Community Sharpening Journal

[Ramonade]

IMHO and the only 4 knives I've sharpened on the upgrade kit to test : it's pretty worth it.
1) They improved the rod, there is less play from the Tri-abrasive (weirdly close to tri-angle but eh!) on the rod, and less play from the rod inside it's socket.
2) The stones are pretty great, they needed more break-in than the "basic" ones for me, but as long as one does not put tremendous pressure, they'll last a good while. The surface of contact is rather small, so any pressure is multiplied vs. a benchstone
3) The progression is better handled. If someone was to only use this system with the provided stones, there is a good edge to get. I managed to bit myself after rectifying the Cogent's factory edge.

That's all I can say for now. I'm not convinced by the strop but I only use the crust, the smooth side. I find that the flower is too soft for my taste.

[TkoK83Spy]

Hey guys, thanks for the compliments. I can wholeheartedly say, and this is not a knock against Spyderco or the Sharpmaker. It's been a long running product for good reason...but this system absolutely blows it out of the water in that price range.

You can get the base model of this kit, which I found to be pretty great in its own right, at $45!! The Sharpmaker without diamond or CBN rods is $80 now I believe? That extra $35, you're already half way there for the upgrade kit.

The key to this thing is clamping properly so it is set up for an even grind, and LIGHT PRESSURE, which can not be stressed enough. I have no problems with rocking or movement as I've read about across the web. That's simply using too much pressure. The 220 grit option in the upgrade kit was awesome at removing steel. Much quicker than I expected vs the 320 grit, so that was a nice surprise. The strop worked better than I expected as well.

[troutinCO]

Got my new Hapstone R2 in. Got it put together and did a couple of cheap knives. Works like very well. So feeling good about it I have a few spydercos that have bad edge grinds. I started with this one first, one side was 13* the other must have been at 17-18*.

It now has a 13dps each side with a nice 15dps microbevel on it that I can touch up on the Sharpmaker super easy now.
While I proved to myself I can do all this on the Sharpmaker that process took days of working on it for me.

[TkoK83Spy]

I'm always mind boggled by folks that use the Sharpmaker for reprofiling jobs. It takes sooooooooooooooo much time and there's other systems that are cheaper, or not much more money that can reprofile in half the time, if not even less. Great for touchups, not reprofiling...even with diamond or cbn rods. The ability to maintain consistency is virtually impossible and you'd be better off giving free hand a shot, as it would go much faster as well.

[troutinCO]

Yea my reprofiling on it was very minor that I did and still took a long time. It is why I saved these few knives that would need major work for a system like this that I bought. There are many systems out there, the Precision Adjust was on my list, I liked the R2 system for a few different reasons and so jumped in. Even as you said having a course stone and going by hand to get close to the Sharpmaker angles would save TONS of time.

[vivi]

I'm always mind boggled by folks that use the Sharpmaker for reprofiling jobs. It takes sooooooooooooooo much time and there's other systems that are cheaper, or not much more money that can reprofile in half the time, if not even less. Great for touchups, not reprofiling...even with diamond or cbn rods. The ability to maintain consistency is virtually impossible and you'd be better off giving free hand a shot, as it would go much faster as well.

indeed.

$9 for three diamond plates - https://www.harborfreight.com/3-piece-2 ... 36799.html

The 260 grit is the only stone I use for most of my knives. Might give the apex one stroke per side on my medium sharpmaker rods if I want a little more polish.

The cutting ability I get from that $3 stone is insane. It's like a half way point between a typical high polish PE, and a serrated knife.

Even if you prefer going over 1,000 grit, hog off the bulk of the steel with something like this then polish just the apex, and you'll get the same performance as polishing the full bevel at a fraction of the time investment.

[Wandering_About]

OK, got out the stones and set them (and my wits) against some CPM REX 45. Mission was a success, although tonight I was not on top of my deburring game, so I won't call this edge my absolute best ever. But it still meets muster, so just gonna roll with it for now.

Stopped to take a picture of the rather large burr that an Atoma 140 plate can make. Usually I try to just "kiss" the edge with the scratch pattern, but got a little carried away and ended up with this.


The end result, next to its other high Rc hardness competition. While they are both high hardness steels, they have a very different composition and carbide volume, so it will be interesting to see the differences. These are freehand edges, so while I tried to keep them close, they are just a little bit different.


And while I was at it, my actually most used knife was very overdue for attention. Just used the 1000 grit stone on this one. The burr on this thing fought me pretty hard. I blame operator error rather than the steel or the stone. May have to revisit it soon depending on how well I actually ended up deburring it. Still sliced paper towel, but I view this edge with a little suspicion.

[vivi]

How's the rex edge feel once you finished it?

I've always liked the edges high hardness steels take, and my rex chief was no exception.

zdp189 was the first high hardness steel I worked with and I always felt like it took a very clean edge.

[Wandering_About]

Final edge was done with a 1000 grit stone and finished with a strop with 1 micron diamond. Same as the Maxamet edge. So, they both feel pretty similar to be honest.

