Community Sharpening Journal

Discuss Spyderco's products and history.
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#481

Post by vivi »

They do. The fit isn't quite as snug but they work fine. They come in a variety of widths though, so you need to order the correct size.
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Wartstein
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#482

Post by Wartstein »

vivi wrote:
Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:34 am
They do. The fit isn't quite as snug but they work fine. They come in a variety of widths though, so you need to order the correct size.
Thanks much, Vivi!
Top three going by pocket-time (update March 24):
- EDC: Endura thin red line ffg combo edge (VG10); Wayne Goddard PE (4V), Endela SE (VG10)
-Mountains/outdoors: Pac.Salt 1 SE (H1), Salt 2 SE (LC200N), and also Wayne Goddard PE (4V)
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#483

Post by vivi »

I haven't carried my Police 4 LW much since the winter, but I decided it was time to put it back in my pocket.

Problem is, the edge was very dull. Struggle to slice a cardboard box dull.

I reset the edge on a 300 grit diamond bench stone. I ground until there was no microbevel. I finished with very light strokes, trying to get a shaving sharp apex right off my reprofiling stone.

From there I gave the edge about 3 passes per side on a Spyderco medium rod at a slightly more obtuse angle. Enough to really refine the edge, but not enough to grind off all the microserrations.

This edge readily shaved, but I wanted it sharper. I gave it another 4 or 5 passes per side on a 7 micron diamond paste loaded strop.

The result is an edge that'll whittle hairs and slice aggressively. I can run my finger nail along the edge and feel the gritty microserrations.

Image
Image

https://www.harborfreight.com/4-sided-d ... 92867.html

That's the diamond stone I used. Not very well made but it's a good deal for the price. That's about $3 per side. $12 diamond stone, $10 Spyderco rod, $7 strop and $5 diamond paste. Nice edges don't take much $$.
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TkoK83Spy
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#484

Post by TkoK83Spy »

Ahhhh, how I've missed these threads and make realize how much more practice and work I need on the stones :p
15 :bug-red 's in 10 different steels
1 - Bradford Guardian 3 / Vanadis 4E Wharnie
1 - Monterey Bay Knives Slayback Flipper / ZDP 189
1 - CRK Small Sebenza 31/Macassar Ebony Inlays
1 - CRK Large Inkosi Insingo/ Black Micarta Inlays
1 - CRK Small Sebenza 31 Insingo/Magnacut

-Rick
Baron Mind
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#485

Post by Baron Mind »

I've been struggling to obtain a high high level of sharpness on my SPY27 Para 3 LW. I'm one of those guys that chases bidirectional hair whittling edges. I keep getting close, but i i haven't been able to get my SPY27 edge as crisp clean and keen as I had hoped.

Anyone have any SPY27 sharpening feedback to share?
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kennethsime
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#486

Post by kennethsime »

Image

I ended work early today so I decided to sharpen most of the collection, and treat myself to a beer.

I usually sharpen 1-2 knives at a time, and obsess a bit over the edge. I think this tends to lead to over sharpening, so I took a different approach. 20 passes per side on brown & whites at 40°; just touching up the edge. This worked remarkably well in almost all cases. I usually test my edges by slicing paper, old newspaper ads to be specific. The cleaner the cut, the sharper the edge, right?

Well, no matter what I did I couldn't get my PD1 Mule to slice cleanly. Odd, because when I accidentally pressed the edge against my finger for a split second it sure cut pretty **** clean. One of those cuts that bleeds only shortly because it's so clean.

Any insights into what could be happening with the edge?

Another thought: I managed to chip my Rex45 native by hitting some zinc washers dead-on. I did touch it up on the sharpmaker today with the other knives, but can't bring myself to remove that much material. The knife cuts smoothly. Do you ever just leave a small chip in the blade, if it's not getting in your way?
I'm happiest with Micarta and Tool Steel.

