to be a member here who shared a lot of his experience in this, and we had some really great threads about it. His screen name was Creepo but I haven't seen him post in quite a while. He did the actual math to determine how far out the blade has to be from the clamp to achieve a particular degree, and I used to reference this thread all the time. Reading back through this thread, there are some posts I made that I don't really agree with now because I gained a lot of experience after this thread, so if you're going to take my word on anything, take it from this post and not from this thread (it was afterall 3 years ago and I've learned a LOT since then). In the end, as far as Creepo's measurements go, I just settled on 1cm out from the clamp as a standard on all my blades regardless of what slot I was using, because it started to get confusing when you go from one knife to the next and change angle slots a lot. I would then just use the 1-2mm into the clamp trick to apply micro bevels and to do touch ups. I found that if you tried using a higher slot to make touch ups or micro bevels that it was too drastic of a change and wasn't effective.

Here's a direct link to the post by Creepo that shows the measurement math stuff http://www.spyderco.com/forums/showthre ... post604773

[Scorpion]

Thanks for your reply EvilD, I read most of the long posts in the forums I join, not really a tl;dr kind of guy. Now, to anyone with a magna guide/aligner, is there a way you can use ffg knifes without them wobbling? Either by widening the back end of the clip to match the ffg or tilting the blade so that one side is flat on the clamp and reversing for sharpening the other side?

[jackknifeh]

Thanks for your reply EvilD, I read most of the long posts in the forums I join, not really a tl;dr kind of guy. Now, to anyone with a magna guide/aligner, is there a way you can use ffg knifes without them wobbling? Either by widening the back end of the clip to match the ffg or tilting the blade so that one side is flat on the clamp and reversing for sharpening the other side?

I used the Aligner which is the same thing without the magnets. I had this problem of blade wobble. I never tried it but heard if you use tape on the blade you can stop the wobble but you need to make sure when you do the final tightening turns the blade is in the clamp at a 90 degree angle with the line through the holes in the adjustment rods. This way the stone will hit the opposite sides of the blade at the same angle. This SOUNDS like a good solution but like I said I never did it.

I suffered with the problem and ended up with one bevel twice as wide as the one on the other side of the blade. Sure was sharp though. :) Just looked funny.

[Cliff Stamp]

Personally, I like the WEPS better but they are both good systems.

If you are spending the money on a WE why not simply get a Tormek which is not only much more powerful, but far more versatile in regards to what you can sharpen with it.

[kbuzbee]

If you are spending the money on a WE why not simply get a Tormek which is not only much more powerful, but far more versatile in regards to what you can sharpen with it.

I don't know Cliff. I have this aversion to power tools. They don't seem to like me much

Ken

[Evil D]

I'll pass on the burned edges and excessively fast removal of expensive sprint run steel. I much prefer to take it slow, one pass at a time, and savor the experience (unless I'm preprofiling ZDP/20CP, then I'm usually cussing at the knife lol).

[Scorpion]

I'll pass on the burned edges and excessively fast removal of expensive sprint run steel. I much prefer to take it slow, one pass at a time, and savor the experience (unless I'm preprofiling ZDP/20CP, then I'm usually cussing at the knife lol).

You're just going to have so much fun with s110v aren't you... Why are people so anxious to buy something that it takes an expert to deal with? (Not that YOU specifically aren't an expert)

[Evil D]

You're just going to have so much fun with s110v aren't you... Why are people so anxious to buy something that it takes an expert to deal with? (Not that YOU specifically aren't an expert)

Well to be honest I was really just exaggerating. I have diamond plates on my Edge Pro that will make short work of S110v, and even if it does take longer to sharpen the edge retention will be the payoff. Gotta pay to play.

[jackknifeh]

Well to be honest I was really just exaggerating. I have diamond plates on my Edge Pro that will make short work of S110v, and even if it does take longer to sharpen the edge retention will be the payoff. Gotta pay to play.

Just curious. Do you have the DMT 2" wide stones, the Atoma plates or something else? I have the DMT stones but I really wish they were 1" wide. I have thought about getting Atoma plates for the EP but they are expensive. I've heard nothing but great praise of Atoma plates (stones) so I'm sure they are worth the money. But, the DMT products are great IMO, they just don't want to make stones 1"x6". I have glued my 4.25" stones to short blanks and they work great. It would just be nice if they were the standard 6" long. I would like for DMT to make 6"x1" stones of the corrogated type. With the plastic (or whatever it is) backing they would be very light. That's one thing about the 2" side stones. They are real heavy and since the stones are on top of the blade on the EP it makes a difference IMO. They do a great job on about any steel though. :)

Edit:
Didn't mean to change the subject. Sorry

[Evil D]

Jack I have the Atomas. They're pricy but should last a long time.

[Cliff Stamp]

Jack I have the Atomas. They're pricy but should last a long time.

I have been curious about them for awhile, do you have any other plates to compare them to?

[jackknifeh]

Jack I have the Atomas. They're pricy but should last a long time.

That's what I understand. Do they look like they have a higher concentration of diamonds than the DMT stones? I don't know if you could tell or not by looking even if they do.

[kbuzbee]

That's what I understand. Do they look like they have a higher concentration of diamonds than the DMT stones? I don't know if you could tell or not by looking even if they do.

Someone posted a micrograph of the two a while back. The DMTs looked more uniform. The Atomas were little dots. Didn't know if I'd like that or not?

Edit -found it

http://jendeindustries.wordpress.com/20 ... omparison/

Ken

[arjay18]

With $200 I think you can get a nice setup. If I'm not mistaken the Edge Pro apex 1 is $150 add $20 for S&H, get some congress tools stones in MM320, 400 and Flex 600 for $30 shipped and run to your local DIY store and grab some aluminum stock for a couple of bucks. If you could stretch the budget a little more get the unmounted 1000 grit stone too for $8. With this you could already get a crazy edge and you can re-profile S90V, 20CP and ZDP with relative ease.

[Shakyamuni]

I'd just like to say that this has been a very informative thread, because I've been thinking about a guided setup too.

[Evil D]

I have been curious about them for awhile, do you have any other plates to compare them to?

I have other "diamond stones" but nothing else to use on the Edge Pro. As far as other diamond stones I've used, these cut the most aggressive and most consistent. I'm probably going to buy the entire set up to the highest grit they make and see how I like using just them for my EDC blades.

[Evil D]

That's what I understand. Do they look like they have a higher concentration of diamonds than the DMT stones? I don't know if you could tell or not by looking even if they do.

What I like about them is they aren't just a plate of metal with diamond dust impregnated to them. They have a "dot matrix" pattern that is much more consistent and gives more consistent scratch pattern on the bevel.

This is a close up pic I found on the net of the surface.

[jackknifeh]

What I like about them is they aren't just a plate of metal with diamond dust impregnated to them. They have a "dot matrix" pattern that is much more consistent and gives more consistent scratch pattern on the bevel.

This is a close up pic I found on the net of the surface.

Wow. That's amazing how they get the pattern like that. DMT has pictures of their's vs other's and while DMT's diamond surface is much more crowded with diamonds there is no pattern like the picture of Atoma's. If the performance difference on the knife edge is as noticable as the pictures I'm sure they deserve the $ they want. What worries me is even though I am 100% happy with DMT products I may try Atoma sometime. Then I'd be worried I would want a complete set or at least the grits I would want. WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO??? Never mind, stupid question. :)

[senorsquare]

Can you guys list some of the stones available for EP that don't require water or oil?