Some of my early (and very... interesting) adventures in sharpening were on a ZDP-189 combo edge Endura. I did not like that knife hahaha! I still have a little laminated ZDP-189 Caly Jr, should get it out someday and revisit adventures in sharpening ZDP with much better knowledge and equipment!

[Steeltoez83]

K390 delica sharpened on the spyderco cbn benchstone this morning.

[bleasure]

So I have a sharpmaker question I haven't found answers to elsewhere yet: I realized shortly after buying my 'new' (and unreturnable) SM that one of the brown rods has a chip in its edge. It makes that edge useless, and the sides it's next to tricky to use. I'm also not convinced the rods sit square in the base correctly - somehow the left seems lower than right.

I can deal with the angle issue, but the chip is not so clear to me. Anyone dealt with this successfully before (or know of threads I should read)? Seems a waste to just get a whole new rod, and I'll keep using the other sides/edges, but if there's a fix for it I'm all ears. Thanks!

[Ramonade]

Hey guys, thanks for the compliments. I can wholeheartedly say, and this is not a knock against Spyderco or the Sharpmaker. It's been a long running product for good reason...but this system absolutely blows it out of the water in that price range.

You can get the base model of this kit, which I found to be pretty great in its own right, at $45!! The Sharpmaker without diamond or CBN rods is $80 now I believe? That extra $35, you're already half way there for the upgrade kit.

The key to this thing is clamping properly so it is set up for an even grind, and LIGHT PRESSURE, which can not be stressed enough. I have no problems with rocking or movement as I've read about across the web. That's simply using too much pressure. The 220 grit option in the upgrade kit was awesome at removing steel. Much quicker than I expected vs the 320 grit, so that was a nice surprise. The strop worked better than I expected as well.

Yeah, mine had some issues of rocking because the interface between plastic and metal on the clamp broke. I glued it with epoxy and now it's back as new. When sharpening I don't even have to hold the base for it to not move. They must be trying to saw through the blade !

[kennethsime]

Finally got all three blades sharp on the old Frontier Stockman I inherited from my Grandfather via my uncle. I used the work sharp to set the edge, the sharpmaker to clean it up, and then stripped with black and green compound. The Spey blade was particularly challenging, as it was too small to hit with the worksharp. Instead, I held the work sharp 320 grit paddle up against ,y sharpmaker rods until I got the edge set. Man, I should really order the cbn rods!

Also touched up my S30V Para 3, which I was carrying as my edc today. It wasn’t particularly dull, but hot **** is it sharp now.

The more I use my sharpmaker, the more I appreciate it.

[The Meat man]

I touched up my Police 4 the other evening. 30 and 9 micron diamond lapping film, then a few licks on 1 micron diamond leather strop. I like the way this lapping film finishes the edge - smooth yet aggressive, if that makes any sense.

[TkoK83Spy]

I touched up my Police 4 the other evening. 30 and 9 micron diamond lapping film, then a few licks on 1 micron diamond leather strop. I like the way this lapping film finishes the edge - smooth yet aggressive, if that makes any sense.

Looks great, as usual! I totally understand your smooth yet aggressive comment. That's how I feel about some of my edges I've finished at 600 grit. They look smooth, but are toothy, and get the job done with ease!

I haven't reprofiled any blades longer than a PM2 yet, but my Rex45 Chief suffered some minor chipping near the tip at the beginning of the week. Thinking of knocking it off a few degrees. A long blade like that Police, with a nice and thin grind looks great!

[Ramonade]

Now that ive gotten my hands on the sharpmaker, I can manage to do a really aggressive, biting apex even on the fine rods.

Since I'll only use the rods for serrations or finition free hand, it's really easy to not go too long on each side.
I finished my Native 5 Salt and Centofante III on the fine after my DMT 600. They are still monstrously aggressive edges !

[Ramonade]

Hi, sorry for the double post but I have an inquiry.

I found used diamonds rods sold at like $20 online and ask for the guy to take pics in order to see if they still are usable. I'll post them here and ask you if you think they got enough lifetime in them for the price ?





It's hard to see but the flats seem okay while i'm not sure about the corners.

[vivi]

if it were me, id pass

[DOUBLE D]

Hi, sorry for the double post but I have an inquiry.

I found used diamonds rods sold at like $20 online and ask for the guy to take pics in order to see if they still are usable. I'll post them here and ask you if you think they got enough lifetime in them for the price ?





It's hard to see but the flats seem okay while i'm not sure about the corners.

Are you in the U.S.?

[kennethsime]

Hi, sorry for the double post but I have an inquiry.

I found used diamonds rods sold at like $20 online and ask for the guy to take pics in order to see if they still are usable. I'll post them here and ask you if you think they got enough lifetime in them for the price ?

It's hard to see but the flats seem okay while i'm not sure about the corners.

Honestly man those look pretty worn out - like the user scraped them up. If you're not careful, and you press too hard, you can actually cut the diamonds off those rods.

Just save up and get the CBN rods.