Top four in rotation: K390 + GCM PM2, ZCarta Shaman, Crucarta PM2, K390 + GCM Straight Spine Stretch.
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RustyIron
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#487

Post by RustyIron »

kennethsime wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:30 pm
Do you ever just leave a small chip in the blade, if it's not getting in your way?
Sure. All the time. I see no sense in spending extra time and wasting extra material to grind out a tiny ding, when I'll probably be banging up the edge tomorrow. That doesn't mean I'll do a sloppy job. My edges are very nice. I just find the price of perfection to be excessive. Put on a nice edge, leave a ding or two, relax, have a home brew.
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kennethsime
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#488

Post by kennethsime »

RustyIron wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 11:23 pm
Put on a nice edge, leave a ding or two, relax, have a home brew.
Now that's something I can get behind. Thanks RustyIron!
I'm happiest with Micarta and Tool Steel.

Top four in rotation: K390 + GCM PM2, ZCarta Shaman, Crucarta PM2, K390 + GCM Straight Spine Stretch.
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PStone
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#489

Post by PStone »

ronT2 wrote:
Thu Aug 06, 2020 6:11 pm
PStone wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:41 pm
ronT2 wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:02 pm
PStone wrote:
Tue Aug 04, 2020 1:59 pm
Mail call! Just got home from work to this waiting for me. Finally got some cf/s90v back in my life. Scored it for $135, bnib!

[img]
Congrats on the fluted CF Native. You stole it! Great knife, I love mine. The s90v has been somewhat of a challenge to sharpen though.
Thank you! As a matter of fact, I called to see if it was a pricing error or a factory second. It was neither. I almost fell over.

What struggles have you had with s90?

It just seems like i can't get it quite as sharp as i'd like. I feel like i'm just chasing a burr back and forth.

Sorry i didn't get back to you sooner but the last couple days have been a little hectic.
No worries ronT2! I’m quoting your post from the mail call thread here, so that I don’t go too far off topic there. Plus this one is a great one to go back and read through.

Anyways, that used to be my problem with ANY steel haha! I found that light pressure is the key. Especially once I do get that burr. Then it’s just a matter of alternating extremely light passes until I see, or more commonly, feel those little tiny flecks of burr that broke off. Feels like random, tiny grains of sand going under my edge during a pass. The coarser the stone, the harder it is to feel though. Sometimes I even hold back some of the blade weight in my hand trying to feel it. And that pretty much goes for whatever sharpening media I’m using, or blade steel I’m holding. Even if I do start aggressively on the stone, I always finish as light as I can before I progress.
Check out this thread for some good videos too:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=87251
#8 helped me most :spyder:
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#490

Post by vivi »

RustyIron wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 11:23 pm
kennethsime wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:30 pm
Do you ever just leave a small chip in the blade, if it's not getting in your way?
Sure. All the time. I see no sense in spending extra time and wasting extra material to grind out a tiny ding, when I'll probably be banging up the edge tomorrow. That doesn't mean I'll do a sloppy job. My edges are very nice. I just find the price of perfection to be excessive. Put on a nice edge, leave a ding or two, relax, have a home brew.
Same here. I view it as a waste of steel. I'd only sharpen out chips on specialty blades like a straight razor or my chef knives when I was working as a chef.
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SubMicron
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#491

Post by SubMicron »

Baron Mind wrote:
Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:51 pm
I've been struggling to obtain a high high level of sharpness on my SPY27 Para 3 LW. I'm one of those guys that chases bidirectional hair whittling edges. I keep getting close, but i i haven't been able to get my SPY27 edge as crisp clean and keen as I had hoped.

Anyone have any SPY27 sharpening feedback to share?
I dont generally test bidirectional whittling, I do however test hair feathering and achieve it with consistency on most steels that I own. This is especially true when I get to 0.25 micron or 0.1 micron.

SPY-27 surprised me with how quickly it sharpened on diamonds and with how easily it took a hair whittling and then a hair feathering edge. I've also been happy using ceramics.

What kind of strops do you use?
SubMicron
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#492

Post by SubMicron »

SubMicron wrote:
Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:49 pm
Baron Mind wrote:
Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:51 pm
I've been struggling to obtain a high high level of sharpness on my SPY27 Para 3 LW. I'm one of those guys that chases bidirectional hair whittling edges. I keep getting close, but i i haven't been able to get my SPY27 edge as crisp clean and keen as I had hoped.

Anyone have any SPY27 sharpening feedback to share?
I dont generally test bidirectional whittling, I do however test hair feathering and achieve it with consistency on most steels that I own. This is especially true when I get to 0.25 micron or 0.1 micron.

SPY-27 surprised me with how quickly it sharpened on diamonds and with how easily it took a hair whittling and then a hair feathering edge. I've also been happy using ceramics.

