Dual grit sharpmaker

[JoviAl]

I took my sharpmaker on my holibobs to Western Australia to deal with the inevitable blunting of my kitchen knives as we traveled from place to place. About two weeks in to the trip disaster struck in the form of my 4 year old son accidentally smashing one of my ceramic rods. To cut a long story short, I tried to find the silver lining to only having one ceramic rod and decided to give dual grit on the sharpmaker a go after having excellent results with it on my KME. After two weeks I’m impressed with the results, which (somewhat unsurprisingly) are very similar to my other experiments with dual grit - an aggressive edge with lots of bite that is pleasingly long lasting.

Has anyone else tried doing this with one ceramic rod and one CBN loaded into their sharpmaker?

[Murphy Slaw]

Wait...

What?

[JoviAl]

CBN in both 15 degree slots initially, then switch to the Ceramic rod in one slot, CBN in the other. Gives you a dual grit sharpening with minimal nonsense. It’s not quite as pretty as a KME job, but it’s about 62,000% less faffing about than a KME for a dual grit edge.

[Bemo]

Oh this is an interesting idea!

[JoviAl]

Like this -

It has worked well thus far. I’ve even managed to finally get a decent edge on my M398 mule, which up until this point has not been playing nicely with my KME.

[Guts]

Haven't tried dual grit personally, but I remember the Cedric and Ada youtube tested a Magnacut dual grit sharpened mule and the results were pretty eye opening.

[JoviAl]

Haven't tried dual grit personally, but I remember the Cedric and Ada youtube tested a Magnacut dual grit sharpened mule and the results were pretty eye opening.

I’ve been doing it on some of my work knives for the last four months or so and it has been a bit of a revelation - it’s quick, easy and genuinely seems to work better than doing both sides of the blade the same my Magnacut mule lasts two days of intensive heavy use rather than just one before it needs sharpening again when it is dual grit sharpened, plus it has a nice balance of aggression and durable shaving sharpness.

[JoviAl]

It works great with Elmax and CruWear too.

[Sharp Guy]

Interesting idea

I really only use my Sharpmaker to touch up the micro-bevels on my knives. Once the bevel gets too high I reprofile the edge and start over. I wonder how the dual grit thing would work for micro-bevels?

[legOFwhat?]

Any chance you have some up close pics of said mule?

[Enactive]

Is there a preferred side to make coarse or fine based on the user's handedness?

[cjk]

really interesting. I've watched the Cedric and Ada dual grit testing but never considered that I could do this with my Sharpmaker.

[JoviAl]

Any chance you have some up close pics of said mule?

Pics of the edge or just generally? I can take some for you.

[JoviAl]

Is there a preferred side to make coarse or fine based on the user's handedness?

I swap them over after about five sharpenings, as the coarse side tends to lose more metal over time from the more aggressive rod. Switching the rods balances the bevels out again before it becomes too wonky.

[JoviAl]

really interesting. I've watched the Cedric and Ada dual grit testing but never considered that I could do this with my Sharpmaker.

To be totally honest I didn’t think it would work too well, especially with just the standard rods. I have been pleasantly surprised, although there is a bit of a knack to it with the amount of strokes per side and whatnot (I do a 1:5 ratio of CBN to ceramic strokes, which seems to be enough on harder steels to shift the burr back and forth. 1:1 was leaving a pronounced burr on the ceramic side). It works really well on H1 SE.

[legOFwhat?]

Any chance you have some up close pics of said mule?

Pics of the edge or just generally? I can take some for you.

Apologies i should have clarified the purdy handle

[JoviAl]

Any chance you have some up close pics of said mule?

Pics of the edge or just generally? I can take some for you.

Apologies i should have clarified the purdy handle

it’s just a rough one I knocked up out of some jazzy micarta I got cheap from the UK. I’ll take a few pics and post them

[JoviAl]

Here you go

[JoviAl]

The colours really popped when I first made it, but it’s had a tough life in the kitchen after me and M398 fell out.

[Enactive]

Is there a preferred side to make coarse or fine based on the user's handedness?

I swap them over after about five sharpenings, as the coarse side tends to lose more metal over time from the more aggressive rod. Switching the rods balances the bevels out again before it becomes too wonky.

Thanks. Makes sense. You see no performance nor 'steering' effect from either?