TechStudio K01 Profile Sharpening System

[Ankerson]

I was sent this system to test and review, very interesting system, being I am a long time Edge Pro user I found it to be very innovative.

Company website is here: http://tsprof.com/?lang=eng

Well lets get to it starting with the components:



Nice Military type box, heavy duty:

Here is what the system looks like, you can see it's clamping type system.

Stones, Silicon Carbide/Ceramic blend in 120, 220, 400, 600 and 1,000 grit and they come in a very nice pouch, Grinderman stones.

Tools that come with the Machine, everything you need to put it together and work the clamps:

Comes with Single and double clamps.

 

[Ankerson]

Well lets get to using this machine, I started out using to fix the damage I did to my Superblue Mule team. Attached the 120 grit stone 1st and progress though 600 grit.

Finished blade at 600 grit, didn't take very long, the water stones cut very fast and seem to very hard and don't give off much slurry:

 

[Ankerson]

Moved to the Double Clamp to show the use.

 

[Ankerson]

Photo of the angle adjustment in degrees.

The clamps are movable so you can rotate the knife without taking it out of the clamps.

Angle adjustment:

Here you can see the rotating system collar:

Finial thoughts:

Very sturdy, very heavy base so it won't move and well made out of all metal except for the hand knob and swivel knob. The bar is fully adjustable for different lengths of blade and stones. It is compatible with the Edge Pro Stones and vice versa. Very easy to use and set up, those who have Edge Pro or the like systems will find it pretty simple to use. It holds an even edge all the way across the blade due to the unique clamping rod adjustments.

The only real improvements I could see that might be nice are a bigger handle knob and rotating knob for the swivel adjustment.

Diamond stones are available from the maker as is the K02 System that is newer and even simpler to use.

 

[cbwx34]

So....

How easy to set up a knife?
Vs. the EdgePro?
Repeatability- (easy to reset the blade in the same location?)

How easy to "dial everything in", to clamp a blade and set the angle (looks like a bunch of adjustments)?

How accurate is the angle gauge? Is it the actual angle (looks like it), or does the blade width affect it?

What's that black knob sticking out at an angle underneath do?

It holds an even edge all the way across the blade due to the unique clamping rod adjustments.

What does this mean?

How stable is the rotation system, and does it lock down or tell you somehow when it is horizontal?

Worth the price?

 

[bodog]

CBW, I have the K02 and I'll be posting a review here within the next week as well. There are some differences between the K01 and K02 as stated on the website and from the looks of Jim's review some not stated, at least between his individual unit and mine. Hopefully some brief thoughts of mine are welcome in Jim's thread and I look forward to him answering questions in mine.

This is as repeatable as any other guided sharpener. It looks like Jim's unit has a manual rotation that has to be locked into place, mine is basically automatic. You don't need to turn any knob or anything, you just rotate the knife and there are detents that lock the mechanism on either side.

Once the system is set up, at least on mine, it can range from around 5 degrees per side to over 40. That's a much larger range than what I've the edge pro and wicked edge or whatever. There are several different adjustments but they're basically just for fine tuning. If you know you want to stay around 15 to 25 degrees then it's basically the same adjustment as an edge pro once you're in that range.

At least on mine the rotation system is as loose or tight as I want it. I can adjust the detent to where it's locked in place or I can loosen it to where there's barely any detent at all.

The angle guide is marked accurately but I needed to initially tweak it to where it matched my angle meter. There are, IIRC, three different mounting surfaces specifically added for each axis of the base, the clamps, and the arms. After checking everything was at zero I then needed to manually adjust the angle meter by about a 2 degrees or so. Once that was done each tic mark matched the angle as verified by a digital angle meter. It wasn't hard to manually adjust the meter. Took about a minute and whatever strength was needed to bend the metal a tad bit. Not hard.

The angle meter shows the angle, the farther your blade is out from the base the lower the angle will be if none of the adjustments are touched, the same as any other guided system.

 

[Ankerson]

So....

How easy to set up a knife?
Vs. the EdgePro?
Repeatability- (easy to reset the blade in the same location?)

How easy to "dial everything in", to clamp a blade and set the angle (looks like a bunch of adjustments)?

How accurate is the angle gauge? Is it the actual angle (looks like it), or does the blade width affect it?

What's that black knob sticking out at an angle underneath do?


What does this mean?

How stable is the rotation system, and does it lock down or tell you somehow when it is horizontal?

Worth the price?

Takes a few mins longer to set up than the EP due to the clamping system.

As Russ said the gauge is accurate once it's set up and calibrated.

The rotation system on mine is rock solid, there is no doubt when it's horizontal, the knob underneath is to lock the rotation system on mine.

