While I wouldn’t call myself a knife sharpening professional, I can certainly keep a blade sharp, and I have tried a number of different sharpening kits over the years. Barkeepers Friend powder cleanser is useful for cleaning your Sharpmaker ceramic rods up and also works on blades. I replaced my medium stones for the first time last year, and man what a difference 10 years makes. Good quality torx set. Low end but good enough = Husky, high end but more expensive = Wiha. While it isn't necessarily critical to be able to disassemble your knives, I think it's crazy to not at least have the option to. Now the Salt 2 is basically a linerless Delica - crazy light (but still robust) and completely rustproof.

Not stupid questions at all -- however if it's coming from me, you might get a stupid answer on occasion :p There are a ton of Sharpmaker videos up on YouTube and here’s a decent one showing how to use the Sharpmaker:

Again, bear in mind this is all conjecture based on what I perceive to be the benefits of his style. Also, I've never actually watched the sharpmaker DVD, so there's that. My sharpening techniques are basically a result of trial and error over the years. The Tri-Angle Sharpmaker is NOT just a knife sharpener and I recommend you watch the Spyderco videos that show just how versatile this sharpener is. Do you like toothy edges or polished edges? I like toothy edges myself. I have sharpened every steel Spyderco has used by setting the bevel on a diamond stone and then microbeveled/deburred with the brown rods and can get an impressive edge that way. It I want more a strop with 1 micron emulsion will get it sharper than I ever need and it will still have some toothy bite. I occasionally get questions from readers about sharpening: what my “system” is, what products I recommend for sharpening, how I sharpen my knives, etc. Very recently: To use the WHITE rods. I often took the browns, but what Sals says on the DVD sounds logic, and I´ll probably always take the whites from now on.

None of mine have come at 30, all of my SE blades hit the shoulder at 30. They all seem to be more like 35ish inclusive. My leaf Caribbean also never hits the edge at the tip even at 40, I have to sharpen the tip freehand. I think that one has to do with how much the blade sweeps up at the tip. I'd personally start with the SiCs to do any heavy reprofiling or chip repair due to their lower cost. The 50 and 100 gold stones aren't much faster than the 140 honestly and the SiC should be a similar speed. Then I'd move to the 600 and 1500 kme gold stones which I've found to be very nice and high quality. After that I'd microbevel on the sharpmaker rods of your choice, depending on whether you want a toothy or fine edge.For flexible blades, you only use the corners (steps 1 and 3) as it is difficult to keep the edge sitting on the flat surfaces. Hello folks. I have a vast knowledge deficit when it comes to sharpening. In particular, from various readings, I'm getting the (perhaps wrong-headed) idea that there are steels that are ceramic "friendly" and steels that are not, that should rather be sharpened with diamond or CBN instead. Get a decent 10x loupe. This along with a Sharpie will teach you a lot about what's going on while sharpening. Many believe that the need for diamond/CBN stones really presents itself when trying to achieve very fine finishes. A vanadium carbide is 1-2 microns and the brown/medium rods are 15 micron, the white/fine rods are 6 micron and the white/ultra fine are 3 micron. Carbide content will matter as well but in general you are not really trying to sharpen the carbides themselves until you get to a very fine abrasive. The 15 micron abrasive is just abrading the entire carbide out of the matrix. As you get to finer abrasives like the UF you are burnishing the carbides and plowing them through the matrix. Again, the volume of them will effect this and S30V will tolerate ceramic abrasives better than S110V.

The FIRST thing you should do is to fit the guard rods (for whichever angle you are working to). Notice how the lid fits over the base at a halfway point to act as a handle. These are not stupid questions at all, but very sensible ones and your thread might very well help some more people who did not ask those questions by themselves! :) Actual cutting performance (so not necessarely hair splitting sharpness) and edge retention can (but does not have to) be better when finishing with a coarser grit. See this thread where people way more knowledgeable than I am talk about this very topic: viewtopic.php?t=85096You're probably right about the deburring strokes. The "edge" is so narrow I doubt the angle used on that side makes much of a difference. It’s an oil-free system so forget about buying any honing oil as it’s simply not needed. The system also comes with brass rods which act as a safety barrier to ensure your delicate hands are well protected. In fact, it’s near-on impossible to cut yourself using this system. I am just starting to learn what a burr is and am not really sure what Re-profiling is, but have an idea. Since I have no skill and am not confortable using a bench stone as of yet, I am looking for something in the middle. Something that is bounds over a cheap ceramic pull through, but something that doesn’t take a whole lot of time and knowledge to take the factory/utility edge to a hair sharpening edge. I do like the fact that as I hone my skills at knife sharpening, and learn some of those things that need to be learned, the Sharpmaker does have the option to use it as a bench stone instead of a guided system.

NOTE: When new, the brown/grey stones have a slight glaze that initially slows the cutting down. This glaze will wear through after a few sharpening sessions, but you can rub the two new stones together to speed this up and improve the cutting performance sooner.)Good lighting and 10x-15x loop will easily show the small burr which is very difficult to see unaided. Generally I have been pretty happy with these ceramic stones. The only thing I noticed is that over time they seem to have developed little bumps or chips. Apparently they don’t do anything to mess up your edge, but I find it a little unnerving when I use the system and the blade catches one of the bumps.