CPK Sharpening

Joined
Jun 3, 2020
Messages
112
Hello everyone

I got my dek1 recently, also a proud owner of UF.
I want to use them and keep them nice and sharp.
Until now i have been using Work Sharp Angle Set Sharpener to which i added some fine and extra fine Spyderco ceramics. Plus stropes.
I have been sucessfully sharpening my knives including steels like s30v, xhp and cold steel 3v. No issues there, I am quite happy with the results.

I can feel now the stones getting a bit worse, they dont cut as good as they used to.
Question to you my fellow comrades is what do you use for your CPK's.
I am considering KME sharpening system but i havent decided yet.
 
Hello everyone

I got my dek1 recently, also a proud owner of UF.
I want to use them and keep them nice and sharp.
Until now i have been using Work Sharp Angle Set Sharpener to which i added some fine and extra fine Spyderco ceramics. Plus stropes.
I have been sucessfully sharpening my knives including steels like s30v, xhp and cold steel 3v. No issues there, I am quite happy with the results.

I can feel now the stones getting a bit worse, they dont cut as good as they used to.
Question to you my fellow comrades is what do you use for your CPK's.
I am considering KME sharpening system but i havent decided yet.
You can clean your stones with some Bar Keeper's Friend or the like and a stiff brush, as well. Depending on the wear it may not bring them all the way back, but it will likely help.
 
Apologies for duplication

Duplication isn't a problem. Some of us (Uncle Matty) are really old and weren't particularly sharp even when younger so it helps to repeat once in a while.

All of the knives are sharpened on 3M ceramic belts under flood coolant and finished on Arkansas stones. Actual rock. The belts get swapped out frequently. The stones are dressed on a surface plate on 120 grit silicon carbide paper daily. I don't use oil or water on my stones.

I use a big diamond stone when I need to sharpen something by hand and take the burr off on the Arkansas stone.
 
Duplication isn't a problem. Some of us (Uncle Matty) are really old and weren't particularly sharp even when younger so it helps to repeat once in a while.

All of the knives are sharpened on 3M ceramic belts under flood coolant and finished on Arkansas stones. Actual rock. The belts get swapped out frequently. The stones are dressed on a surface plate on 120 grit silicon carbide paper daily. I don't use oil or water on my stones.

I use a big diamond stone when I need to sharpen something by hand and take the burr off on the Arkansas stone.
Hey Nathan if you ever have a free moment and feel so inclined would you shoot a video of this process so we can watch how it's done?
Thanks.
 
Maybe I am in minority, but I like microbevels. Usually, I set my bevel freehand at 15 ° per side on X coarse DMT plate, then 20 ° ps on Spyderco medium ceramic, or on Venev bonded diamond stones, or on DMT fine plate...
I don't have that much problems with edge stability, some chips here and there, but they are quite easy do remove. Most of the time it's just normal edge blunting from cutting. I had one chip in DEK, using this method, but I think I got some sand particles in wood.
 
for general maintenance, the white spyderco ceramic rod is what I use most of the time. If there's some damage, the coarse/medium, (blue/red) diafold takes care of most stuff, and then a quick polish with the ceramic rod and it's good to go. I use Autosol to clean the ceramic
 
Ok, I did look quickly through the other thread, and I know this is an i'nrant question, so point and laugh . . . but is there any thread here that provides the factory edge angles for all of the CPK knives? TIA!
I believe most of them are listed in the CPK encyclopedia, at least that is where I have found them when I needed to know
 
Never sharpen under power. Nathan forgot to mention that we run the grinders very slow when we sharpen. Slow like 10%

Oh no Siree, he certainly did not forget! And even if Nathan forgets that he had not forgotten to mention, I never forget that he had not forgotten, LOL. Here's just one example and in another which I can't find now just doing my simple phrase search, Nathan had mentioned that a whole beer can at times be consumed during one revolution of the sharpening belt 🤣

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/sharpening-a-cpk.1623712/#post-18548409

I don't recommend using a belt, but it can be done (with the right technique) if you can slow it down to a crawl and preferably wet. Non-powered is a safer bet. For hand sharpening I use a big diamond plate to do most of the work and follow it with a fine stone. A dull knife with minor damage can be restored in 5-10 minutes. We only do powered sharpening here because our needs are different than folks needing to re-sharpen the occasional knife.
 
I believe most of them are listed in the CPK encyclopedia, at least that is where I have found them when I needed to know
Most excellent!!! Thanks.
 
for general maintenance, the white spyderco ceramic rod is what I use most of the time. If there's some damage, the coarse/medium, (blue/red) diafold takes care of most stuff, and then a quick polish with the ceramic rod and it's good to go. I use Autosol to clean the ceramic
Sounds like a good tip. We would love to know, which autosol product do you use?
 
DMT diamond plates, if edge is damaged extra coarse does the job (220 grit, followed up with coarse plate (320 grit). Proper deburr and your edge can be sharp like laser beam even when finished with coarse 320 grit stone. If you cant achive propeer sharpness with coarse stone then go on hit several times spyderco ultra fine ceramic stone, it will deburr edge perfectly and then strop it on leather with green compound.

As far as I remember Nathan ohce said that there is no need to go ultra shinny mirror polished edges as proper finished edge on coarse stone can perform almost same and it's just metter of time and thing of beauty and aethetics heaving mirror polished edge, as knives are made to be used and edges get used, dulled, damaged (oh I said damaged? CPK never gets damaged unless hit with nuclear bomb lol).

So simply CPK with coarse edge properly deburred = amazing cutting experiance achived in 5 minutes.

Happy sharpening!
 
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