50/80 Grit Diamond Stones = Great Time Saver

Dwight, what are your criteria for determining when you employ the 50/80 stone pair?  From what you wrote it almost seems your saying you use it for every knife you sharpen????

1 user thanked author for this post.

Dwight Glass

I try to start each knife I’m sharpening with the least coarse or finest grit stones that get the job done efficiently.  That is quickly and without too much effort extended.  Even when profiling a knife I’ve never sharpened on the W. E. before, or to apply a new edge profile or configuration. This is very often the 400 grit stone.  I use the coarser grits, 200 then maybe the 100 grit only when necessary.  That is when the time and effort necessary to remove the steel to reshape the bevel is too much for the finer grit I’m using.

I’ve only found 2 or 3 knives, in the couple years since I acquired these coarsest stones, where I found a steel so hard I needed to use the 50/80 grit stones, because it was still too tough, too difficult and too time consuming profiling it with the 100 grit stone.  Every coarser grit stone added into a sharpening progression imparts a deeper, wider and wider spaced scratched pattern along with increasing the amount of edge steel removed.  It also adds steps and time to an already time consuming and laborous process.  Every scratch I add is another scratch I need to remove.

The Wicked Edge was originally designed and intended to allow the users to apply precise and consistent angled “V” shaped bevels, repeatedly.  I recognize the attributes of a convexed knife edge and the advantages it may afford.  IMO, the ability to apply a convexed edge profile with the Wicked Edge is a really ” hacked method”.  By this I mean it’s a sharpening technique that was figured out as a work around.  This sharpener wasn’t really designed or intended to excel at beveled edges.  Only by using this advanced and atypical sharpening technique can the convexed edge profile can be applied.

There are better and more efficient knife sharpeners you can use, for instance a slacked belt grinder, to apply a convexed knife edge.  Especially when your intention and eventual goal is profitability.  I submit to you that most people bringing you knives to be sharpened are wanting just a sharp knife.  That even those people who have previously sharpened their own knives, themselves, maybe unaware of a convexed edges.  They are probably a typical knife user and home sharpener applying a “V” beveled knife edge with whatever home knife sharpener they’re using.  That if you didn’t offer the more difficult to apply and time consuming beveled edge they’d be very happy with a “V” beveled sharpened knife.  That many,  if not most of them, wouldn’t notice the difference between one knife edge profile or the other.  Only that the knife has been sharpened and now it cuts well.

There are different goals to knife sharpening depending on the knife users or customers.  The idea I’d think, is to do the least amount of work necessary to produce a quality sharpened knife and a happy user.  A typical home user and a knife collector aficionado have different wants, needs and  may request and expect a different quality edge.  These sharpening jobs are different and command a different price schedule.

Forgive me for being critical of your sharpening gig and the technique you’re using.  I’m just trying to give you the perspective of another experienced Wicked Edge user.  The Wicked Edge Precision Sharpeners as fine a precision sharpener as it is, is still fully manual and labor intensive.  It is less then ideal to use as the sharpener-of-choice for a price competitive sharpening service.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Dwight Glass