Sharpening Maxamet?

[Fly Fishing Rick]

How thin have y'all taken Maxamet before having problems? I like most of my edc knives around 13-14dps, is Maxamet tough enough for 13dps?

[weeping minora]

I'm sure there wouldn't be any problem dropping the angle a few degrees-per-side.



YMMV.

A full primary bevel "re-grind" of my Maxamet Native 5 has been on my to-do list for a while, however I also have K390 and REX45 in the works as well... Not owning powered equipment certainly only makes the task that much more daunting (from what I've heard on grinding Maxamet even with powered equipment), but since Maxamet has been stored away in favor of other steels for the past year now, I think it's time to start (slowly) tackling that feat.

[Fly Fishing Rick]

I started this morning on my Lanskey and it's pretty time consuming but not as bad as I was expecting. I'm aiming for around 14dps and it's coming along well so far. I intend to finish up tonight when I have more uninterrupted free time.

[Surfingringo]

My Manix is about 11-12 degrees per side with a tiny 15dps microbevel. I’ve used it off and on as my regular edc for a couple of years and have never seen ANY edge damage. Very easy steel to sharpen too. The edge retention to ease of sharpening ratio of this steel is excellent.

[Fly Fishing Rick]

My Manix is about 11-12 degrees per side with a tiny 15dps microbevel. I’ve used it off and on as my regular edc for a couple of years and have never seen ANY edge damage. Very easy steel to sharpen too. The edge retention to ease of sharpening ratio of this steel is excellent.

Glad to hear it! I'll be touching this one up on the 15° side of the Sharpmaker for the foreseeable future after this.

[Wandering_About]

I've gone pretty thin with Maxamet, although not as thin as some other steels. So far I have had no problems with the edge being too fragile.

The REX 45 one is thinner, although it may not be super evident in the photo.

[Wandering_About]

Better close up edge image here, this is a Maxamet Para 3 that I've also reprofiled. It's a bit thinner than the PM2. And now this thread has inspired me to get out some Maxamet, I've been giving loads of attention to K390 lately far as the tool steels go.

[Pacu0420]

Ive got my Manix2 at 15 dps and have had no problems with it. I was a little unsure at first, so I tested it by carving a walking stick out of a pine branch. No nicks or chips whatsoever. Still sliced paer and shaved hair just fine. Personally, I think it's a great performing steel.

[Fly Fishing Rick]

Better close up edge image here, this is a Maxamet Para 3 that I've also reprofiled. It's a bit thinner than the PM2. And now this thread has inspired me to get out some Maxamet, I've been giving loads of attention to K390 lately far as the tool steels go.

Looks good, any idea what angle it's at? looks pretty similar to my pm2 which is around 13-14dps.

[kobold]

I created a microconvex and stopped worrying about it.

[Wandering_About]

Looks good, any idea what angle it's at? looks pretty similar to my pm2 which is around 13-14dps.

Probably somewhere in there. I freehand sharpen and have not actually measured angles in a very long time.

[elena86]

My Manix is about 11-12 degrees per side with a tiny 15dps microbevel. I’ve used it off and on as my regular edc for a couple of years and have never seen ANY edge damage. Very easy steel to sharpen too. The edge retention to ease of sharpening ratio of this steel is excellent.

What do you mean by “sharpening” ? Touch ups or reprofiling ?

[Michael Janich]

Dear Pacu0420:

Welcome to the Spyderco Forum.

Stay safe,

Mike

[Ramonade]

My Manix is about 11-12 degrees per side with a tiny 15dps microbevel. I’ve used it off and on as my regular edc for a couple of years and have never seen ANY edge damage. Very easy steel to sharpen too. The edge retention to ease of sharpening ratio of this steel is excellent.

What do you mean by “sharpening” ? Touch ups or reprofiling ?

I think he means that reprofiling down to 11-12 degrees per side was not much of a problem. At least that's what I thought because this is my experience too. I've dropped 4 degrees on one side and 2 on the other on one of my N5s in Maxamet and it was not too long of a job. The sharpening response of the steel is excellent, there are no stubborn burrs you have to fight for a long time to get rid off :)

Of course this depends a lot of how you sharpen. I used venev resin-bonded diamond stones (OCB100%, the 25% are nice too but slower). And I've damaged the edge twice already hitting some stuff, getting the small chip out wasn't much of a problem either

[legOFwhat?]

This was my 1st attempt at sharpening Maxamet and I don't consider myself a "sharpener". I'm learning slowly, one of the big things that helped me was stop worrying about ruining it or scratching up something that's made to get beat up. It's not the prettiest edge in the world but my goodness it splits hairs!

[TkoK83Spy]

This was my 1st attempt at sharpening Maxamet and I don't consider myself a "sharpener". I'm learning slowly, one of the big things that helped me was stop worrying about ruining it or scratching up something that's made to get beat up. It's not the prettiest edge in the world but my goodness it splits hairs!

Don't feel bad, that's how I feel about my edges too! Not always the prettiest, usually quite coarse...but they do the job and do it well.

Not much for me to contribute here as I've only needed quick touchups on my only sample of Maxamet. It's a factory seconds, and the blade is slightly warped, which makes me wonder how an actual sharpening session will go in the future.

[rashman]

i’ve only touched up the edge of my maxamet PM2 and it responds really quickly - wonderful stuff.
when i had the native 5 maxamet ( my first maxamet blade) it took it down to 15 degrees and it held that awesomely - no problems. i’ve found maxamet gets a bad reputation from the internet as it’s tough to sharpen / maintain. my experience has been quite the opposite.

[Robert Ptacek]

This was my 1st attempt at sharpening Maxamet and I don't consider myself a "sharpener". I'm learning slowly, one of the big things that helped me was stop worrying about ruining it or scratching up something that's made to get beat up. It's not the prettiest edge in the world but my goodness it splits hairs!

That edge looks fine to me.Pretty is as pretty does.

[Fly Fishing Rick]

I finally finished today and ended up somewhere between 12-14dps, this was by far the most difficult sharpening job I've ever done but that's mostly because of a little bit of trouble I had earlier in the week. I was all done setting my edge with a coarse diamond hone, then shortly after starting with the medium a pretty long/large section of the edge just flaked/chipped right off. I stoned the whole edge back flush with the deepest part of the chip and started over and didn't have any more issues after that. I think the edge may have got cooked when the knife was sharpened at the factory and that's what caused it to be so brittle/weak, at least I hope lol. The other thing that made this job a bit more difficult is that the blade grind is not even, so a lot of my sharpening was done 2:1 in favor of the show side and the bevel is still not perfectly symmetrical. I finished off the edge with a 15dps micro bevel using the UF Sharpmaker stones and I'm very happy with the edge. I apologize for the poor photo quality, I can't take a good indoor photo to save my life with this camera lol.

[kennethsime]

I dropped my Maxamet Manix to 15ºPS and have been pretty darn happy with it. That was at least a year ago, and I haven't even had to touch it up since. To be fair, I probably only carry it once/month, but I don't baby it when I do - it's my favorite "work" knife, and has popped more zip ties than any of my other EDCs.