Edgetek Flipstik Ultra first impressions *UPDATE*

[StuntDouble]

I've been intrigued by the Edgetek sharpeners ever since I saw a video of Brian Hewlett sharpening a boning knife on youtube. So when they finally became available on the Buck website, I decided to pick up a couple. I bought the dual pocket stone, and the Edgetek Flipstik Ultra, the one with three sides. After trying it out on a Delica, I can come to a few conclusions;

The Edgetek sharpeners seem to run a bit coarser than DMT sharpeners. Just a notice, both of my DMT's are several years old now, so it's entirely possible the Edgetek will smooth out over time as well.

Due to the design of the Flipstik, it's difficult to sharpen the edge right up against the choil or the kick.

The handle and case are designed similar to a travel toothbrush case, except much, much sturdier. When open or closed, the whole thing feels pretty solid, even for something made out of plastic.

Once you go through all the grits, you still have a rather toothy edge, though I was still able to pop hairs off my arm, and curl up pieces of paper.

Altogether, I like the Flipstik. I can definitely see it being useful away from home. In fact, I'm considering getting the larger version for use at home. I can't give it a much better recommendation than that.

 

[THE_LONGBOW]

Irrelavant

 

[CJ Buck]

would love to hear any additional feedback about the sharpeners. I am not usually pursuing shaving edges and have been pretty impressed at the consumer shows I have sharpened customer's knives at already this year. I also got a nice kudo from the wife for touching up all her kitchen knives.

Brian tells a good story about how performance is all in the uniformity of size and shape of the diamond and the quality of the plating process that pins the diamond to the surface.

 

[StuntDouble]

CJ, the main issue I have with the Flipstik is the inability to sharpen right up to the right up to the kick on several of my knives. For example, I used it on a Spyderco Delica 4, and I couldn't get the sharpener to hit the first 1/4" or so right after the kick. If the knife has a pretty generous choil, it's not an issue. This mainly comes from all the surfaces on the sharpener being rounded, even the "flats". If those surfaces were truly flat, then it would be no problem to get the whole length of the blade. I certainly wouldn't call it a defect, since Hewlett has been making and selling these things for years. I see it as more as a limitation. Of course, I don't think these things are really made for getting a superfine, mirror polished edge. I see the Flipstik as a tool for quickly resetting an edge in the field, and it appears to do that very well.

Also, if you have trouble rounding tips on the Sharpmaker, you may find yourself having the same issue using the Flipstik. I think that's more of an issue with technique, rather than the actual product itself though.

I've also messed around a little bit with the dual sided pocket stone, and it seems to work rather well for its size. I think you could almost reprofile an entire blade with the coarse side, and the medium side will put a very uniform toothy edge on a blade. Just strop it a little bit and you should have a nice, long lasting edge pretty quickly.

 

[tiguy7]

To avoid rounding the tip on a Sharpmaker, finish your stroke with the tip on the middle of the stone. Don't wrap the tip over the edge of the stone. The wider the stone is, the easier it is to keep your tip on the stone as you are finishing your stroke. It is particularly hard to maintain a sharp tip using a ceramic rod or the pointed edge of a prism.

 

[StuntDouble]

I've had a bit more time to play around with the Flipstik, and I have to admit that it's grown on me. The edge it leaves is definitely rather toothy, even after using the fine side. But, for my uses, I'm finding that it's not worth the extra effort to put on a mirror polished edge. It provides a great edge for slicing, though I've found it will still shave arm hair very easily. I still have issues hitting the edge all the way to the kick, and it is still easier to fully sharpen blades that have a choil. However, I'm finding if I hold the sharpener just right, I get close enough to the kick that it shouldn't matter in the long run. I might still have a little section that the sharpener misses, but I can always grind that down on a benchstone when it gets too big. You also have to be careful when you get near the tip, and treat it like the Sharpmaker in that regard. Otherwise, you might find yourself rounding off the tip of the blade. For whatever reason, I don't seem to have as many problems with a burr when I use this sharpener, compared to when I use my DMT or Spyderco stones. I'm not sure why that is, though I'm certainly not complaining, since it seems like most of my sharpening time is spent trying to get rid of the burr when I use other methods.

If you plan on sharpening kitchen knives or larger hunting knives, I recommend the 10" model. I did use the Flipstik Ultra to reprofile the 119 I just recently picked up, but it would have been much easier with the larger model. Still, I think the smaller model would work very well as an emergency field sharpener on any size blade.

I've also been using the dual sided pocket stone. The coarse side makes it very easy to reprofile smaller blades, and if you're careful, you could reprofile blades in the 119 size range. The medium side will give you a very toothy, but sharp using edge that is easily refined with a quick stropping. I would love to see Buck offer a Med./Fine dual stone, but this one works well enough for now.

It definitely seems Buck has picked a winner with Hewlett. I'm not sure if they did any testing on their own, but these sharpeners and Buck's steel definitely work well together. As it is, I'm very tempted to pick up the Coarse and Medium benchstones, as well as the larger Flipstik. For not much more than $100, I would have enough to handle just about all of my sharpening needs.