What kind of strops do you use?


I just tried it with my SPY-27 Para3 and was successful. Here's what I did.

Starting with a relatively sharp blade, I reset my edge on an Atoma 400. I worked up a small burr heel to tip, flipped it, and continued flipping a micro bur through bur reduction, testing between each flip, and finally concluding with a couple of single pass edge trailing tip to heel strokes on each side.

Shave test = fail

Diamond plates of this kind can leave a gnarled mess on the apex, but under that is something amazing.

I moved on to the Atoma 1200 with the same methodology, completely removing the previous scratch pattern, and finishing the same way...

Shave test = fail.

On either stone I could have fiddled around so it'll shave, but its not necessary. I'm using the whole plate with a single stroke. Tip to heel edge trailing and heel to tip edge leading. To shave off the plate, a shorter stroke and light pressure is needed simply because using the length of the plate on a single pass is enough to make a micro bur.

The micro bur is my friend.

I moved on to the DMT Medium Extra Fine DiaSharp diamond plate. They rate it at 4000 grit or 6 micron. I approached this plate in the same way as the previous two.

Shave test = hair popping.

I moved on to strops. All strokes on all strops were tip to heel continous passes in one motion.

I started with a 10 micron diamond paste on kangaroo leather and did 3 total alternating passes on each side.

Shave test = hair popping like laser.

I moved on to 3 micron diamond paste on kangaroo leather, 5 total passes per side.

No test except physically feeling the edge everytime I flip the knife.

Under 3 micron, I found that diamond abrasives fall too deep into the grain of my kangaroo strops and lose effectiveness. The goal is aggressive sharpness, not a mirror. This means less strokes = better results.

Next I moved on to my Sienna XCEL leather strops. These are flat, smooth, and waxy. They seem to hold the compound more at the top.

At 1 micron, I was unhappy with the feel after 5 passes per side, so I did 5 more for 10 total. From here it was starting to split and whittle from tip to root.

At 0.5 micron with 5 passes per side, it was whittling more easily, but only in one direction.

At 0.25 micron with 7 passes per side, it was feathering easily and beginning to whittle and split bi-directionally.

At 0.1 micron with 5 passes per side, I was able to feather a hair three times from tip to root without cutting it, I flipped it, and feathered it from root to tip two more times before cutting the hair in half.
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#493

Post by vivi »

Still gradually working on the Siren edge when I find the time.

I gave it a few licks on the brown rods and put it back in my pocket, missed carrying it. That's always a sign of a good design....when you can carry a different, perfectly capable knife but still miss the one you were carrying.

Image

That angled plunge line makes getting that very first bit of edge a little trickier. I'll clean it up once I'm happy with the rest of the bevel.
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skeeg11
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#494

Post by skeeg11 »

First thing I did when I got my Siren was to take it down to 15 dps/30 inclusive. Reprofiling was actually a pleasure as the sharpening response was wonderful.

If they ever put teeth on one, you and that other perfectly capable knife may become estranged.
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#495

Post by vivi »

skeeg11 wrote:
Tue Aug 11, 2020 3:27 pm
First thing I did when I got my Siren was to take it down to 15 dps/30 inclusive. Reprofiling was actually a pleasure as the sharpening response was wonderful.

If they ever put teeth on one, you and that other perfectly capable knife may become estranged.
How wide did your bevel end up? I free handed mine, giving it a thin edge but not measuring the degrees, and I'm surprised at how narrow the bevel turned out:

Image

I need to clean things up a bit more but its slicing much better now. Everything I used is in the photo....200 grit harbor freight diamond stone, medium sharpmaker rod, home made strop with venev 7 micron compound. Arm hairs are too scared to wait for the blade to contact the skin.....LC200N sharpens up so nice.
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skeeg11
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#496

Post by skeeg11 »

Didn't measure the stock TBE but my bevel is perhaps a skosh thinner than yours so you might actually be a little under 15 DPS. Love the sharpening response on this stuff among its other balance of properties.
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#497

Post by vivi »

skeeg11 wrote:
Thu Aug 13, 2020 12:45 am
Didn't measure the stock TBE but my bevel is perhaps a skosh thinner than yours so you might actually be a little under 15 DPS. Love the sharpening response on this stuff among its other balance of properties.
That would make sense because I aim for 12-14 dps bevels so I can microbevel at 15 dps on my sharpmaker.

