Maxamet sharpening is no joke.

[Spyderfreek]

Well it was finally time to sharpen the Sage 1 in Maxamet, it wasn't even that dull, just snagging a bit on paper. Even with DMT extra coarse, I spent near 4 hours getting a sharpish knife back to razor sharp, I wish someone would invent an abrasive harder than diamonds, because it almost feels like trying to reprofile 10v on an Arkansas stone at times.

Can't blame the DMT plates either, just yesterday I completely tore the edge off an AUS 8 folder opening 3 cans of potatoes (can opener broke in the middle of opening so I had to improvise) and it took me all of 30 minutes to repair the damage and bring it back to razor.

Don't get me wrong, I really like Maxamet, I use my knives pretty hard at work and have had no problems with chipping and it's fun having a knife that is literally harder than glass, but you'd better clear a whole day if you need to sharpen it because you'll be hunched over a stone for awhile.

[yablanowitz]

I don't have that much trouble myself. I use my knives harder than most, so I've sharpened my Maxamet blades a lot. Cutting a whole new bevel takes some time, but just putting on an edge isn't that bad.

[RustyIron]

you'd better clear a whole day if you need to sharpen it because you'll be hunched over a stone for awhile.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there is a problem with either your stones or your methodology. Four hours is enough to grind that blade down to a nub.

[WilliamMunny]

you'd better clear a whole day if you need to sharpen it because you'll be hunched over a stone for awhile.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there is a problem with either your stones or your methodology. Four hours is enough to grind that blade down to a nub.

I have to agree, I had a small but noticeable chip near the tip of my Maxamet Para 3. I was able to sharpen it out in about 10 minutes using some basic Worksharp diamond stones.

[Scandi Grind]

Huh, this has me perpetually wondering if I am missing something huge about sharpening. It can take me ten minutes to get a basic edge on a simple carbon steel, much less remove a chip. My only thought would be I don't use enough pressure to remove material at hardly any rate, but I have certainly never been given the advice to increase pressure.

[vandelay]

I've found maxamet fairly quick to sharpen on DMT stones. I rarely sharpen my maxamet knives but last time I did it, it took about as long as any other decent steel.

I would also not recommend a DMT extra coarse stone on maxamet unless you're trying to do some major reprofiling. I've found the extra coarse stone just tends to put tons of chips in the blade that are hard to grind out with the finer stones.

One other thing that can cause sharpening to take forever is when your DMT stones aren't broken in yet. Fresh stones tend to have high spots which microchip the blade to the point where it'll feel dull.

[Manifestgtr]

Do your stones have some age on them?

Four hours is definitely excessive, to parrot what everyone else is saying, but I have noticed that maxamet doesn’t seem to love my most broken in plates (no knife loves new plates…so you’d definitely notice that elsewhere if that was the issue). On normally worn, “middle age” plates, it really shouldn’t be much more than 30-45 minutes, including any strops you might use.

[Erich]

Well it was finally time to sharpen the Sage 1 in Maxamet, it wasn't even that dull, just snagging a bit on paper. Even with DMT extra coarse, I spent near 4 hours getting a sharpish knife back to razor sharp, I wish someone would invent an abrasive harder than diamonds, because it almost feels like trying to reprofile 10v on an Arkansas stone at times.

Can't blame the DMT plates either, just yesterday I completely tore the edge off an AUS 8 folder opening 3 cans of potatoes (can opener broke in the middle of opening so I had to improvise) and it took me all of 30 minutes to repair the damage and bring it back to razor.

Don't get me wrong, I really like Maxamet, I use my knives pretty hard at work and have had no problems with chipping and it's fun having a knife that is literally harder than glass, but you'd better clear a whole day if you need to sharpen it because you'll be hunched over a stone for awhile.

Diamond will easily sharpen Maxamet in minutes. I assume you are freehanding and are reprofiling the edge angle. Freehanding makes achieving a good V edge angle impossible because of how the hands wobble and because of that your apex/tip will suffer; it won't form properly and thus won't get sharp. You have to be a very experienced sharpener to take Maxamet or even S30V in a thick folding knife blade and freehand a wholly new edge angle on a bare stone/plate without any guidance. You need to get a jig-system if you are going to reprofile edges. Look into Edge Pro or KME. There may be others out there. Do not go cheap and don't bother with the Lansky system.

It is much easier to freehand kitchen knives because of the smaller angle you are working with, because of the thinner blade stock compared to pocket knives. The thick stocks and large angles of pocket knives makes pass consistency much more important because you have to hold that consistency for longer to shave the longer V edge angle on each side.

