How to find out the exact angle a knife was sharpened and/or is a copycat?

[Brunzenstein48]

As I got a used Spyderco (I suppose was most probably refurbished but I'm not sure of) and wonder if there is a simple way besides the "Edding test" to find the actual angle a knife edge has and how the edge / apex finish looks fresh from the factors (on an original knife).

That could also be a simple way to find out if one offers or got a copycat product in his pocket.

[Cliff Stamp]

You can use the Sharpmaker to find the apex angle :

https://youtu.be/Pa-jOBJlX7U" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you use a little trig, you can shim the Sharpmaker to find the exact angle. All you need to know is that a 1 in 60 angle is ~1 degree.

I don't know what you mean by " how the edge / apex finish looks fresh from the factors (on an original knife)" . You can see the edge under magnification, it typically looks like this :

[Brunzenstein48]

Thank's for sharing the hint to determine the apex level by placing a newspaper on the Sharpmaker.

What I meant was - having now (thanks to you) a picture of a original factory graded knife one can see easily if the knife which is offered to him was regrind or home-sharpened off-factory standard. e.g. may be a fake, as Spyderco leaves with its sharpening by robots (non of Spyderco's knifes are hand sharpened) a certain distinguishable mark.
Not everybody has a original Spyderco not-resharpened knife at hand to compare - that was the idea.

[DougC-3]

As I got a used Spyderco (I suppose was most probably refurbished but I'm not sure of) and wonder if there is a simple way besides the "Edding test" to find the actual angle a knife edge has and how the edge / apex finish looks fresh from the factors (on an original knife).

That could also be a simple way to find out if one offers or got a copycat product in his pocket.

If you are thinking of using the edge bevel angle as one means of checking for an authentic Spyderco knife, I don't think it would be likely to work, because the edges are ground by hand and are likely to vary by a few degrees within a given model and maybe a lot from model to model.

Edit: Hi Brunzenstein48, I wrote this in response to your first post apparently while you were posting the second one above, so I wasn't trying to contradict your second post :D But it is my understanding that most Spyderco blades are hand ground on belts and consequently it's not unusual to find a difference in angle, even from one side to the other on the same knife. I guess to us Spydernuts, this is just one more expected and endearing factor. Some people who are concerned about exact angles reset the angles soon after they get them.

[Brunzenstein48]

But it is my understanding that most Spyderco blades are hand ground on belts and consequently

The last confirmed hand ground by Spyderco was done around 2012.

If you look closely at the 2015 video Spyderco "Shop Tour" https://youtu.be/JlsoX_Hkd1c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has published, there Glesser jr. proudly explains and showing of the sharpening robots, expressing that they are NOT anymore sharpening by hand as the tolerances for them would be to wide and standard to high to allow for hand sharpening.

That strengthens my argument that even after sharpening a Spyderco knife the special marks a robot leaves when sharpening at least on the (then remaining) back bevel could (like DNA) be a marker for the original product.
After regrinding logically, that's gone for good.

Besides - Spyderco is manufacturing its product in:

China (13 models)
Germany (1)
Italy (10)
Japan (148)
Switzerland (1)
Taiwan (32)
USA (46)

so to ensure uniformity over the whole production line, machine tooled knifes with tight tolerances from start to finish is the trick - and not manual labor is (imho) -

[GoldenSpydie]

non of Spyderco's knifes are hand sharpened

Are you sure about that? I think that the Nilakka has a micro bevel put on by hand:

Hi Cody,

Welcome to our forum.

What we're doing now is 60 strokes on a diamond at 30 degrees and 20 strokes on a fine stone at 30 degerees. Seems to be working fine.

sal

From here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... !!!!/page6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Brunzenstein48]

non of Spyderco's knifes are hand sharpened

Are you sure about that? I think that the Nilakka has a micro bevel put on by hand:

Hi Cody,

Welcome to our forum.

What we're doing now is 60 strokes on a diamond at 30 degrees and 20 strokes on a fine stone at 30 degerees. Seems to be working fine.

sal

From here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showt ... !!!!/page6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That was back then 2012...

[edged]

The last confirmed hand ground by Spyderco was done around 2012.

If you look closely at the 2015 video Spyderco "Shop Tour" https://youtu.be/JlsoX_Hkd1c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has published, there Glesser jr. proudly explains and showing of the sharpening robots, expressing that they are NOT anymore sharpening by hand as the tolerances for them would be to wide and standard to high to allow for hand sharpening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... KIuw#t=404" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I think you may have misheard. In the link above Eric says "This is something that we're doing on some of our models, but not all of our models at this time". I didn't catch any mention of whether or not it was used in the other factories Spyderco uses either.

You can use the Sharpmaker to find the apex angle :

https://youtu.be/Pa-jOBJlX7U" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you use a little trig, you can shim the Sharpmaker to find the exact angle. All you need to know is that a 1 in 60 angle is ~1 degree.

I don't know what you mean by " how the edge / apex finish looks fresh from the factors (on an original knife)" . You can see the edge under magnification, it typically looks like this :

That newspaper tip has been a tremendous help for me in being able to find the correct angle to hold a knife when sharpening. Thanks for making the video. Will it catch on a microbevel angle instead of the secondary grind, or does it depend on the size of the microbevel?

[Cliff Stamp]

Thanks for making the video. Will it catch on a microbevel angle instead of the secondary grind, or does it depend on the size of the microbevel?

It measures the apex angle mainly. If the apex angle is very small then the paper can compress enough to make it catch. Essentially the shoulder of the apex angle presses into the paper which forces it to pile up infront of the apex angle.

[Cliff Stamp]

That strengthens my argument that even after sharpening a Spyderco knife the special marks a robot leaves when sharpening at least on the (then remaining) back bevel could (like DNA) be a marker for the original product.

It wasn't clear to me they were doing all robot sharpening. However it isn't obvious to me that there would be an easy way for example to look at robot sharpened edge and a jig sharpened edge and know which was which. If a guy used a jig to belt grind a bevel with a similar abrasive and then did a pass on a buffer, I think it would not be trivial to pick out the robot ones.

[bearfacedkiller]

I think that the majority of Spyderco's knives are sharpened by hand and that the robot is relatively new. Watch the video again. I also think that most knives in the industry are still done by hand.

https://youtu.be/_Du7AFPKIuw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jump to around 8:50

[stalag2]

I'm curious about which models get the robot sharpening duty, i know for sure none of my Spydies were robot sharpened as all of them had significant variations and artifacts like recurves toward ricasso or warped grinds.
The only really true consistent edges i ever got were SE with a notable exception on a CE Dlc millie which had a chip and nasty burrs and an Endura 4 which cant be sharpened at 20dps and i'm fairly sure it has to do with the overly thick flat saber grind.

[DougC-3]

I think that the majority of Spyderco's knives are sharpened by hand and that the robot is relatively new. Watch the video again. I also think that most knives in the industry are still done by hand.

https://youtu.be/_Du7AFPKIuw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jump to around 8:50

Correct Just to quote the video in case some people don't have time to watch it, Eric says:

"Many of our knives are hand polished, they're hand sanded, they're hand sharpened... and a lot of handwork still goes into our knives."