I've spent just under a week relearning knife sharpening skills using a Spyderco Sharpmaker. I was never great with knife sharpeners, and aging has not helped steady my hands. I had become content to have lots of knives and send the dull ones I liked out for sharpening when needed.

I was familiar with round crock stick v-sharpeners, and came to realize that triangle rods could sharpen serrated edges. Then I thought... clamp the sharpener down and hold the knife in both hands while sharpening. I ordered a Sharpmaker. When it arrived I started practicing my technique on a 30 year old Chicago Cutlery made in the USA Chef Knife that was pitifully dull.

After about 20 hours of work I've learned the technique needed to use the Sharpmaker properly, decided diamond coarse rods were needed to revive extremely dull knives like the one I was learning on. Yesterday I ordered diamond rods. Today I moved on to working with knives only needing moderate amounts of sharpening, then knives that only needed touch up maintenance. My forth session with my practice knife made it as sharp as the ones I was just touching up.

I bought the Sharpmaker from Walmart online for about $56 delivered. The clamps were $12 from Home Depot. A pair of diamond Sharpmaker triangle rods are on their way from Midway USA for about $48. A bargain considering the knives I have needing maintenance, and the fact that I enjoy doing the work when I can do it well.

Use a light touch, be consistent, and let the tools do the work. Even a shaky old man like me can sharpen a knife reasonable well with the right tools.

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Looks like a nice setup. If I sharpen my knives I end up cutting myself with them..

I had a few stones and a set of crock sticks lying around unused for years.Finally got them all out and have been relearning old skills too :-)
A small block of wood cut into a 20° wedge really helped.I made a paddle from a piece of oak and glued leather to both sides.After the crock sticks step a little mag wheel polish on a leather strop will really put a nice edge on high carbon stainless! Regular old stainless-not so much

I may start dropping hints about 3-4 10" waterstones around Christmas

I have been using one of those for years. They do a great job. For non-serrated knives i use the flat sides and for serrated the triangle edges. My Spyderco set has a base that hold the stones either way.

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Ben using on for about 15+ years. It does a great job. It is always in my clothes bag on hunting trips.

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I went from arkansas stones, to the sharpmaker, to japanese water stones, now I have paper wheels and I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place. I can sharpen ten knives razor sharp in 10 minutes.

The Sharpmaker does an acceptable job and is compact. Mine is 15+ years old.

I like your set-up. I'm also a fan of the Sharpmaker. I have the standard rods as well as a pair of ultra-fine rods. I pretty much rely on the fine and ultra-fine rods to touch up my Delicas every couple of months. Takes a few minutes for each knife. I also strop the edges after the rods, but I'm not as handy as the gents here so I got a ready-made/pre-loaded stropping block for about $15.

I read a comment where someone said they did not use the brass handgaurds on their Sharpmaker because they used a C-clamp to hold it down. A light went off in my head that said, the angles are preset and you can use both hands to draw the knife across the rod.

I've found simple touch up work to be quick and easy with the medium and fine ceramic rods that come standard in the kit. I'm hoping the 400 grit optional diamond rods I have ordered will make reprofiling very dull edges on some of my big kitchen knives easier.

As knife sharpeners go, it was an inexpensive investment and is working well for me. I'm very pleased with it so far.

I've had enough mishaps with knives that I always use the brass handguards. If I had one of those cut-resistant butcher gloves I'd use that, too.

The Sharpmaker is a good tool for touchups, etc. I've been collecting and sharpening knives for a while and use Japanese water stones to get a premium edge. When I need to re-profile a knife I'll use an Atoma Diamond Stone first then work my way up in stone grit. To get that premium shaving edge I finish with a strop with several grit pastes. Even though you like the results you are getting with your Sharpmaker I suggest you get a good strop and finish your sharpening with that strop; you will be very happy with the end results.

I've been trying a leather strop, (an old belt glued to a piece of plywood), but am not happy with my results, yet.

A little metal polish or rouge will give faster results.Had some mothers mag wheel polish on the shelf, so I tried it and it worked quite well.

Give Stropman a call and he'll fix that for you. Nice guy and a great product.
StropMan strops

One of the issues I have to deal with in life and knife sharpening is a hereditary Essential Tremor. I have a hard time holding a sharpening tool with one hand and consistently drawing the knife across the tool with my other hand. Clamping the Sharpmaker down let's me use both hands to control the knife and draw it across the tool, which is fixed and set at an appropriate angle. I suppose I could clamp a strop down, but need to have both hands on the knife to consistently draw the blade across it, and holding a 15 to 20 degree angle on the blade would be a challenge for me. Is stropping a precision exercise or is it relativly forgiving?

If the leather is glued to wood (spray adhesive) you could clamp it down
I usually hold the strop in my left hand and the knife in my right.

I own several knife sharpening systems and they all have their strong and weak points. My KME system works very well with medium size knives but poorly with large ones (they flex) and small pocket knives (not enough clearance or holding power to the jig clamp). I've got a set of Wusthoff steel and ceramic sharpeners, a Marbles sharpener, a Lansky set up and maybe one other that I forgot the name of. All work to some degree but there is no one great set up for all knives I have found soooooo........

I practiced for many hours on my 3 Arkansas 2" x 10" x 3/4" sharpening stones (medium, fine & extra fine) until I mastered them. I bough them at least 25 or 30 years ago but until about 5 years ago was not really proficient with them. Now I never bother with the fancy sharpeners and go directly to my Arkansas Stones, Honing Oil and Leather Strop. My knives are shaving sharp, take only a few minutes to sharpen them and no excess material gets removed. YES - it's a commitment but once you get the "muscle memory" thing down pat - it's a piece of cake and works better than all the fancy dan machines and systems I have - at least for me.

PS: I usually run my Wusthof kitchen knives down the sharpening Steel (that came with the block set) after each use. It takes only seconds and keeps them sharp for a long long tome. I only have to take them to the Arkansas Stones twice a year.

You could very easily clamp a strop down to a table top but you may not need to.

I found that using my Sharpmaker at waist level was easier. It allows me to look down at the knife making it easier to keep straight.

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