Community Sharpening Journal

[Wandering_About]

Hey Wandering, how's the sharpening experience with the MagnaCut?

It's one of my favorites to sharpen. Works pretty easily (I liken it to S35VN) and deburrs nicely. Always seems to come up super sharp for me. I always use diamonds with it. Have not tried conventional abrasives yet, too pleased with the edges off diamond stones to change it up.

[Steeltoez83]

Testing out some sharpening guidelines for my upcoming edge retention tests. This maxamet was done to test the ceiling limits for the ceramic stone section that I plan on using in conjunction with other abrasives.

[kennethsime]

Someone told me my Sebenza wasn't as sharp as my Swiss Army knife the other day, so I figured it was time to hit the strop again. I took my time, and also hit my little LT Wright Frontier First that I carried through last week.

[vivi]

Touched up a couple of folders.




PE Pacific 1 - took the edge a tad bit thinner. Shaped the edge on 180 grit then polished up to 300 grit. Cleanly shaves and is very toothy - love the sharpening response from H1.

CE Resilience - Took the serrations up to a fine polish instead of just medium. Hair popping sharp now. Did a few strokes on the 300 grit stone with the PE part to bring it back up to 100% sharp after using this knife to break down a lot of cardboard and shipping tubes the past few days. Like H1, I love the sharpening response of 8Cr. Bit prone to burring heavily but with a light touch it gets screaming sharp.

[vivi]

This is my oldest diamond stone, a ~20 year old DMT Fine.

Heavily worn down. Used to reprofile knives with it when it was my fastest cutting stone.

I still use it these days to touch up my polished edge work knife. Still gets edges screaming sharp.

[vivi]

Got a PE zcut work ready. ~10dps freehand on 200 grit, then apexed on fine sharpmaker rods at 15dps. Hair whittling sharp.

[TkoK83Spy]

Nice! I haven't lowered the angle on mine yet, but I've taken them to the stones a few times just for touch ups. Great little knives if you use them for realistic tasks. Bet that one you have slices so much better than they already do as is!

[Soanso McMasters]

Ive taken one of mine down to ten degrees and it takes a lot of chips. We don’t use glass cutting boards and they’ve not been used on bone either. I sharpen them at ~20 degrees now and they seem to take less chips and still cut well.

[JRinFL]

I spent a few minutes touching up the edge of my Polestar. I had used it cut some copper wire (wrong tool, I know) and it rolled some of the edge. After a *very* few minutes it was super sharp again. To be honest, I was shocked at how little time on the Sharpmaker it took to bring it back. Brown rods only, as vivi showed us.

My new-to-me Microtech is taking much longer. Factory edge was not good and had some use/abuse. It's taking longer than I would like, but part of that is I thought it was CPM-154, but in actuality it is 204P steel. I guess I got a better deal than I thought!

[Steeltoez83]

Just a few knives I put edges on today. Pride 400 and the spyderco medium bench stone. N690 pingo. Vg10 delica. Xhp native chief. And an elmax pm2.

[vivi]

Ive taken one of mine down to ten degrees and it takes a lot of chips. We don’t use glass cutting boards and they’ve not been used on bone either. I sharpen them at ~20 degrees now and they seem to take less chips and still cut well.

did you run a microbevel? mine has been working great at ~10dps then microbeveled with the sharpmaker at 15dps. I just got a new knife roll with more space so I can carry my SE and my PE everyday at work.

These knives are really good values - BD1N at a pretty high hardness in a very thin blade with an unusually ergonomic handle design for a paring knife. They've become a perment part of my work kit, and a SE lives on my home cutting board.

Gonna bring one for food prep next camping trip.

[Soanso McMasters]

Ive taken one of mine down to ten degrees and it takes a lot of chips. We don’t use glass cutting boards and they’ve not been used on bone either. I sharpen them at ~20 degrees now and they seem to take less chips and still cut well.

did you run a microbevel? mine has been working great at ~10dps then microbeveled with the sharpmaker at 15dps. I just got a new knife roll with more space so I can carry my SE and my PE everyday at work.

These knives are really good values - BD1N at a pretty high hardness in a very thin blade with an unusually ergonomic handle design for a paring knife. They've become a perment part of my work kit, and a SE lives on my home cutting board.

Gonna bring one for food prep next camping trip.