 

[cbwx34]

The angle meter shows the angle, the farther your blade is out from the base the lower the angle will be if none of the adjustments are touched, the same as any other guided system.

Thanks for the reply. What I meant by actual angle is just what you said... on most other devices, the angle markings don't show the actual angle... depending on the blade width. It appears this one does.

It holds an even edge all the way across the blade due to the unique clamping rod adjustments.

Thanks also for the reply... still curious what this means though.

 

[Ankerson]

Thanks for the reply. What I meant by actual angle is just what you said... on most other devices, the angle markings don't show the actual angle... depending on the blade width. It appears this one does.



Thanks also for the reply... still curious what this means though.

It's easy to adjust for angles and the rod is long so it seems to hold the angle across the blade.

It doesn't really matter how thick or wide the blade is due to the clamping system, you just adjust the angle after you clamp the blade in, and you have a real number to look at, just dial it in. The actual angle will show once the stone is attached and sat on the blade, just dial in the angle needed and your set to go.

As far as the repeatability goes, it doesn't matter if you take the blade out. After the blade is put back in just look at the gauge and dial it if needed and sharpen. The way the angle system works any difference will show up on the gauge, just fine tune by turning the dial. Very simple and straight forward.

The interesting thing is the stone thickness doesn't have much of an effect either on the angle from what I experienced switching between thicker and thinner stones, almost no difference.

It's very well designed and thought out.

 

[cbwx34]

It's easy to adjust for angles and the rod is long so it seems to hold the angle across the blade.

It doesn't really matter how thick or wide the blade is due to the clamping system, you just adjust the angle after you clamp the blade in, and you have a real number to look at, just dial it in. The actual angle will show once the stone is attached and sat on the blade, just dial in the angle needed and your set to go.

As far as the repeatability goes, it doesn't matter if you take the blade out. After the blade is put back in just look at the gauge and dial it if needed and sharpen. The way the angle system works any difference will show up on the gauge, just fine tune by turning the dial. Very simple and straight forward.

The interesting thing is the stone thickness doesn't have much of an effect either on the angle from what I experienced switching between thicker and thinner stones, almost no difference.

It's very well designed and thought out.

Hmmm. Thought maybe you saw something different. Holding an angle across the blade has nothing to do with rod length.

As for repeatability, just setting the angle isn't enough. The key would be the relationship of the 'belly to the tip' area, in relation to the pivot. It's one area that clamp systems differ from the original Edge Pro.

Stone thickness would have to matter somewhat... maybe in this case the rod length minimizes it. (Plus, thickness doesn't effect the angle as much as many seem to think it does).

Anyway, thanks for the reply!

 

[tsprof]

Hello, my name is Paul, from TechStudio (the manufacturer), I would like to participate the discussion.

The sharpening angle depends on a distance from the blade to the pivot (vertical bar with angle adjustments) and not depends on a position from the belly to the tip (see https://youtu.be/z0j0ChI2mLc). Its calculated by numerical experiment using CAD and confirmed in practice for any guided sharpener.
This means that an angle varying as much as a blade has a complex shape different from a linear one. The farther from clamp center and more curved the blade shape the more lag. That's why the most demanding users tends to keep a blade tip closer to a clamp center. Anyway, if all done carefully the precision can be saved up to 0.2 degrees overall the all blade length.

Stone thickness are really affects sharpening angle. Usually this deviations is small enough, varying from 0.2 to 0.4 degrees. The deviation are measurable and can be fixed by adjusting an angle. Precise measurements better performed by digital angle meter. The sharpener has reference plates for mounting an angle meter (K02 has build-in, for K01 it's optional).

As for build-in angle markings it's an approximate, precision is 1 degree.

Also i would like to share a promo videos. For K01:
[video=youtube;Figz2T0mrzA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Figz2T0mrzA[/video]
And for K02:
[video=youtube;kcGurvkvCc8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcGurvkvCc8[/video]
Posting the videos to the topics head is appreciated.

 

[cbwx34]

The sharpening angle depends on a distance from the blade to the pivot (vertical bar with angle adjustments) and not depends on a position from the belly to the tip (see https://youtu.be/z0j0ChI2mLc). Its calculated by numerical experiment using CAD and confirmed in practice for any guided sharpener.
This means that an angle varying as much as a blade has a complex shape different from a linear one. The farther from clamp center and more curved the blade shape the more lag. That's why the most demanding users tends to keep a blade tip closer to a clamp center. Anyway, if all done carefully the precision can be saved up to 0.2 degrees overall the all blade length.

Thanks... that's exactly what I meant (if I read your post right). You set the angle based on the distance "from the blade to the pivot", but if you don't locate the curved area (belly to tip on most knives) in the same location relative to the pivot, the angle won't be consistent. (I'm guessing that's what you mean by "lag").

