Review: Spyderco Sharpmaker 204MF Ultra Fine

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

Unboxing: The Lansky Sharpening System

Dumpster Dived Kitchen Knife Of Unknown Stainless Steel

Sometimes there are benefits to this Blogging thing, if you post enough about a subject sooner or later you get offered stuff to review. Although contrary to popular belief I'm not sponsored by Patrick Smith of Kifaru, in fact when I look into the empty void in my pockets, it feels more like I sponsor him!

Every once in a while someone writes in and asks me to review a piece of kit. Sadly most of them are vendors of crap I wouldn't have in the house, let alone take afield or recommend to you. Every once in a while it's something I've been meaning to buy so when Scott from Lansky popped me an email I was thrilled. I've known lots of fans of the Lansky Sharpening System so I was very happy to have one of my own to play with.

Straight out of the box it's a pretty well thought out piece of kit with enough grades of abrasive to take a knife from used-and-abused to damn-that's-sharp. I know lots of you have struggled with freehand sharpening, and to be honest its taken me a lot of time and effort to get even reasonably remotely good reasonable at it. I'm still no where near as good at it as I want to be and it takes a lot of time to get a credible edge.

Most sharpening systems that actually make a durable edge are bloody expensive.  It's very easy to make a knife sharp for a few cuts, most of those little 'pull-through' sharpeners will give you an edge of sorts, but it won't stay sharp. What they create is a very very thing 'wire edge' which soon flattens or breaks off leaving a dull edge behind. What helps is a fixed sharpening angle. So as a first step to sharp and durable the Lansky seems like the logical choice.

So how does it work?
The Lansky is a blade clamp with a series of slots which guide the hones as they contact the cutting edge, every stroke is the same as the last one, meaning that you're avoiding the classic beginners mistakes of mis-estimating the angle and you're always taking material off the blade without the odd acidental 'off angle' strokes undoing of the work you've already done. Works well.

Stay tuned for the next part where I'll show you some tips I've compiled for getting the most out of the system as I take a truly used-and-abused Mora Clipper back to hair-popping sharp.

Your Pal
SBW

The Return Of The F1

My fallkniven F1 dropped onto the door mat a couple of days ago, back from its trip to its birth place in Sweden. Now that it's back I though I do a review after a year or more of use.

I bought the F1 as I'd seen them mentioned on numerous Bushcraft and knife forums and seen a few well thought of instructors using them. While the F1 isn't my idea of the perfect bushcraft knife - blades too thick for fine woodcarving- I do really rate the design. Alone in the woods this puppy would be a wellspring of confidence. For fire and shelter it's absolutely perfect, if you wanted to whittle a violin to play while your waiting to be rescued you may find something a little thinner more to your taste.

Regular readers will remember that I chipped the tip (1mm-1.5mm) a while back splitting a piece of Leylandii for a backyard fire. I wasnt that impressed, but in fairness to fallkniven I had already subjected the knife to some heavy use during which it had acquitted itself admirably. 

One of the key feature of a 'survival knife's is that it needs to be a 'pry bar with an edge' and buoyed with the confidence of other peoples user reports I took them at their word and treated it without mercy. After the testing I did in the first few days I had cause to take up all the carpet in the bottom part of the house; cut it into pieces small enough to sneak into the domestic rubbish collection, take up what seemed like miles of carpet tracking (the nail studded wooden strips that holds your carpet against the wall) and then pry up a few floor boards. No problem. Scratches? Yes loads, but it kept an edge and showed no signs of bending.

Then I set out to teach myself convex sharpening, using the mouse mat method, and although it pains me to tell you this - I suck at it. The idea is that you glue a range of different abrasives papers to the undersides of old mouse mats and by pulling the blade over the abrasive service you'll sharpen the edge, while maintaining the 'apple seed' shape of the blade. Many, many people have achieved spectacular results with this method. One day I may even join their ranks.

If you fancy a go yourself here's the top tip I SHOULD have followed.

The only pressure you need is the weight of the blade, ANY pressing down on the blade will round the edge not sharpen it. Opps!

I put the F1 in the post to Peter Hjortberger, owner of fallkniven, and this is what he emailed back to me.

......Your knife has arrived. What I find is a well used knife, very blunt edge and a loss of the tip of around 1.5 mm. Regular wear and tear is NOT covered by our warranty. Our offer is to regrind your blade into a good shape for free but charge you for the return cost......

I thought this was a fair assessment of the situation and gratefully coughed up for the postage.

Team Fallkniven have refinished the blade to a wicked edge, sharper than when it came out of the box, and put a shine on the blade that would let you signal to a rescue plane. The blade seems a little thinner than I remember it, but I didn't/don't have a micrometer handy.