Yes, I suppose I misspoke (mistyped?). I dropped the angle to 10 degrees and start having chipping, so my next sharpening was a 20 degree microbevel. No worries at that point. If 15 is working well for you I will try a 15 microbevel as well.

[Brock O Lee]

Three reprofiles this week for three new knives.



All of them are 13 dps, set on the Edge Pro, with 15 dps micro bevels using the Sharpmaker.

I like the "Chef Knives To Go" diamond stones for the EP, they chew up supersteels for breakfast for lightning fast stock removal. I have a well used coarse 140 grit, and a newer 400 grit to finish off the bevels.





Burr removal was before the micro bevel was applied, with DMT F and XF, plus one or two passes per side on a loaded leather strop (1 micron diamond spray).

Micro bevels were off SM brown rods this time. I usually prefer a coarser micro bevel, but the SM brown rods give a crisp hair popping edge that is also very satisfying.

[TkoK83Spy]

Those look great Hans, nice work!

[Brock O Lee]

Those look great Hans, nice work!

Thank you Rick!

[Ranger_Ike]

I’m still learning the ropes of sharpening, and am not sure this belongs here or if we should start a noob sharpening thread so this doesn’t muddle up the pros. Thought it might be good to have some problems documented? Sorry if this doesn’t belong.

Just reprofiled my XHP Chief on my KME. Made a few mistakes. One big one. Ended up fixing it though.

I set my KME to 13.5 degrees according to my level on my phone.

I started with the 50 grit “beast” and after a while of trying to get the sides even and not forming a burr, I stopped and looked up tips. Then I read that using the 50 grit all the way to the edge makes some gnarly grooves in your edge. When I inspected, my edge was indeed gnarly. So I gave up forming a burr and moved on to 100, 140, 300, and then 600. It was shaving sharp, but I never felt a burr along the way. And I had a section on one side that, even though it was shaving, looked like it hadn’t quite reached the edge to apex.

Since it was so close, I decided to try my first microbevel. I re set the KME to 21 degrees and started with the 140 grit. This almost immediately formed a large, even burr. I worked my way up to 600 again. This fixed my rough edge from the 50 grit. Result is a hair popping sharp edge.

I THINK the the lesson I learned was not to try to form a burr on the 50 grit. And don’t use the 50 grit all the way to the edge. I think I should have stopped when the shoulder was almost gone, and swapped to the 100 or 140 before bringing it all the way to the edge.

[Wandering_About]

I also try to avoid getting all the way to the edge with super coarse stones. My coarsest is an Atoma 140, but it will also leave a very "gnarly" edge if I go all the way with it. It does raise a burr, but leaves a super jagged edge (vivi edge maybe?). I try to "kiss" the edge with the 140 if I'm doing a reprofile, then move on to finer stones. About 400 grit and up never give me any issue with gnarly edges.

[Ranger_Ike]

Good to know. I wasn’t sure what grit to use that would be safer. I’ll definitely be a little more cautious in the future.

[vivi]

I go all the way to the apex on my coarsest stones when setting an edge, whether it'll be the final stone I use or I give the apex a full polish.

that said, you don't have to form a burr to know you've set the edge, but it does make it easier to tell.

you have a double bevel. a microbevel is about the size of a burr for comparison. you can microbevel with a 600 grit stone after using the 50. You can do 1-3 strokes per side and keep some of the teeth the coarse stones leave, or 5-10 and fully polish the apex.

whichever route you take, the idea with microbevels is to use the smallest number of strokes to achieve the polish / sharpness desired. for example if I set an edge to 10 dps on a 200 grit diamond stone, then microbevel with the spyderco medium rods at 15 dps, it takes fewer than 10 strokes per side in my experience to clean up the apex on a middle of the road steel like s30v or vg10.

i hope this feedback is constructive and helpful. good to see some reprofiled chiefs - they have amazing out of box geometry, and with a little tweaking of the bevel they have incredible cutting performance. Recently took one of my M4 Chiefs a little thinner myself.

[vivi]

These photos are a testament to the excellent geometry on the Spyderco Resilience.





Took the edge thinner tonight, around 10dps. Doesn't look that much wider than the factory edge.

Polished the bevel up to 400 grit, then did exactly one stroke per side on the fine rods free hand. Sends arm hairs flying but has teeth for days. 8Cr as HT'd by Spyderco is a pleasure to sharpen.