instead of a Cold Steel Recon
. The rods arrived today and were immediately put to use on several of the knives I'd been working on with the basic Sharpmaker
set.After a few minutes of additional work, the knives were done. They are sharp indeed. Not scary sharp or even a really good arm hair popping edge, but certainly pretty darn sharp.
Paper slicing is the general sharpness test that I use--hold the paper in one hand and lightly try to slice the blade through. A dull knife won't cut at all, just crumple the paper. With varying levels of sharpness, the paper slicing gets easier. The knives I've sharpened with the sharpmaker--going from coarse all the way through ultrafine, following the instructions--are able to slice through with ease, where before they were unable to really cut at all. The ultrafine rods have definitely help, taking the edges of my knives from "moderately" sharp to "really" sharp.
However, I'm not satisfied yet. I haven't been able to achieve the scary sharp, easy-arm shaving edge that a Spyderco or similar quality knife comes with from the factory. Yes, my knives are certainly as sharp as they need to be for use, and it's awesome to be able to bring a dull knife to a very good edge. I'm a picky guy though, and when I set out to learn something, I intend to learn it well. I won't be satisfied though until I can get that scary sharp, shaving edge on a knife. Take a Spyderco back to out-of-the-box sharpness or better. Ya, it will be a feat to perform, but that's my goal.
I'll play around with the sharpmaker a bit more, but I think I may need to invest into a leather strop to take my knives over that final hurdle. That will have to wait for a bit, but if anyone has any recommendations or tutorials to pass along, it'd be much appreciated.
