JD Spydo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:58 pm
David it's high time this discussion got out on the table for virtually everyone in Spyderville to consider>> for those who like and use Spyderedges that is. Showing that comparison of the somewhat more rounded serration pattern of the Carribean versus the more "spikey" type serration below it is something I've tried to put out for conversation for almost 8 years now but yet I don't seem to get the attention you've attained on this one. But I don't care because maybe now is the right time.
I wish I had a way of e-mailing you a pic of the SE pattern on the older AUS-8 CAtcherman model I use constantly. It's even more low profile with more elongated scallops and less defined spike between the scallops that gives you a slice close to what a razor sharp, supersteel PE blade can deliver under the right circumstances. I've tried to drive home the point that more testing needs to be done looking into new and different SE patterns. Truly I think Spyderco has only begun the search for better and more efficient serrated blades IMO.
I do use a 204 Sharpmaker on some types of SE patterns but not to the point to where it literally rounds off and somewhat deforms the original factory grind. I still ultimately like manual tools for doing final finishes on SE blades. So I still think the ideal tool for making SE patterns like curved straight razors is still yet to be discovered>> but the Spyderco 701 Profiles were a big step in the right direction.
OK let the conversation proceed folks>> let's put it all on the table>> different patterns, sharpening techniques, Sharpening tools for SE and the grind being on one side versus the grind being on both sides. And which SE pattern is best on certain cutting jobs>> Not to mention stropping SE blades and deburring SE blades.
I suspect that with the Catcherman being so thin they had to use a different wheel to grind the serrations, otherwise the teeth would have been far more spiked and prone to breaking off. One of the major benefits of more rounded teeth (aside from not snagging so much) is that they're less likely to take damage.
JD Spydo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 4:59 pm
Yeah I know that works>> but what do you do with the spikes and grooves in between the scallops? Myself I've used oddly shaped diamond files with some decent results.
Also on stropping Spyderedges here lately I've been stropping from the back side with some encouraging results.
Evil D's Dremel methods have a lot of good results as well. I've also tried to make the scallops smooth while leaving the spikes and grooves with a kind of rough finish and that has had some good results. Serrations are a completely different animal all together and I'm not so sure there are a lot of rules put in concrete like there are with plain edges IMO.
I repair edge damage inside the scallops the same as anything else, though if I do have a particularly bad section I may focus on that spot a little more, but I try to be careful because I don't want to end up with one overly large or over sharpened scallop...if that makes sense. On my Autonomy when I cut the CAT5 cable and chipped the crap out of several teeth and scallops, I just went over the whole edge with a diamond rod and reprofiled the whole edge. When I first started using the Sharpmaker on SE one of my first concerns was "grinding the SE pattern away", and while I still don't trust 100% that this can't happen, I have now reprofiled 4 different SE knives on diamond rods and while the pattern does get more rounded and the ridges between the scallops do smooth down a bit, they still remain as defined as they were and you can measure this by comparing the curve of the edge to the curve of the top of the serrations on my leaf blade Caribbean and my Stretch, both of which haven't had the entire bevel reprofiled yet so the very top of the serrations still show the factory serration pattern/curve.
If you look close at this pic you can see where I've reprofiled this Stretch and fixed the edge from where I chewed it up using the tapered diamond rod. The shinier section towards the bottom of the scallops has been reprofiled and sharpened up through the ultra fine rods, while the top part is mostly factory ground aside from a couple spots where I went too far with the tapered diamond rod.
What's really surprising to me is the angle of the factory serration grind on that knife. I know that I didn't go so far as to lower the edge angle with the tapered diamond rod because you can see parts of the grind that are still factory. The shiny part of the lower bit of the edge that I'm pointing out was done on the 30 degree Sharpmaker setting, so that bevel is LOWER than 15 degrees. On my Caribbean and most of my other SE knives the edge seems to be just a bit higher than 15, since the 30 setting on the Sharpmaker tends to hit the shoulder and not the very edge. I haven't encountered a SE knife with a factory edge ground this low before.
Also if you look closely in this pic you can see that the very first large scallop towards the tip of the blade and the last large scallop at the plunge line are both right at 30 degrees, since the entire bevel has been sharpened and polished. It seems that the angle of the serrations gets lower towards the middle of the blade and higher at the ends. Since this Stretch has long since been discontinued, I wonder if these teeth were ground by hand, and that's why the angle varies so much?
I know Spyderco are doing a lot of bevels by robotic arm now. I would really like to know how Taichung are grinding the Caribbeans. That bevel is different from any other SE knife I've seen and it has some really interesting things going on, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was done by a robot.