Knife sharpening

Some of you must be into knife sharpening, right?

I'm thinking about replacing my tired Spyderco sharpening kit. The Ruixin 008 looks like a really good deal, but I wouldn't really know. What kind of problems would a newbie run into using such a kit? I have some Henckel knives, plus the usual assortment of pocket knives. The only tricky one is a Shun knife, which supposedly has a different angle.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about sharpening kits for someone who just wants to cook and open packages.

Hmmm...never saw that one before. The idea looks solid but I have no idea of it's well made. If you want a guided system like that the KME is a well established, high quality setup that's kind of similar.

I have been using a Spyderco Sharpmaker with great satisfaction for several years - not much there to wear out -possibly new rods? I learned on typical flat whetstones, which are cheap, durable, and sharpen well enough. There are also "pull through" gadgets which do a decent job, unless you are really into sharpening, doing much more than cooking and opening packages.

Sharpening knives seems to be one of those infinite rabbit holes into which you can plunge

The Ruixin is based on the Edge Pro, but much cheaper. It makes you wonder what you're missing.

Dittos on the whetstones, newer ones with diamond and ceramic. Will most likely last forever MTC

I recommend:

Basics: Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker Perfectly adequate for 95% of users. Get a set of Diamond or Cubic Boron Nitride stones if you have high-end steel blades and want to get serious, as opposed to just touching up and edge.

Intermediate, can do mild to wild, just takes some effort: Vipersharp https://vipersharp.com/

Advanced as you want to get from mild to wild and stupid simple to use. This is definitely what you want if you want to seriously get an edge on: Wicked Edge https://wickededgeusa.com/

Electric: Work Sharp. https://www.worksharptools.com I prefer the Ken Onion Edition as it is the most capable.

https://lansky.com/index.php/precision-sharpening-kits/

Worth consideration. I've used these for 30 years.

I have a vast collection of sharpening rocks, including a swell medium arkansas in a cedar box from the Arkansas territorial museum. But modern steels are harder than these old stones, and sharpening became tedious and frustrating.

Moved on to abrasive silicon and aluminum paper glued to glass or marble.

Then I reviewed the practices of meatpackers, and acquired a 1 inch belt sander and a variety of belts. Started with HF, eventually saved up and got a Grizzly.

Never looked back.

Ruined a couple of knives learning to use the appliances. Which meant I got to buy or make some new knives.

Hell, I was going to buy and make more knives anyway.

YMMV.

At this point in my life I'm too busy to devote an afternoon to sharpening a knife. Call me a heretic, but I really love my Work Sharp Knife & Tool Sharpner*
Practice a bit with an old knife to learn the proper timing then after that all your knives will be razor+ sharp. No fuss - no muss. It saves me a bunch of time. Keep in mind that the grind angles only have a 40 and 50 degree pre-set choices on this model and since it's a slack belt it'll give a convex edge. The "Ken Onion" model has almost infinite angle choices but I'm not sure if it can do a non-convex blade profile. Regardless, this isn't the sharpener for your Scandi-grind Moras.
-Blast

*As an Amazon Influencer, I may receive a sales commission from Amazon from purchases of the item(s) linked above.

I find that the knives I use the most do well with a charged strop and actual sharpening perhaps three or four times a year. I’ve been very happy with my Sharpmaker.

Well, the idea is certainly sound. I can't comment on how well it's made, you'll have to go by reviews. But I can say that most of the systems that clamp the blade like that have two limitations. First is that the thickness of the clamp itself dictates how low an angle you can achieve before the stone scrapes the clamp. For hunting knives and German kitchen knives that probably won't be an issue but you never know. The other issue is that to do longer knives you will have to unclamp, move the blade and clamp again. This can be annoying and depending on how the design is executed it may be challenging to index the knife at the precise same angle when you do reclamp. The arm that holds the stone looks to be fairly long so that might not be an issue with knives 8" or less but it's hard to say.

Lastly I'm not familiar with it at all so I don't know if you're stuck with the stones supplied or if you can use other stones. Just a cursory look indicates they're 6" long; if that's the case then Edge Pro stones may work, and at least a couple companies manufacture stones that size (including DMT diamond plates/stones). There's a company that's known for industrial abrasives that offers stones in that size at this exact second I can't remember the name.

This gives me a chance to ask a related question ...

There is a YouTube video maker that I enjoy called "Project Farm" that did a video comparing knife sharpeners.

https://youtu.be/uEDyYJJ6f9M

It included the Spiderco Sharpmaker, which I've used for many years, and it rated well for its sharpening capability, BUT the video goes on to stroke the sharpened knives on hardwood, and then measuring the sharpness, and the Sharpmaker sharpened knife failed pretty miserably.

Why would that one sharpener cause a knife to dull so badly? He used the same model of knife for all testing. New, dull it, sharpen it, test sharpness, hardwood, test sharpness. I couldn't tell if he only used one knife per sharpener (sample size = 1). If so, I tend to wonder if he had a bad blade.

Any feedback on this??

BTW, the Lansky with the angle rods and four different grits was found to be excellent for the price.

I really like Project Farm but while he does a great job overall he uses the same approach on everything even when it doesn't necessarily apply. I've used the Sharpmaker before and used to have one. My guess is that he doesn't fully understand how sharpening works, particularly with regard to the burr. Also there's a human factor in using them, especially the Sharpmaker. The Spyderco sharpener is relatively simple but there's still a learning curve and some technique involved. There are also issues with simple testers like he used.

The Sharpmaker works well IMO but it's slow if you need to reprofile a blade. I didn't have the diamond rods which of course would speed up the process. The tool is best used for touch-ups and you're best not letting it get too dully.

Probably he created a fairly large burr and didn't remove it. A wire edge will seem pretty sharp but the work-hardened metal will quickly fail. That's why deburring is such an important step but one he ignored. I usually use a leather belt on my grinder because it works quickly and I'm lazy. But a leather strop, hard felt, some cork or balsa wood or even the end grain of a block of wood will do the job. You need to try not to create a huge burr; that makes removing it easier.