Hyper brittle steels like Maxamet, S110V, or ZDP-189 are poor candidates for diamond sharpening. Unlike other abrasives, diamond leaves very irregular and deep gouging scratch marks on the edge. This forms a kind of haphazard micro serrated edge. The problem is that when you have these hyper brittle steels with all those little unsupported teeth dangling out there, those teeth easily shear off because of how brittle the steel is and you will immediately notice a decline in sharpness. This is not a "burr" it is inherent in diamond sharpening because of the severe gouging. That is why you see all the diamond guys following up the stone routine with a variety of strop pastes or sprays to try and get the final bit of that diamond gouging out of the edge. This does not happen for example with coarser water stones because the gentle, uniform way they scratch the steel. You could follow up diamond with ceramic waterstones for example which are designed for ultra high carbide steels but there is a kind of "culture" around the "super steel" crowd here on the internet of only using diamond or CBN even though good quality waterstones will surely do the job. You could follow up diamond stones with good ol' medium and fine ceramics to grind out the gouging and you would be fine.

But no, diamond will easily sharpen Maxamet. A Sigma Power or Shapton ceramic waterstone will easily sharpen Maxamet. A good "normal" waterstone like Naniwa Chosera will easily sharpen Maxamet. Spyderco's ceramics will sharpen Maxamet. You begin seeing the process slow down with these steels with cheap abrasives or hyper fine abrasives like a fine or ultra fine ceramic. There is a lot of mythmaking around super steels on the internet. The advantage of diamond over these others is that though they all will sharpen Maxamet, diamond is low maintenance and inherently coarser, so it is convenient for reprofiling.

[RustyIron]

but I have certainly never been given the advice to increase pressure.

Like any other cutting operation, proper pressure is needed to obtain the desired removal of material, minimize tool wear, control heat, reduce time, and create the desired finish.

Perhaps some folks get the wrong idea because they read the forums and the experts say that the pressure applied to the stone is less than the weight of the blade. But what they're talking about and what we're talking about here are two different things. We're talking about removing more material quickly because four hours is excessive. So in the context of this thread, it might be sensible to apply more pressure.

Only after we have removed enough material to obtain the desired shape should we move on to refining the edge.

[Wandering_About]

Diamonds are your friend when it comes to Maxamet. Be a bit careful with the coarse grits, just touch the edge with the scratch pattern, then apex and deburr with the finer grits. I reprofiled both a Para 3 and a PM2 in Maxamet and spent I think 45 minutes or so on each one.





These were done freehand, and it does take practice to get good at it, and there's a certain level of convexity that is the edge has in the end. But you can get Maxamet sharp this way. I actually find it takes a great edge.

[Subverto]

I think your stones must be worn out. I just recently reprofiled a Maxamet Para 3 using Hapstone CBN Start stones and I couldn't believe how easy it was.

[WilliamMunny]

Also try the marker trick next time. Put marker on the edge before you start sharpening and see what part of the edge you are actually hitting with the stone. You might just be hitting the shoulder due to your angle being too steep.

[kobold]

10-15 minutes should be enough even for a very dull Maxamet on DMT diamond plates before moving on to a diamond loaded strop. I think the trick is to not apply a lot of pressure, and none at all for the last few strokes.

[Mage7]

Well it was finally time to sharpen the Sage 1 in Maxamet, it wasn't even that dull, just snagging a bit on paper. Even with DMT extra coarse, I spent near 4 hours getting a sharpish knife back to razor sharp, I wish someone would invent an abrasive harder than diamonds, because it almost feels like trying to reprofile 10v on an Arkansas stone at times.

Can't blame the DMT plates either, just yesterday I completely tore the edge off an AUS 8 folder opening 3 cans of potatoes (can opener broke in the middle of opening so I had to improvise) and it took me all of 30 minutes to repair the damage and bring it back to razor.

Don't get me wrong, I really like Maxamet, I use my knives pretty hard at work and have had no problems with chipping and it's fun having a knife that is literally harder than glass, but you'd better clear a whole day if you need to sharpen it because you'll be hunched over a stone for awhile.

To clarify...

Were you trying to remove large amounts of metal to remove chips or reprofile?

Or were you just trying to sharpen up a relatively undamaged apex?

It sounds like you were talking about the second one, and in that case, I'm not really surprised that it took longer to get a Maxamet edge as refined as an AUS-8 edge off of an ultra coarse abrasive. Reason being is that Maxamet is really brittle, so you're going to be fighting micro-chipping with extra coarse abrasives. Basically every stroke you try to do to refine the apex, you'll risk chipping more and more, and the apex will always be a little thicker than if it weren't chipping. Since AUS-8 is much more ductile, you can refine that apex much thinner on coarse abrasives without as much risk of micro chipping. It can really turn into a game of cat and mouse where you undo the refinement you achieved with the last stroke, especially if you're not finessing the pressure and angle precisely.

On the other hand, if you were finding that you just couldn't remove metal that fast, then I would second the suggestion of using more pressure. The thing about diamond abrasives is that even though they're harder to than the individual carbides in a carbide-rich steel, the cutting action is still distributed over a surface area that can make high HRC steels feel glassy even on diamond abrasives, especially diamond plates that are well broken-in.