The person who re worked the blade took a bit of metal off the ricasso (where the handle ends and where the shaping of the edge begins) I'm sure many Britishblades or knifeforums members would be livid, but as I keep having to explain to my nearest and dearest I'm not a knife collector, I'm an enthusiast. They're tools to me.  

So, having been thoroughly tested,  I can give what I expect to be my final assessment of the F1. 

• Worth the money? YES 

(I told a well known knife vendor what I paid for mine and the look on his face made me think they aint that cheap wholesale, but even during our current exchange-rate-meltdown they're still a lot of tool for the cash - if you are after one: I keep seeing bargains on british blades in the Portobello Rd forum)

• Holds an edge? YES (It'll withstand anything. Except incompetence)
  
• Strongly made? YES  (very, beating it this deep destroyed the Oak mallet I used)

• Fit for purpose? YES (they were designed as survival knives, not scalpels, not bushcraft knives. They also make excellent carpet removal tools)
  
• Would I buy another? What do you think? ;-)

Wait 'till you see the bayonet I got for my birthday!!

your pal

The Bushwacker

British Blades

There is a resource
It's on the web of course

About the gathering of blades
And the ways that they are made

Guys who'll sell you a blade on its own
Folk who have devised a new hone

Handles in Wood, G10 and Micarta
It's extensive, they'll have what your after

Steel matrix seen under a 'scope
Neck knives, handled with some rope

Sheaths in vegetable dyed leather
Finishes to withstand the weather

Rigid camp choppers, fish knives with some flex
Tutorials, make Damascus, sheath in Kydex

The merits of each kind of temper and quench
Exclusive output from a master makers bench

Thorough, long standing user review
Granddads folder to draw queens brand new

Edges; convex, scandi, and full flat
It's all there, from superb! To what is that?

A great resource, maybe I'm showing my ignorance here, but I've never had a question about blade making that I've not seen already answered somewhere on British Blades.

If you're in the market for a new knife this thread is an amazing list of makers from all over the world.

If you're looking for something usable but affordable, I've seen some shocking bargains on the site too.

Cheers
SBW

When Going Nuts, First Take A Leek.

Been a while hasn’t it? I’ve been ‘up north’ with The Northern Monkey and on my return the lair of the Bushwackers has suffered from water ingress, so I’ve had to dedicate the last few days to plumbing.

The chestnuts are now on form at more northerly latitudes, and I promised I’d post a recipe for my pal The Northern Monkey.

If you’re fortunate enough to be picking your chestnuts off the ground (as opposed to buying them) early picking really seems to help processing, as the dew makes the skins are a little more flexible.And of course your beating the competition to the last nights crop.

When I started using the SharpMaker on everything in the house with a blade, I noticed that I habitually started the sharpening stroke a little way down the blade and this has given my F1 a very slight (1mm) curve with a steeper blade angle on the 5mm nearest the handle. And I’ve started to see this as a lucky accident. The slight curve made the ideal ‘nicker’ for opening the skins and then peeling them off.

Once you get inside the nut you get to the pith which when fresh and damp is much easier to scrape off. If your roasting your chestnuts the pith isn’t really a problem as it crisps up inside the shell and falls off. When you buy pickled or dried chestnuts from the deli they are perfectly pithless, just beautiful ‘brain like’ orbs of, well, yummy-ness.
I’ve always wanted my gathered chestnuts to look like that too. This year I’ve gotten a bit closer.

As I was peeling, I put them into salted cold water, then blanched them in boiling salted water, before plunging them into cold water. Quite a few more ended up skinless this year. It was all pretty time consuming; a carrier bag three quarters full took four hours to go from park to freezer.

Despite this success I had no joy at all remembering that, while my thumb nail is the ideal peeling tool, its my nail-bed that pays the price for the next few days. Ouch!

For the next batch:
I have a boning knife (somewhere?) that has an exaggerated curve at the start of the blade, I’m interested to know how it works out. Also I’ve just learned that the tannin rich skins were extensively used in traditional hide tanning, either dried or fresh. Which will be handy as TNM has a source of unprocessed deer hides. Sadly the skins off the first lot are already in the compost heap.
If any of you have any pointers on how to get a skinless finish they’d be much appreciated.


