If you're the kind of person who has one of those annoying 'wheel sharpeners' for your knives best to stop reading now, as either you don't care about edge durability or you dont yet know what it'll mean to you. I'll concede that 'wheel sharpeners' can achieve a sharp [ish] edge, but never a durable edge.
I know its frustrating to start with, but by working your way through a set of stones you get an edge that is far more robust and with enough patience far far sharper too. It took me ages to be able to get even half decent results on a set of stones. While I was practicing I used and reviewed the Spyderco Sharp Maker, which with - a very small amount of practice/following the instructions, will give you excellent results. The Sharp Maker is absolutely the perfect sharpening system for Spyderco's blade geometry; works surprisingly well on axes, and is very safe and handy for broadheads: it took me a while to get good results from thicker convex blades like the F1, but its excellent and intuitive for any flat-ish grind.
What you get is a box that does double duty as a stand/handle for the hones, setting them at 40 and 30 [giving you grinds of 20 and 15] degrees for blade sharpening, 12 degrees for scissors and flat for an improvised bench stone. Comes with course brown and fine white hones which make short work of carbon steel and are hard enough for stainless' including the 'super steels' like VG10 ect.
I've always wanted a pair of the Ultra Fine hones but they used to be crazy money so I never took the plunge. They've come down in price a bit lately so I ordered some from the chaps at Eden Webshops and two days later they were on the door mat.
Puta Madre!
Hallelujah
Yes sir I can boogie
They're good, really good, they take you to a whole new realm of sharpness, and considering the sharpness you get from the fine hones, that's really something. To illustrate the point my TK6 has a cutting edge in Super Gold Powder Steel hardened to 62, the fine stones made very short work of restoring the factory edge.
If you've already got a Sharp Maker, get a set, these you will love. If you haven't yet got a Sharp maker you've only yourself to blame.
More Soon
SBW
You are getting very geeky...
ReplyDeleteMy chef's knives and electric chef's knive's sharpener have arrived. The knives are too perfect to mess with so I am going to test the sharpener with an 18th Century sabre.
Well, why not? 'It is like a knife, Jim, only longer...'
Film at Eleven.
Hippo
ReplyDeleteMaybe i'm just living out my geekyness on the blog more.
I'm looking forward to seeing the results of electric sharpening, the ones I've seen have all been 'woolworths specials' I wouldn't put a Mora through one, but I know there are professional use examples for big kitchens and slaughter houses that are very good.
Keep the sabre or sell it on Ebay but dont ruin it! Its historical man.
SBW
Famous last words:
ReplyDeleteDarling, I know what I am fucking doing so just be a love and stick the kettle on...
BTW, I could do with a fireside chat. Only 9 degrees south of the Equator and I'm fucking freezing!
ReplyDeleteVery nice, on this Christmas list, after the Tuned Sharp Innova, salmon reel, 5 new mole traps, SGC, new binoculars.......... And sadly the time to use them.
ReplyDeleteHi I was wondering, can I use a spyderco sharpmaker on my wakizashi, made around 1920? It lost alot of its original sharpness, however I feel a bit doubtful about that.
ReplyDeleteBought a spyderco sharpmaker at vassaknivar here in Sweden, now looking forward to use that amazing toolkit.
'wakizashi, made around 1920' , I'd ask on british blades before touching it
ReplyDeleteSBW