Spyderco Forums

Just received the Dice and I just love the size and flipping action! Fit and finish is top notch (always from Taiwan) but there was no real edge to work with. It would cut paper barely (not as well as vg10) and forget about hair shaving. I have the Sbarpmaker with just the brown and white stones and tried to get an edge but it is taking forever to do anything. When I do the old finger rub to check sharpness the one bevel side is super sharp and the other is just.... well butter knife sharp. Am I doing something wrong? I'm using the 30 degree angle on the sharpmaker.

I was thinking of investing in some diamond rods to see of this would solve my problem. Any good advice on what to do to get this blade hair popping sharp again? Thanks in advance for all of your replies!

I was having the same problem with my Dice. I think the factory used a pretty broad angle on some of these. It took me at least a couple hundred strokes on the 30 degree angle to get it fairly sharp. I still don't have it as sharp as some of my other knives, but it's getting there. I think diamond rods would definitely help get it there a lot quicker.

Use a sharpie to check where you are hitting the edge.

Tabo wrote: When I do the old finger rub to check sharpness the one bevel side is super sharp and the other is just.... well butter knife sharp.

One side of the blade has an angle much higher than the 30 degree setting, you have to grind that down if you want to sharpen at 15 degrees. It will take a long time with the medium stones as in likely hundreds to thousands of passes.

You can :

-get a more coarse abrasive
-switch to the 40 degree setting
-tough it out on the 30 degree setting with the medium rods until it gets sharp (long time)

Not to knock the sharpmaker, as it does make sharpening more accessible for a lot of people, but you'll just not be able to remove material with it at anything close to the same rate you would with a coarse bench stone. Spyderco's ceramic stones really, even in bench stone form, really are more finishing than shaping stones. Spyderco has tried addressing this with CBN and diamond stones, but they still aren't that fast unfortunately. :/ Each stroke just takes longer to set up and complete, and there is less cutting surface to remove material.

It's good to have some course stones for your basic sharpening supplies for times like these,or when your dealing with a really damaged/chipped edge,or a really worn edge with thick shoulders.
Something like a 120/220 grit diamond or silicon carbide should do nicely.
In my case I use a 120 grit lansky diamond stone with the guide to remove lots of material quickly,then other stones and the sharpmaker to further refine and finish it.
I am sure the sharpmaker diamond and CBN rods will help speed things up for you,but some people even find that that's not fast enough.
If I don't want to screw around with 2hr reprofiling,I will use metal files and belt sanders on working knives so that their edges can make contact with the sharpmaker.

The part about one side feeling sharper than the other...you aren't sharpening 2 things. The bevels form one edge. What you're feeling on one side vs the other is a burr. Also "not as sharp as VG10" is comparing the wrong things. The steel isn't the deciding factor in how sharp one knife is vs another, it has to do with the person who sharpened it, who apparently didn't do a great job on this one.

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Thank you everyone for your replies and help! Just ordered the CBN rods and we shall see how that goes. I don't mind spending some time re-profiling. I'd did see in another thread Cliff Stamp said it took him 330 passes with a cts xhp blade to get the angles to be equal.

What you have described there is a burr as Evil D has already pointed out.
That is actually a good sign. I have had some experience (with VG-10 including) with a heat treatment leaving edge on a brittle side, so it would never have a burr forming. That wouldn't be so good!
I always sharpen by hand and have no experience with sharpening systems, so can not give you much advice on that. All I can say: it does not necessarily have to do with "uneven angles" and number of passes, so be careful with not taking too much steel off the blade for no good reason! I suggest you to try sharpen with moving the stone always "towards" the edge, rather than "off" the edge: that's one of the technics to break the burr when you have one. Also always make sure both sides feel equally sharp (not necessarily too sharp, but at least equal) before moving to the next grit.

Spyderco edge? No dice.

I received my CBN Rods yesterday but didn't get a chance to re-profile my Spyderco Dice (CTS-XHP) until today. Let me tell you, they worked out perfectly!

I started out on the 30° side of the Sharpmaker and ran 300 passes on each side of the blade using the triangle sides of the CBN rods. Then I ran 20 passes on each side with the flats of the rods. I finished with 30 passes on each side with both the medium and fine rods using both the triangle and flats of the rods.

At this point the blade could cut paper but still wasn't hair popping sharp.

I moved to the 40° side of the Sharpmaker and ran 20 passes on each side of the blade using the triangle sides of the CBN rods. Then I ran 10 passes on each side with the flats of the rods. I finished with 30 passes on each side with both the medium and fine rods using both the triangle and flats of the rods.

After doing this it was shaving arm hair like no other and slicing paper like a laser!

So for anybody on the fence about the CBN rods, I cannot recommend them enough!

(If anybody wants to know, I used glass cleaner on the CBN rods after 20 passes on each side to keep them clean and lubricated.)