Marrons du Gallois or to you and me ‘Welsh Chestnuts’

Your going to need:
Leeks (easy to grow or buy)
Cream (Organic unpasteurised is best)
Splash of white wine (maybe a Chardonnay)
Hand picked-hand processed-artisan chestnuts (or failing that ones from the shop).
Shallots (onions wont really do it)
Pancetta (or ‘dry cure’ bacon pieces not the factory farmed watery stuff )
Garlic

Fry the bacon in its own fat until its got some colour leaving the bacon fat in the pan set the bacon aside.
Slice the shallots and garlic as thinly as you can and add them to the pan, reducing the heat to a flicker. Put a lid on the pan and sweat them to a syrupy mush.
While that’s happening you can thinly slice the leeks LENGTHWAYS so the slices look almost like spaghetti.
When the shallots and garlic are really slimy in go the chestnuts, bacon, and the wine.
Turn up the heat to evaporate the alcohol, and reduce by about ten percent.
Pour in the cream and as it starts to reduce add the leeks.
Its important to time the last bit so the cream reduces enough while the leeks are still a vibrant colour. Better under cooked than over cooked for the leeks.

Serve with
Pie crust: (to guarantee a perfectly cooked crust with no nasty stodgy bits, I cook the crust separately – just roll it out put it on a baking tray and stick it in the oven)
Pasta: I vote for papadeli!
Mashed potatoes: or better still mashed potatoes with forest mushrooms stirred into them!

If you’ve got any left add milk and water, wiz the whole lot up in a food processor to make a great soup.
Hope you're all well, thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Ceramic File Set

At the same time as I got the SharpMaker (see Really, Really Sharp Knives) I ordered these ceramic files.

Ceramics may clog quickly, but they scour clean even more quickly. No file ever wears less. In this set the profiles are round, square, triangular, and teardrop (with a groove for sharpening points on fishing hooks and darts). They come in a comforting suede pouch.
I would have liked to see a conical file included in the set. But, for the money,they are what they are.

£41 in the UK
$31.95 (£16) from the usual suspects
Spyderco SP-400F ceramic file set

Non illegitimis carborundum
Bushwacker.

Really, Really Sharp Knives Spyderco Sharpmaker Review

Being a bit of a lummox with a whetstone I wanted to try one of the sharpening systems that have proliferated in recent years

The Lansky system received a glowing recommendation from my cousin T, but honing oil and a clamp to attach the system to a table top have little place afield, so ruled it out for me. I settled on the Spyderco SharpMaker, as it looked more portable, less complex and is a ‘dry’ sharpener.

While I don’t currently own any Spyderco knives I’m a fan, for the most part their blades seem well made and with a few exceptions the designs are well thought out.
And being a lover of the simple direct self-explanatory sales pitch, I’m very taken with their slogan:

“First we made things sharp, then we made sharp things”.

Loads of glowing user reviews on the net tell how the new owner sharpened everything in the house, then the shed, and nearly all of them report how much sharper their nail clippers are!
I’d like to be more committed to sustainability, but it had never occurred to me to give a new lease of life to my nail clippers, until I saw the instructional DVD and book that came with the SharpMaker. Presented in an irony free infomercial style it gives you clear instruction and uses nail clippers as an example of how you can use the SharpMaker on anything with an edge.

If you use braid fishing line, you'll know just how much some people are charging for 'braid clippers', the SharpMaker means you can make your own from even the cheapest nail clippers.

The design is a very simple and ingenious mix of freehand and guided sharpening. Two ceramic hones fit into a stable plastic base, two brass rods stop you cutting the back of your hand open.
The base has 30, 40, 12.5 and zero degree settings. The 40 setting gives you a 20 degree edge – acute enough for sharpness yet obtuse enough to withstand extended use. The 30 degree (2x15 degrees) setting lets you ‘thin’ the profile of your blade. The presenter of the DVD suggests that you wont have to use this feature that often, but if like me you've got a whole variety of different edged tools in varying states of sharpness, you might be pleasantly surprised at how good this feature is. It had the most fantastic effect on one of my kitchen knives. The 12.5 degree setting is for scissors and the zero degree setting lets you use the stones as a conventional flat grinding area. The hones are formed by mixing synthetic sapphires (alumina particles) with a ceramic bonding agent, then kiln-firing at temperatures around 1,600 degrees C (3000 degrees F). Ceramic upside: very hard will file almost anything. Ceramic downside: clogs easily. Spyderco also offer two other sets of hones that fit the SharpMaker, a pair of steel hones with very course alumina particles stuck on the outside for rough shaping work ( I’ve not found a price for them) and an ultra fine pair for an even finer edge.
List price $75
Rip-off Britain a laughable £75 (yes $150!!!!)
Best Knives have them for $42.95 (£21.50p) Or about the same price as a 'high end' braid clipper!
The ultra fine hones are $57.95

The bit where Spyderco have missed a trick is the additional hones don't fit into the case.
http://spyderco.com/

http://bestknives.com/spydtriansha.html

For the last word in sharpening have a look at this guy.
the guys who know say he's the guy who knows
Old Jimbo
Old Jimbo too