TriAngle Can't Sharpen

[MittenMonster]

Hey everyone,

This is my first post and was encouraged to join the forum because I can't get my new Spyderco TriAngle to sharpen for the life of me. Now, I'm no idiot and can hold a knife vertically so I'm not quite sure what the deal is. Any tips or suggestions?

[bh49]

Welcome to the Forum.
You need to tell us more. What knife are you sharpening? Did you try magic marker trick? If edge is too thick, you are not working on the edge, but grinding shoulders. With medium rods it will take forever.
Magic marker trick:
color the edge of the blade with permanent marker.
Make few stroke per side
Take a look, where you are removing ink. Edge or shoulders.
Sometimes visual help like 10x eye loupe will help.

[wrdwrght]

Tell us you watched the instructional video...and tell us at least the kind of steel and condition of the edge you're trying to sharpen.

[aquaman67]

Welcome


There are two videos on youtube that helped me a lot. Google "Sharpmaker Improvements" by Crocket. Mounting the Sharpmaker down and using two hands is the thing that helped me the most.

As mentioned above use a sharpie marker on the edge to make sure you are hitting the edge and not the "shoulder" of the blade.


Good Luck! And keep us posted...

[dbcad]

Having a 10x or 15x loupe for me really helps to clarify what is going on at the edge :) A combination of loupe and sharpie makes exactly what is going on at the edge very, very clear.

Charlie

[sal]

Hi MitteMonster,

Welcome to our forum.

Sorry for your difficulty. I think we'll need to get more info to try to determine why you are having trouble.

sal

[-calc-]

I'll also recommend the sharpie trick - I'll bet you're using too steep an angle, so your result is like the green marking as shown below:



So you're removing metal near the shoulder, but not the apex.

[sal]

Hi -Calc-,

Welcome to our forum.

sal

[LC Kid]

Hi MittenMonster!


As said, the Marker trick do wonders. :)

Even most useful: what blade are you sharpening? :rolleyes:

If it's not a Spyderco, pics would be awesome. :D

[-calc-]

Hi -Calc-,

Welcome to our forum.

sal

Thanks Sal!

[3rdGenRigger]

The sharpie trick works awesome. A few of my Spydercos have a very slightly uneven edge bevel and I was only hitting the edge on one side with the 30 degree setting and they weren't getting sharp...the sharpie trick revealed in a few minutes which way I needed to tilt the knife when sharpening (The bevels will straighten with time if they're a little off)...now they all push cut receipt paper like champs.

[bearfacedkiller]

Sharp by my definition is nothing more than a cleanly apexed edge. Honing or refinement can further increase the cutting ability of an edge but in its simplest form sharpening is nothing more than removing metal from each side of the edge until you have created a cleanly apexed edge. If your knife will not shave or cut paper off of the brown stones then you have not cleanly apexed your edge. Do not move past the brown stones until you have accomplished this.

As everyone else has stated, using a sharpie and a loupe works wonders. I use a blue sharpie and a 16x loupe with great results when I need to.

You also need to understand how the micro bevel and primary bevel works to truly make the process effortless. Once you understand how to set the 30/40 bevel/microbevel, maintaing a shaving sharp knife becomes very easy.

[MittenMonster]

Hey guys,

Sorry about the delayed response. I wasn't expecting this much help but I'm glad for it. Still having problems and I will post pictures of me using the sharpie I'm also going to try and use a different color than black.

Also, yes I watched the instructional video. Literally I have a hard time sharpening any knife using this thing and nothing ever is sharp enough to push cut paper. I also will buy a loupe because learning to sharpen knives is something I want to get serious about. I will post pics of knives and such in the next couple days.

[sal]

Either the wrist is not stiff enough (don't allow any twisting), or the blade is not perpendicular to the table (pull head back away from the sharpener about 18" to get a better perspective on perpendicular), or the stones are dirty (clean them with a cleanser like Comet and a scratch pad like 3M).

sal

[kiwiian]

Welcome to the wonderful world of spyderco.
Make sure that your stones are clean and you have followed sals advice about rubbing them together to fully activate the edges . I always make sure the work bench is lower than my elbow as I find that makes a huge difference to my level of consistency. I have found that depending on the steel type, a differing grade of stone will give a better cut. I don't always go for ultra fine unless I am doing lots of push cuts. Most cutting is done by a pull cut and you need a certain level of saw like finish to use as ageneral working edge . All the best.

[MittenMonster]

Ok guys,

So I cleaned the stones, I put the sharpener below my elbow and stood back from it while sharpening. I sharpied the edges and on the right side of the blade (I'm right handed) the sharpie is missing closest to the cutting edge whereas on the left side it is towards the butt of the cutting edge (in fact sharpie is along side the cutting edge). Moreover, when the right side it on top I can shave hair, when it is on the bottom it's noticeably duller.

Clearly, I have a problem on the left side sharpening.

[Liquid Cobra]

The grind may not be even on each side. It might not be you. My Southard had that problem. Instead of grinding away I simply tilted the knife on one side then kept the other on a 90 degree angle. It worked really well.

[bh49]

Make sure that you are holding the knife vertically, without tilt. If you still have a problem, than left and right sides of the cutting edge ground at different angles. Seldom this happens. If you sharpening at 30 degrees setting, switch to 40, this can help. Or reprofile the knife. You will need something coarse than midium stones or you will spend hours. I reprofiled once my native using midium rods, but do not want to do this again.

[rodloos]

It could also be that the surface you are placing the Sharpmaker on isn't completely level. I was using a folding TV-tray type table for mine, and discovered (measuring the top of the table) that it was about 3° off of being flat. Not a huge amount, but applied to a 15°/side bevel it can make a difference.

And since the Spyderco's are ground by hand, there is some variance. I have hundreds of Spyderco's, and while the majority are great, a few came with a grind that was a bit uneven, and needed some work to even out.

[glbpro]

As Rodloos says, there is some variance in edge angles, and Spyderco is one of the few knife companies that actually pays attention to getting their angles consistent. With other knife companies the edge angles could be pretty much anything.

One of the mistakes I made when first using the sharpmaker was trying to sharpen an old stainless steel kitchen knife - I ground away at that thing for half an hour before I realised that a) I was not hitting the edge at all and b) the steel was so hard that it would take me hours at my current angle to grind away enough metal to start hitting the edge. After this I began to learn just how sloppy many companies are with edge angles - it's common to find angles that are different at the heel, middle and tip of the blade, AND different from the right to the left side! This is where tools like the diamond stones come in, but the sharpmaker is not primarily designed as a re-profiling tool.

Do whatever is necessary to ensure that you are hitting the edge on both sides, and then make sure that you have brought the edge together before moving onto the next step, otherwise it's just an exercise in frustration.