The sharpmaker has always worked great for me but I could never really get the tip as sharp as it was from the factory, and the knives in general lacked the freaky "hairs popping off in fear" sharpness by 3-5% or so. They'd pop hairs but not in quite the same fashion. And the tip was only 30-40% as sharp as I had liked - I like a surgically sharp knife tip, as this is really useful for opening envelopes, etc. It was frustrating and I've heard and seen others with the same problem.
Note: I know not everyone wants that level of freaky sharpness, but if you can achieve it, you know you're using the right fundamentals. It was frustrating to me that the tip was always duller than the rest!
All that changed after I implemented the techniques in this video and used a balsa strop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSG_W5BSwcw
I don't use the technique very aggressively to reprofile the tip, but instead just add a few strokes on the back of the sharpmaker as shown, with each stone (10-20 strokes on the diamond rods and gray stones, 4-8 on the white fine and ultra-fine). Then I use the triangular aspect of the stone to sharpen from the tip to the pivot. Then I flip over to the flat side and work on the tip and the belly separately. Then I do a few full strokes along the length of the blade, very lightly, being careful not to round off the tip. Then move on to the next stone and start over. For my Native 5 I was using the 30 degree "back bevel" not the 40-degree angles.
This time I went all the way up to the ultra-fine white rods on my Native 5. There is some debate as to whether a "polished" edge is better than a "toothy" edge...the way I see it is if you use the fine & ultra-fine VERY lightly and carefully, you are not grinding off the saw-like micro "teeth," but are just polishing the bevel and aligning the edge better.
When I was done with the stones I tested the edge on a receipt paper and it was about 98% as sharp as I wanted it to be...it caught a little bit doing a circular free cut but was very aggressive whether slicing or push cutting.
Enter the balsa strop. I simply rubbed some Mother's polish onto one face of a rectangular piece of balsa (which happened to be roughly the size of the Sharpmaker stones) and stropped using moderate-to-light pressure, 5 times on either side. I did it freehand making sure to use a good angle, not rounding off the bevel. Then I stropped it some using moderate pressure on the triangular edge of the balsa (which wasn't loaded with polish). I finished using very light pressure on an unloaded rectangular face.
And voila...the whole knife is as sharp as a factory spydie, probably sharper. Push cuts circles out of receipt paper all day long, but it's still incredibly aggressive for slicing. I'm interested to see how the S35vn does over time, so I'm not going to touch the edge up much if at all now.
Hope this helps someone out with refining their sharpmaker technique!
Note: I know not everyone wants that level of freaky sharpness, but if you can achieve it, you know you're using the right fundamentals. It was frustrating to me that the tip was always duller than the rest!
All that changed after I implemented the techniques in this video and used a balsa strop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSG_W5BSwcw
I don't use the technique very aggressively to reprofile the tip, but instead just add a few strokes on the back of the sharpmaker as shown, with each stone (10-20 strokes on the diamond rods and gray stones, 4-8 on the white fine and ultra-fine). Then I use the triangular aspect of the stone to sharpen from the tip to the pivot. Then I flip over to the flat side and work on the tip and the belly separately. Then I do a few full strokes along the length of the blade, very lightly, being careful not to round off the tip. Then move on to the next stone and start over. For my Native 5 I was using the 30 degree "back bevel" not the 40-degree angles.
This time I went all the way up to the ultra-fine white rods on my Native 5. There is some debate as to whether a "polished" edge is better than a "toothy" edge...the way I see it is if you use the fine & ultra-fine VERY lightly and carefully, you are not grinding off the saw-like micro "teeth," but are just polishing the bevel and aligning the edge better.
When I was done with the stones I tested the edge on a receipt paper and it was about 98% as sharp as I wanted it to be...it caught a little bit doing a circular free cut but was very aggressive whether slicing or push cutting.
Enter the balsa strop. I simply rubbed some Mother's polish onto one face of a rectangular piece of balsa (which happened to be roughly the size of the Sharpmaker stones) and stropped using moderate-to-light pressure, 5 times on either side. I did it freehand making sure to use a good angle, not rounding off the bevel. Then I stropped it some using moderate pressure on the triangular edge of the balsa (which wasn't loaded with polish). I finished using very light pressure on an unloaded rectangular face.
And voila...the whole knife is as sharp as a factory spydie, probably sharper. Push cuts circles out of receipt paper all day long, but it's still incredibly aggressive for slicing. I'm interested to see how the S35vn does over time, so I'm not going to touch the edge up much if at all now.
Hope this helps someone out with refining their sharpmaker technique!
