Re-watch the video that came with your sharpmaker...

The edge-pro is great...
I have the Pro edge-pro and love it.
Though I still perfer a convex edge for my heavy use knives, as it lasts forever and is EASY to keep sharp.

A MUCH cheaper alternative to the diamond sticks(man are they messy to clean up after...They leave COARSE metal/diamond dust EVERYWHERE!) is to wrap wet/dry sandpaper around the ceramic sticks and hold them on with the black metal paper clamps they have at the office supply stores.
Use the flat sides, as the corners will not last at all.
They will make the sharpmaker capable of reprofiling for less than $10.00 total... The dimond sticks cost me a fortune, and they are STILL not corse enough!!!
The wet/dry paper is FAST and you can get a new surface when you need it, and best of all, you can have eight or nine grits ready to use in a few seconds... I find it is MUCH faster to go through a lot of grits than just a few... The transition between course and fine takes forever because it is very hard to get the course scratches out with the fine grit(or stone).
If you use a lot of grits, you only need a few passes(less than 10 per side) per grit.

Use a pink perl eraser on them...

Or clean them in the sink with Comet.

Wet/dry sandpaper is a good recommendation indeed, it should work well with M2. I have some experience grinding M2 and similar grades HSS and it's not as difficult to do well as in the case of D2 or some very abrasion resistant stainless steels. I always strop all my blades, including HSS and stainless. I think it's well worth the extra couple of minutes to ensure a flawless edge.

However, I don't quite agree with the notion that just about any angle will produce a razor edge. Yes, you can put a secondary bevel on a blade at a pretty blunt angle and it will still shave hair. But it's going to be a poor performer at any sort of serious cutting. Straight razors are very thin and hollow ground for a reason. The same reason why the cheap thin blade on the SAK will outcut many far more expensive knives when sharpened properly. A thinner blade just cuts better.

That's why I'm not really a fan of secondary bevels on a knife. After repeated sharpening the actual angle of the edge will get wider and wider as you remove more metal from the bottom and move toward the spine where the blade gets ever thicker. That's particularly problematic with saber grind blades where the primary bevel is often pretty blunt to begin with.

The primary bevel is the angle of grind from the spine (or from a point below the spine) to the secondary bevel. This angle is about 7 degrees, give or take a few. Even Scandinavian grinds have a primary and secondary bevel. This is because they are ground at a slight angle from the spine down about halfway (not all of them of course), then there is a secondary flat grind to the edge. I suppose there could be a few exceptions if there are Scandi grinds out there that are flat-ground from the spine all the way to the edge. In that case, there is only one bevel.

The cutting edge of most knives is found in the secondary bevel, which is usually ground between 12(24) and 20(40) degrees.

A micro-bevel is actually the third bevel. It is ground a few degrees more obtuse than whatever the secondary bevel is ground at. While it's a personal choice, I like micro-bevels. The knife's life doesn;t end when, after repeated sharpening, the secondary bevel becomes more obtuse, because it never does if the knife is sharpened properly. When sharpening, the secondary bevel needs to be ground at each sharpening before finishing with the micro-bevel. So..... how could repeated sharpenings make the edge more obtuse than with or without a micro-bevel?? THink about this now. You have a 7degree primary bevel on a flat-ground blade. You grind the secondary bevel at, say, 15 degrees. Each time you sharpen, you keep grinding that bevel at 15 degrees, whether you grind a micro-bevel or not is irrelevant. At what point does 15 degrees get more obtuse than 15 degrees? Do you think you might hit the spine someday? I don;t.

The Edge Pro is a great device...I've seen my neighbor use his. It also costs a fortune. Ors has a Sharpmaker...it's like a bird-in-hand. It will sharpen ANY knife (except a ceramic blade) that he wants to sharpen. Don;t give up on it Ors, IT WILL SHARPEN your RSK.

Well... it's just semantics but I disagree. In a saber ground blade there is the flat and there is the bevel (or two). Even if the flat is inclined at a very small angle it's still not called a bevel, or at least I know of no serious knifemaker that would call it that way.

Sure, if your knife has a secondary bevel you may keep the angles consistent throughout by grinding both the primary and micro-bevel. You'll have to do that sooner or later to establish a proper blade geometry as it changes through periodical sharpening but it's not everyday practice. Again, I have yet to meet somebody who regularly sharpens his knives that way. Besides, grinding the primary bevel simply isn't practical in many cases if the blade has been blued or Parkerized (think Kabar). Those knives were meant to be sharpened only on the micro-bevel. If you grind the primary bevel as well you will remove the protective coating, which will look really bad and expose the steel to corrosion.

Anyway, I'm not saying micro-bevels are bad but you do have to maintain a proper blade geometry if you want your knives to cut well.

No. You *don;t grind the primary bevel*. That's not what I typed. You grind the secondary bevel (15 degrees or so...or any angle desired). That's the secondary bevel there....that's the one to grind. It will NOT change on you, even after grinding every day for the rest of your life, unless the sharpener (person sharpening the knife) changes the angle of the grind.

It isn;t complicated and the math is still the same.

You are correct that no one you know grinds the primary bevel. I agree. But, *everyone* you know grinds the secondary. Micro-bevels? Some do...some don't. The point I was trying to make, Tom, is that the obtuseness or acutness of the edge is not going to change as was inferred in an earlier post. It won't happen.

Looks like I didn't make myself clear enough. My point was, a lot of people *only* sharpen the micro-bevel on a knife and nothing else at all. Especially folks who use a sharpening jig like Lansky or Gatco. On blued or phosphate coated blades that's pretty much the only way to go unless you want to ruin the finish on the main bevel. Repeated sharpening of the micro-bevel alone is going to change blade geometry and you don't need to do a lot of math to figure that out.

P.S.: I'm afraid you have confused a couple of things about bevels and blade geometry. Check out these two links for a proper explanation:
http://www.ragweedforge.com/grind.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_grind

Tom: We got off topic and I'm more than partially to blame. Ors is trying to sharpen his RSK and I hope he succeeds. And I hope he uses that Sharpmaker that he already has.

The only point I was trying to make with you was:
You said the angle increases ("gets wider and wider") as you sharpen. I said it doesn't. That's the sum of it.

We agree. If you re-read this thread, you'll also agree no one made any mention of repeated sharpening of a micro-bevel.



No Tom. I didn;t confuse those things. Please re-read. I'm sure we'll end up agreeing and, if not, well then then we won;t.