I would second what Wandering_About and vabdelay mentioned about not trying to apex the edge on the extra coarse abrasives, but rather just try to get it into the ballpark, and use coarse or medium abrasives to apex the edge, and then fine to ultra fine for apex refinement.

Then again, take my advice with a grain of salt, because I have no experience with Maxamet. But I have reprofiled 15V, 10V and K294 quite a bit so far and don't find them that much different than other steels, except that they need a little bit more pressure to overcome that glassy feeling. I have noticed this even with ZDP-189, which has much softer chromium carbides, but still has an overall higher hardness. I believe the feedback will tell you when you're using enough pressure.

Also, don't fall into the belief that coarser abrasives always equal faster metal removal. It's counter intuitive, but sometimes finer grits will cut faster. For example, if you were still cutting up paper with that edge, a Coarse or Fine DMT hone probably would have sufficiently cut. I do all my touching up on a very well broken in DMT Fine hone that's close to 15 years old now. I only resort to the extra coarse stuff if the apex is seriously blunted, there's chips that need repaired, or I want to reprofile.

[Mage7]

Four hours is enough to grind that blade down to a nub.
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Genuine question: Is that just hyperbole? I tend to take hours reprofiling, even on super coarse hones--depending on the angle, blade size, thickness and what not, of course; fastest I think I have done a full reprofile on any blade is an hour. I always see people saying it takes MINUTES for them to reprofile knives, and figure they've got to be exaggerating. On the other hand, I kinda go a lot slower compared to what I see people do in videos; I estimate I don't do any faster than 60 strokes per minute. That pace kinda got ingrained in me from my shop instructor teaching me file work and insisting any faster would dull files out.

[Giygas]

Ive never really understood the Maxamet sharpening complaints. Sure it takes a bit longer, but nothing about it is really difficult.

I've spent way longer chasing burrs on soft m390/20cv than I've ever spent sharpening Maxamet.

Even the extra time it takes isn't that bad. Dropping the angle on my .030" bte s110v ZT 0562 from ~30dps to 17dps made sharpening my Maxamet Manix feel like sharpening an opinel.

[BEER_IS_COOL]

Huh, this has me perpetually wondering if I am missing something huge about sharpening. It can take me ten minutes to get a basic edge on a simple carbon steel, much less remove a chip. My only thought would be I don't use enough pressure to remove material at hardly any rate, but I have certainly never been given the advice to increase pressure.

This is the same exact issue I've ran into numerous times. I tend to run my edges across my stones as light as a feather. Usually this works but there are some steels that require me to be more mindful of my technique and apply more pressure.

Also, I notice that the longer I tend to work on an edge there is a higher chance I will ruin it. My attention to detail deteriorates and my technique becomes sloppy after 1-2 hours. At this stage I am frustrated and this only makes things worse.

I spent hours trying to sharpen my CruCarta PM2. It got to the point where I said screw it, completely dulled the knife, and started over. Had it perfect in like 20 minutes.

Sometimes you just need to take a break and come back at it with a good attitude.

[RustyIron]

Genuine question: Is that just hyperbole?

My intention wasn't to be hyperbolic. You might say I was, because no sensible person would grind his blade into a nub.

We sometimes become deluded into thinking our blades possess some kind of magical qualities. With our sharpening tools, we're like ancient alchemists chanting incantations in smoke-filled dungeons. We're not. Our blades are just chunks of metal that behave by the same laws as every other chunk of metal since metal was first barfed out of a supernova 6,000 years ago.

What we're talking about in this thread is hogging way at the blade to get the desired shape before we start our sharpening process. If people are unhappy with the time it takes to reshape a chunk of metal using fine tools and delicate pressures, they might want to reconsider what it is they're actually trying to achieve, and find a better way to do it.

It's like hiring a gardener to plant a new tree in your yard. You go outside to check on the progress and find him digging the hole with a garden trowel. Sure, he can do the job with a trowel. But does it make sense?

The right tools and techniques will get the job done nicely in a sensible amount of time.

[Deadboxhero]

If it's taking you more than an hour, there is an inefficiency in the stone being used or the technique and it's usually a combination of both.

It takes me 30 minutes on an edge pro to sharpen 2.5 in blade with no edge at a 0.010" plateau to paper cutting sharp at 15dps in Maxamet.

Free hand sharpening is faster, I can sharpen an 8-in blade with the same conditions in under 15 minutes.

I think the problem we have in the sharpening community is that we don't really separate the efficiency and performance of different techniques used to sharpen and it's pretty emotionally charged to point out flaws in a specific technique or style.

[Scandi Grind]

I guess sharpening can turn into charged conversation easily, which can be a shame, because honestly I'd love someone to tell me I'm totally wrong and explain what proper technique is to get an 8 inch dull blade sharp in under 15 minutes. I don't know if it possible to properly teach on a forum though, which has mostly been my only way of learning.