DrEricFautstein wrote:Good morning and Happy Tuesday! Got a snow day here in Colorado and thought I would make my first post since I am a soon to be new owner of some Spydies. I am generally looking to see if anyone can direct me to a "sharpening guide for dummies" kind of thing. These are my first quality knives and I want to make sure I give them proper upkeep and such. Please keep in mind I am still new to knives
I recently bought the Lil Lionspy and Chapparal 2 to start my collection (couldn't decide between the two). I am curious about the differences (if any) of tools needed to keep them sharp. To begin with, what tools will I need and what is the easiest way to keep them in good shape? The chappy has a pretty thin blade at 2mm, and the Lil Lionspy has double the thickness at 4mm. Elmax steel on the Lion and CTS XHP on the Chappy. I'm sure there will be huge differences in each blade, and this is all new to me so I just want to make sure I keep them happy
Anything else I should know? I will be getting the knives in a few days (they're in the mail) and I am super excited to start giving them some pocket time. Maybe I'll throw some pictures up to show a comparison in size, I couldn't find too many reviews and such on the Lil Lionspy, but that was one in particular I kind of fell in love with the minute I laid eyes on it. Had to be purchased.
Thanks and have a great day!
Cheers,
Depends on what kind of edge you want.
Sharpmaker medium ceramic: removes metal slowly, is relatively fine grit despite the "medium" description. Leaves a barely toothy edge and is instead very acute/fine at the edge.
Sharpmaker fine ceramic: hardly removes any metal, just polishes an already sharpened edge and shores up the "toothy" left over by the medium ceramic so that the edge becomes truly uniform/regular, i.e., non-toothy. As such it is great for push cutting, not as much on a slice, though this depends on what you're cutting.
DMT 600 grit diamond: far coarser than the above ceramics, extremely toothy edge. Highly aggressive slice/draw cutting.
DMT 1200 grit: same as the above except finer grit rating.
I've been in the knife thing for about 3 years so far, so for what it's worth my favorite option so far is to sharpen on the DMT 1200 grit stone and then switch over to the medium cermic for about 5 passes per side. I find that following up with the ceramic refines but doesn't remove the irregular edge left over by the diamond, so the "teeth" themselves become sharp, but maybe that's just my imagination, I only have a weak pocket microscope to judge by.
I kinda hate the fine ceramics because they don't really remove metal and so you have to be pretty careful to get the appropriate sharpness level on them, at least with the advanced steels.