I have been a bit absent from the forums, still love my knives (and carry everyday) but life has taken me away from my hobbies as of late. I recently ordered a Spyderco Sharpmaker to replace one I lost about 5 years ago (neglecting my collection, shame on me!) also I ordered a Caly 3.5 sprint run. Back to the post though, I am planning on putting an edge onto my Caly CF and am really scared of how neglected my blade is. This knife is my EDC and I abuse it to no end. I have some really nice chips in it and fear it will take me a lifetime to take these out. (Pic posted) I did order the diamond hone rods for the sharpmaker. Please feel free to chime in with some help. I really appreciate it !!
The diamond rods will make the job go a lot faster although it will still take some time and effort. When using the diamond rods, use light pressure . . . let the diamonds do the work. If you use too much pressure, you will cause the diamonds to become loose in their matrix and they will start falling out, shortening the useful life of the diamond rods. When they are new, the diamonds will crunch and break a bit, even with light pressure. That is normal break-in and nothing to worry about. After that break-in is complete, the rods will seem a bit less coarse but they will still be cutting fine.
Everyone has their own techniques and methods. Whatever works for you is fine. FWIMBW, here's mine: When re-setting the bevels, I work one side of the bevel at a time and use up and down strokes on the diamond rods which makes the job go a lot faster and also helps me keep a consistent angle cause I can "lock" my wrist and I'm not "losing" the angle by moving from one rod to the other. I stop frequently and check my progress. It's pretty easy to see where the coarse scratch pattern left by the diamonds is even w/o magnification. So you can easily see where you are grinding. When I get very close to hitting the actual edge, I slow down. I try to stop using the diamond rods just before hitting the actual edge with the diamond rods as I feel it is not good to have deep scratches put in very close to the edge where the metal is very thin. After I'm very close to hitting the actual edge with the diamond rods on both sides, I switch to the brown or med rods (or sometimes in my case, a 1k waterstone) to start smoothing out the scratches left by the diamonds and take it the final fraction of a millimeter all the way to the edge. After that it's just taking it up through the finer grits to continue refining and smoothing the bevels and edge. And put on a micro bevel if you want. I usually don't. For routine maintenance and touch ups, you don't need and shouldn't use the diamond rods.
Peter - My :spyder:'s:
Caly~3.5 (VG-10 & S. Blue); Para2~(20CP~M390~S30v); Military~(M390~S30v); Endura & Delica~4~FFG; Native~(S30v); Caly~Jr.~(ZDP); Manix~2~(M4); Ladybug~3~(VG-10. SE); Mules~(M390).
You can spare yourself lots and lots of time and work for just 1x shipping costs +$5... rest assured you'll wish you would have done that before the blade is even CLOSE to being sharp and clean again if you decide to use the Sharpmaker
... or get yourself a nice belt grinder :D
Seriously, send it in. You'll get back a knife that's just good as new. Been there, done that.
You can spare yourself lots and lots of time and work for just 1x shipping costs +$5... rest assured you'll wish you would have done that before the blade is even CLOSE to being sharp and clean again if you decide to use the Sharpmaker
... or get yourself a nice belt grinder :D
Seriously, send it in. You'll get back a knife that's just good as new. Been there, done that.
Dennis
As much as I think learning and sharpening your own knives is important, I think in this case, if your blade is that worn and dull, you have never sharpened this steel before and your doubting your abilities, I have to agree...send it back to Spyderco. Less headache, and theyll give the whole thing a tune up.
I had no problem at all thinning the edge on my ZDP Delica and it's a lot thicker, so don't panic. I used a Norton stone freehand, and nothing fazes that thing. I'm sure diamonds should work fine, if you have them with the Sharpmaker. I recommend the flats, since they cover more area.
If you are getting the diamond rods, no need to worry. I have the same knife and I abused it a bit using it as a scraper and dulled it pretty good.
The diamond rods brought the edge back fine, and then just run it through the other rods as normal.
I haven't had the knife long, but I really don't find it that much harder to sharpen than S30V, but I really enjoy making things sharp so the time goes by fast.
I agree with what others here have posted. Send that baby in. ZDP is a breeze to "keep" sharp, but can be a pain to rebevel even with diamond rods. $5 and a couple weeks without it is worth it in this case.
If you used a Lansky or Edge Pro or something a little easier to profile with id say its a good learning experience. On a Sharpmaker though, youll be at it a loooong time to get bad chips out. Honestly i would probably send my own in if the chips were bad enough.
All I can say is be very careful to maintain the proper angles so the knife doesn't get too messed up. You might lose some belly if you sharpen it wrong. It might take away from the leaf shape.
Unless you are a very experienced sharpener, and since you just bought a sharpmaker, I'm guessing you aren't, I would mail it back to Sypderco. There is nothing wrong with being new at sharpening, we were all new at it once.
My Endura 4 in ZDP was given to my brother and he abused and neglected it. I found it buried in the bottom of a tacklebox a year after he lost it. It was in bad shape. Really bad shape. I attempted to sharpen it on my sharpmaker and was getting no where, and getting very frustrated at sharpening in general. I would hate to see you get turned off to sharpening due to the pain in the butt sharpening ZDP can be to novices.
I ended up sending it in to Spyderco and getting it back a couple of weeks later and it was reborn. During that two weeks it was gone I researched knife sharpening. Bought the DMT sharpening system. Built my own four sided strop bat with 6, 3, 1, .25 micron diamond paste. Practiced on a Spyderco Byrd. And I can now put a mirrored hair splitting edge on any knife, even ZDPs.
I struggled with sharpening for years, all I ever did was dull knives, until I came across my beat up ZDP blade. So there was a happy ending after all.
One last piece of advice with ZDP. Don't let it get dull. Ever. Frequent touch-ups are the key to loving your ZDP steel.
And even now after I have gained the skill and equipment for it, it still takes a long time to re-profile ZDP.
Good luck to you!
“Open, close, cut, clean, oil, cut, cut, cut... To a Spyderco, that is living. Letting it die in the box is to lose 75% of what we put into it." -----Sal Glesser
I would take a diamond benchstone to it and go slow and just work it a bit at a time. You will have great satisfaction and also get practice in for later sharpening sessions. You can also sharpen a few of your other knives when you get bored with the ZDP :)
My diamond benchstone gets used a fair bit on all my knives be they kitchen or Spydie knives. For touching up I use the Sharpmaker or the kitchen steel.
