Trying to sharpen mini-commander

Joined
Jan 25, 2001
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It didn't arrive as sharp as I'd like. I feel like I've spent a week on my Sharpmaker with this damned "convention V" chisel grind or whatever the hell they call it.

Any tips / points? Sal, I was ready to drive up to Golden and try and talk you out of a diamond prototype!

Mike
 
Mike-

The preset angles on the Sharpmaker do not quite correspond to Commander bevels, in my experience.

I use this trick I picked up from a post by Don Rearic, and it works great. Color the edge with a Sharpie marker, and then use the stones to sharpen freehand. The wear on the colored portion will guide you to the correct angle.

From there, once a burr is raised, I usually hit the back side once or twice with the stone and then strop. I hope this helps........
 
Go to the Emerson web site. There are shapening directions on there that are realy good and work. For Emerson knives you kind of need to put the sharpmaker aside.
 
Hello and welcome to the world of frustration trying to sharpen yourEKI. I have owned 3 the past month or two and have only kept one. Traded or sold and Mach1 and a Commander. Well actually waiting still on the funds for the Mach, but I digress.... What I ened up doing is to use my Lansky Diamnond hone, coarse, to reprofile the edges of all 3 EKI's. Takes a good bit of a while to do as not one single edge profile matched from back to tip. After doing that it was kind of an excersice in frustration to really get a good biting edge except on my CQC. Don't know why that is really but it took a ton of elboe grease. It was interesting too that once I got them to where they could shave hair using either side of the blade the edge bite didn't last worth a hoot when I started using them except on the CQC. I also discovered quite by accident really that none of them would stick into my cutting board in the kitchen except for the CQC after I really reprofiled the point. I have tried to like them just because they were Emersons and everyone that owns one seems to like them. But I will tell ya a knife should cut effortlessly and be able stick into wood without any undue problem. I am at a loss as to the mystique surround the EKI line of knives. I just plain don't get it. A weekend ago I did a little test with my old leather and an old Carhart jacket. Stuffed them both with newspapers in the sleeves and the body. Kind of pain to do but wanted to test edge profiles cutting and slashing of the EKI's vs a CS XLG clip point plain edge and my back up hunting knife, an Outdoor Edge Magna. Not to go into details etc. but the CS and OE outperformed all 3 of my EKI's by a very substantial margin. Very unscientific and may not prove a thing as I am not a formally trained "fighter", but it did show that the avg. Joe of which I am could if need be use a cutting insturment in a self defense roll as long as it was pointy and sharp. Totally frustrated with the EKI product line. Keep'em sharp
 
A magic marker must be run along the edge of the blade. Then sharpen on the sharpmaker for a bit, and examine the edge with about a 7-10 power magnifier. You will clearly see where you are in the process. As long as any magic marker is visible, your not getting to the actual edge, your still thinning it down and changing the angle. I cant over emphasize that all magic marker must be gone on both edges(conventional grind) before your finally really sharpening the blade. The sharpmaker works fine on recurves if you stick with the edges of the stone, not the flats. Also it takes a long time, as the ceramics are not that aggressive. Chisel grinds are sometimes hard to do anyway, as the burr sometimes is very tough to get off. YOu have to change the angle of the knife and strop it off on the reverse side at a very low angle. I just use the corner of a white spyderco rod for this. Boy that magic marker test has saved me so many times and surprised me so many at how far I had to go even though the knife already felt kind of sharp.
 
Originally posted by longbow
Hello and welcome to the world of frustration trying to sharpen yourEKI. I have tried to like them just because they were Emersons and everyone that owns one seems to like them. Totally frustrated with the EKI product line.

You're not the only one. Glad someone else out there has had the same experience with Emersons. Aesthetically, I love 'em, but in the end, the grinds are unduly difficult to deal with, IMHO. I've owned an extremely sharp Emerson before, a SOFCK (sp?) that was crazy sharp. Truly like a razor, but the edge was *so* thin that I doubt it would have lasted long.

Big following anyway it seems.

Firebat
 
The Emerson's bevel is probably ~30 degrees. Set your Sharpmaker up for 40 included, tilt the spine away from the stone til the bevel lines up with the stone, and sharpen it. Strop the back to remove the burr.
I've had a couple of Commanders and a CQC-7B, and while I don't care for the chisel grind, I never had any trouble sharpening it (except when I tried to v-grind a Commander's edge with a Sharpmaker-that's an exercise in futility for you).
 
My diamond Sharpmaker rods arrived today.

Took more work than I expected, but my Mini-commander is now VERY sharp.

Cool.

Mike
 
emersons are certainly different to sharpen, but it can be done - my commander has been reprofiled by bandityo (sp?) so its easy, but my friends regular grind commander was kinda hard - a narrow stone works the best, i have one about 3/4" wide or so, and it works better than a wide stone, say 2" or so - the chisel grind just takes some getting used to, and a lot of practice, but my BM 975 will shave now - i use a steel to remove the burr, seems to work better than a strop for me - the magic marker thing seems to sound good also, i do all my knives freehand, 1 of those lucky few who does better w/that than w/lanskies, etc

sifu
 
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