Spyderco Forums

Hello everyone,

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and offer thoughts/comments. I recently purchased a Domino from BladeHQ a few months back. I absolutely love it, but have run into a glaring problem.

Yesterday, I spent way too much time hunched over the sharpener trying to carefully grind out some small chips in the blade, only to find that for every one I fix, 2 more appeared. I reached a point where I thought I was on the home stretch... Hadn't seen any new chips for a while, and was starting to see a very nice edge come through.

Then... a new chip. I was tired, sore, and now mad. I decided to try something that I should have hours prior. I took a simple wood toothpick, and ran it up and down the edge only to be horrified at the sight of the edge crumbling like a saltine cracker. Is it possible that the edge was cooked on the grinder during production?
I use a KME system to sharpen knives as a hobby. I started over 2 years ago, and worked up my skill level with a bunch of budget steel, but have graduated to the higher end S30V, S35VN, and S110V steels with success. I have only seen chipping on the CTS-XHP of this Domino.

I try not to put too much pressure on the stones, and try to take my time when working on my nicer knives. I don't know the exact angle at the edge, but the KME was set to the 20 DPS setting.

Is this the result of bad form on my part, or a bad heat treat? I love the knife, and I want it to perform. I'll send it back to W/R if needed, but I just got it back from a 6-week stay at W/R from a stupid move on my part (stripped out the pivot screw).

Thoughts?

I use the KME on all of my knives (three have CTS-XHP) and the only time I've seen what you are describing is when I used the stones when they were brand new, and only on one blade, and only with the 140 grit diamond plate and never as bad as what you have pictured.

Judging by just this one photo, it looks like you aren't anywhere near 20 degrees on that bevel angle, it looks more like 30 degrees per side especially near the ricasso. Also, the angle isn't consistent from heel to tip. If I had to guess, I think you're angle is set way too obtuse. With that thin knife blade, you should be on the lowest setting and just clearing the clamp to get a 15-degree bevel.

Is it possibly just a large bur breaking off?

Maybe try taking the edge off and starting over?

Thanks for the response. I would agree with your take on the angles. There is far more bevel shoring near the tip than at the heel. I try to keep the tip and heal of the edge at as close to a perpendicular straight line from the clamp as I can. I just assumed that the full flat grind of the domino caused the stock behind the edge at the heel to be much thinner than the stock near the front.

As far as the stones go, they are the stock KME gold series diamond stones i received with the kit (2 years old), I never dropped below 300 grit, and was using standard mineral oil on the stones.

I thought about restarting the edge... Just didn't want to get too carried away with stock removal before picking some brains. I'm still far from thinking of myself as a quality knife sharpener, and learning new stuff all the time. It just didn't seem right to me for the metal to be breaking off the way it was.

Looking at your photo, it does seem like Killer said but you'd have had to form a **** of a burr to do that to the edge.

I don't have any CTS-XHP but I've found that you can easily fracture the edge as you sharpen harder alloys with coarse grit hones.

What grit hone are you using?

Zatx wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 6:16 pm

I use the KME on all of my knives (three have CTS-XHP) and the only time I've seen what you are describing is when I used the stones when they were brand new, and only on one blade, and only with the 140 grit diamond plate and never as bad as what you have pictured.

Judging by just this one photo, it looks like you aren't anywhere near 20 degrees on that bevel angle, it looks more like 30 degrees per side especially near the ricasso. Also, the angle isn't consistent from heel to tip. If I had to guess, I think you're angle is set way too obtuse. With that thin knife blade, you should be on the lowest setting and just clearing the clamp to get a 15-degree bevel.

The Domino is just ground really thin, iirc mine was around 23 per side from the factory, reprofiled it down to about 21° per side and it's still a very narrow bevel yet .021" behind the edge.

I've never ran into chipping like that on my Domino, but I'd bet if you continue to sharpen it you should run into a more stable edge. If not then something is wrong.

brainfriction wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:22 pm

Zatx wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 6:16 pm

I use the KME on all of my knives (three have CTS-XHP) and the only time I've seen what you are describing is when I used the stones when they were brand new, and only on one blade, and only with the 140 grit diamond plate and never as bad as what you have pictured.

Judging by just this one photo, it looks like you aren't anywhere near 20 degrees on that bevel angle, it looks more like 30 degrees per side especially near the ricasso. Also, the angle isn't consistent from heel to tip. If I had to guess, I think you're angle is set way too obtuse. With that thin knife blade, you should be on the lowest setting and just clearing the clamp to get a 15-degree bevel.

The Domino is just ground really thin, iirc mine was around 23 per side from the factory, reprofiled it down to about 21° per side and it's still a very narrow bevel yet .021" behind the edge.

If ole mate's edge is chipping at an obtuse angle do you truly thing it would chip less at more acute angles? :confused:

Hmm... thought I posted a response a bit ago, but I don't see it anywhere. I basically stated that I try to keep the tip and heel as perpendicular to the clamp as I can. I thought the flat grind was making it very thin behind the edge at the heel, which caused the sharpened bevel to be much thinner at the heel than at the tip. I've had the KME kit for over 2 years now, and the stones I was using were the 300-1500 Diamond (Gold Series). I would have eventually moved on to the lapping films, but every time another chip happened, it would reset my progress. I didn't want to go lower than the 300 grit for fear that it would just rip more chunks off the edge.

Thanks for the responses!

Hi Mr_4nd3rsOn,

Welcome to our forum. Sorry for your frustration.

Can you send it to Spyderco customer service? I'll give Charlynn a "head's up".

sal

Neither a steel, nor a sharpening expert, just basic knowledge.
But I can state: My only CTS-XHP-knife, the Chaparral LW, never had chipping issues. And I used it pretty hard (not crazy hard though) since I wanted to see what such a thin blade can take (a lot actually...)

sal wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 10:04 pm

Hi Mr_4nd3rsOn,

Welcome to our forum. Sorry for your frustration.

Can you send it to Spyderco customer service? I'll give Charlynn a "head's up".

sal

Upon your request, absolutely. I should have it shipped out tomorrow. Thanks for the response!

I have seen this with S90V and S110V it was while re-profiling with the 100 Grit Stones on the Wicked edge pro. What I did was simply resign myself to the process of further and further refined grits and the chips disappear as I go. Had I continued with the lower grit after achieving the desired degree and a proper apex then this would have gotten worse.

My advice once you have your apex move on to the next higher grit and continue to whatever your desired degree of polish is.

Perhaps you did this already hard to tell from what you shared. But if you did and still have this result I am certain Sal will make it right. Probably best to send it in since Sal has recommended it.

Bloke wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:31 pm

brainfriction wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:22 pm

Zatx wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 04, 2019 6:16 pm

I use the KME on all of my knives (three have CTS-XHP) and the only time I've seen what you are describing is when I used the stones when they were brand new, and only on one blade, and only with the 140 grit diamond plate and never as bad as what you have pictured.

Judging by just this one photo, it looks like you aren't anywhere near 20 degrees on that bevel angle, it looks more like 30 degrees per side especially near the ricasso. Also, the angle isn't consistent from heel to tip. If I had to guess, I think you're angle is set way too obtuse. With that thin knife blade, you should be on the lowest setting and just clearing the clamp to get a 15-degree bevel.

The Domino is just ground really thin, iirc mine was around 23 per side from the factory, reprofiled it down to about 21° per side and it's still a very narrow bevel yet .021" behind the edge.

If ole mate's edge is chipping at an obtuse angle do you truly thing it would chip less at more acute angles? :confused:

My apologies, I had obtuse and acute mixed up!