LC200N is a really nice steel if you're happy with S30V or less edge holding. It seems to have everything else in spades. It's been corrosion proof for me so far, it sharpens as easily as anything else besides Swiss Army Knives, and using a Waterway roughly for bushcrafting tasks hasn't shown me the toughness limit of this steel.

I would really like to see flagship models run in LC200N SE with corrosion proof liners and hardware. PM2 Salt, Millie Salt, LW Manix Salt etc. I feel this steel could usher in a new era of Spyderco Salts. It can take a full flat grind from factory more easily than H1 and PE performance is much better.

I'm very excited for the LC200N Swicks coming any day now.
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soc_monki
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#498

Post by soc_monki »

So does anyone else only use stones, no strop? I made myself a DIY strop, just for burr removal (old leather belt and a block of wood...super cheap!) but I have had mixed feelings on whether it does anything for me. The way I sharpen is thus...and I'll use my BK2 as an example.

the Becker BK2 comes at a supposed 20 degree edge. Not bad, considering this knife is for heavy use outdoors. I figured I could lower that angle some and still keep it tough, plus I wanted to kind of convex the edge and get rid of the shoulders of the V edge it comes stock with. So I take it to my 325 grit diamond stone and do just that, and of course after apexing and everything its sharp, and probably would do everything I needed but I couldnt leave it there.

So off to the 1200 grit diamond, and once again a very sharp, toothy edge that Im sure many would be happy with. does all my tests fine except shaving arm hair (it does it, just not as nice as id like). off to the Spydero Medium! Now it shaves like I want it to, cuts paper towel easily and cleanly, thin catalog (SMKW catalog...gotta love free!) paper is no match. An awesome edge IMO. Don't know if it whittles hair, don't care really because its a nice parlor trick but impractical IMO.

Anyway, I hit it on my DIY strop (no compound, just bare leather to deburr any leftover burr) and it performs the same as it did before. Is this normal, especially if I had fully deburred off the stones? Or am I missing something? Maybe a placebo effect, as I could swore it cut just a LITTLE better on the paper towel?

Or maybe I really do need a compound to get the most of it? Or maybe I'm just expecting more than it offers. Like I said, i deburr fully (or as good as i can) on stones. So anyone have any tips? As it is, I think it's just a waste of time to use the strop and maybe I should just stick to what ive been doing since it works for me!
:respect Spyderco : Resilience, Tenacious, Persistence, Manix 2 G10, Para 3 G10, Para 3 LW, Paramilitary 2,
BBS Paramilitary 2, Amalgam, Native Chief, Blade HQ Manix 2 XL, S30V Shaman, Gayle Bradley 2, DLC M4 Shaman, Magnitude, Z Wear Shaman, DLC S30V Shaman, Stretch 2, Kapara, CF/S90V Native Chief, Endela, K390 Endura, DLT 20cv Zome Endela x 2, Police 4 LW K390, SNK Native Chief, SNK Manix 2 XL, K390 Stretch 2, Stretch 2 XL, K390 Endela
vivi
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#499

Post by vivi »

Deburring on stones is exactly what you should be doing.

Bare strops won't make much difference.

Strops loaded with traditional buffing compound will make a little difference.

Strops loaded with diamond compounds will make a bigger difference.

If I were you I'd head over to www.gritomatic.com and look up their diamond stropping paste. I use the chapstick tube style paste in 7 micron and get very good results. It's only $6 or so.
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skeeg11
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Re: Community Sharpening Journal

#500

Post by skeeg11 »

[/quote]



I would really like to see flagship models run in LC200N SE with corrosion proof liners and hardware. PM2 Salt, Millie Salt, LW Manix Salt etc. I feel this steel could usher in a new era of Spyderco Salts. It can take a full flat grind from factory more easily than H1 and PE performance is much better.


[/quote]

As a consumer I would be all for it, but for a knife manufacturer, that would be a bold move indeed. For the moment, I would be satisfied with a Siren with teeth to match my PE model. The blue G10 spacer/liners on the Siren are an elegant touch. If a serrated version were to come out, a different color spacer/liner would be nice to differentiate between the two at a glance. Perhaps the traditional yellow on most salt models?
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