 

[bodog]

Hello, my name is Paul, from TechStudio (the manufacturer), I would like to participate the discussion.

The sharpening angle depends on a distance from the blade to the pivot (vertical bar with angle adjustments) and not depends on a position from the belly to the tip (see https://youtu.be/z0j0ChI2mLc). Its calculated by numerical experiment using CAD and confirmed in practice for any guided sharpener.
This means that an angle varying as much as a blade has a complex shape different from a linear one. The farther from clamp center and more curved the blade shape the more lag. That's why the most demanding users tends to keep a blade tip closer to a clamp center. Anyway, if all done carefully the precision can be saved up to 0.2 degrees overall the all blade length.

Stone thickness are really affects sharpening angle. Usually this deviations is small enough, varying from 0.2 to 0.4 degrees. The deviation are measurable and can be fixed by adjusting an angle. Precise measurements better performed by digital angle meter. The sharpener has reference plates for mounting an angle meter (K02 has build-in, for K01 it's optional).

As for build-in angle markings it's an approximate, precision is 1 degree.

Also i would like to share a promo videos. For K01:
[video=youtube;Figz2T0mrzA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Figz2T0mrzA[/video]
And for K02:
[video=youtube;kcGurvkvCc8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcGurvkvCc8[/video]
Posting the videos to the topics head is appreciated.

Thanks for those videos Paul, there's a lot going on with these sharpeners and I think if someone is considering an Edge Pro, Wicked Edge, or KME they should definitely consider the TechStudio as well. I have yet to see a weakness in the TS aside from what we discussed via email. The design itself, in my opinion, is as strong or stronger than the four or five big names known in the US.

I'd also strongly suggest to people considering this setup the diamond bars from Venev Industrial Diamonds (vidbrusok) as well. These are some pretty danged good diamond sharpening blocks and the ones you sent work perfectly with the system.

 

[Ankerson]

Thanks for those videos Paul, there's a lot going on with these sharpeners and I think if someone is considering an Edge Pro, Wicked Edge, or KME they should definitely consider the TechStudio as well. I have yet to see a weakness in the TS aside from what we discussed via email. The design itself, in my opinion, is as strong or stronger than the four or five big names known in the US.

I'd also strongly suggest to people considering this setup the diamond bars from Venev Industrial Diamonds (vidbrusok) as well. These are some pretty danged good diamond sharpening blocks and the ones you sent work perfectly with the system.

I agree, if people are thinking about the other mentioned systems then the TS would really need to be considered also.

It's an excellent system.

 

[bodog]

Jim, you have an edge pro as well. Would you prefer an edge pro or the TS Profile? Personally, I prefer the Profile. I've also used a wicked edge and could get a basic system and stones up to 600 grit or whatever for about 150 bucks. I'd still prefer the Profile. I think the prices listed for the Profile are competitive. Any more and I'd caution against it, but for the price, I don't see where the others can meet it. I don't think the system I got was perfect and having it shipped from Russia kind of sucked, but really, it's a good system and I'll use it and not think about an edge pro or wicked edge again unless they drastically cut their prices.

 

[Ankerson]

Haven't made up my mind yet, have to get used to the clamping.

I am so used to the Edge Pro and how I do things it will take me some time to get used to the TS.

 

[cbwx34]

Haven't made up my mind yet, have to get used to the clamping.

I am so used to the Edge Pro and how I do things it will take me some time to get used to the TS.

This small point IMO, hits the nail on the head. The one main difference of the Edge Pro is no clamp. I've referred to it before as 'Guided Freehand'... the freedom of freehand, with the increased accuracy of a guide. Whether you consider this an advantage or not, depends on your point of view, but it's a different concept. Clamped systems work well, and for most, are easier to learn and use, and if you're striving for absolute accuracy, may be the way to go... but it's not the same.

 

[tsprof]

Initially the profile are designed to be a universal tool sharpening device. The system are quite popular in Russia and, indeed, there is a lot of people who enjoys the free hand sharpening process. For that people The Profile K01 has special attachment called "Removable Table".

As the Profile is heavy and sturdy removable table allows to sharpen not just knives but even axes.

 

[Ankerson]

That's more like the EP right there.

 

[cbwx34]

Initially the profile are designed to be a universal tool sharpening device. The system are quite popular in Russia and, indeed, there is a lot of people who enjoys the free hand sharpening process. For that people The Profile K01 has special attachment called "Removable Table".

As the Profile is heavy and sturdy removable table allows to sharpen not just knives but even axes.

Very cool... looks like you understand the difference. :thumbup: