Smith's? Lansky?

afishhunter

afishhunter

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Oct 21, 2014
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I'm looking at getting a guided rod sharpening system.

Is the Smith's or is the Lansky "better"?
I know the Lansky will sharpen to 17; 20; 25;and 30 degrees per side, according to their website. I doubt these are the inclusive angles. (it would be nice if they were.)
Smith's does not give the angles, that I could find.

Presuming the rod and stone will clear the clamping knob, I'll never use the 20 to 30 degree angles. I'll be using it on a knife; not an axe/hatchet/adz/tomahawk.

Which would you suggest?
I think I can get by with one of the not diamond sets. My most "advanced" or "modern" blade steel is CPM154 and D2. If I am mistaken about being able to sharpen these two steels with Arkansas stones, please let me know.

I'd ask about their draw through sharpeners, but I know the response would be words to the effect of: "ARE YOU A FOOL?!? NEVER USE A DRAW THROUGH!!!"

(To date I've only used a draw through to get rid of the burrs, wire edges, and uneven grinds on five out of five of the Cold Steel machetes I have, to get them to the point where they could be sharpened with a bench stone. Worst Factory. "Edges". (note quotes) Ever.
I've never seen worse. Not even on a FROST knife shaped object when I was a youngling.)
They would not even cut/chop a daRn fresh palm frond before sharpening them!)

(fresh live green fronds cut/chop much easier than the dried out/dead brown ones.)
(At one of the properties I maintained there were 98 coconut palm trees I had to keep "hurricane cut".)
 
I've used the lansky. The angles marked will only be correct if you have the clamp set up perfectly. That goes with any system like the lansky. Use a protractor (or digital level) to get your angles, don't even worry about the marks. I routinely got 15 or 16 degrees per side (30-32 inclusive) with the system. You do have to replace the thumb screw with a set screw though to avoid interference.

It worked great for me, for a long time. I'll still use it on occasion, but mostly use my sharpmaker now, and some bench stones. The lansky is limited with the size of knife and also blade grinds. If you can't clamp it securely, you can't sharpen it! They really need to update the clamp.
 
Look at the Sharpmaker, too. I went from a Lansky to it. Never looked back.

As soc_monki soc_monki said, the Lansky clamp is the weak spot. For one thing, it can't hold a distal tapered blade securely. Very frustrating.
 
And people say you can't reprofile with the sharpmaker, but with the diamond rods (or cbn) it's actually not bad. I use a coarse stone to help, and use the sharpmaker to finish the edge. Don't have to be perfect with the stone, the sharpmaker will take care of that. The stone is for taking off lots of metal, like I did with my super Freek last night. One side was 20+ degrees, the other close to 15 (or 14,as my sharpmaker sits). Just took that edge down with the diamond stone, prettied up the edge and apexed with the diamond rods, and did my microbevel and she's stupid sharp, popping hairs like nobody's business!

Sharpmaker is a great system.
 
I've been using a Lansky system for 3 decades +. The system works quite well once you understand its idiosyncrasies. The marked angles are not terribly useful to get exact primary bevels, but I usually just match the bevel to a knife's edge by moving the clamp forward or backward slightly. If you wrap the blade at the spine in masking tape, you can mark the location of the clamp and check to see it does not move. A little tricky for distal tapers, and flat ground blades, I use a square to check that the blade is centered in the clamp. (Many knives do not have perfect factory grinds, and one downside of a guided sharpener is that it will show this up quickly).

It does help that once you have the primary bevel set, moving up one hole on the clamp gives you that nice secondary bevel. Typically, I aim for 15 dps, and use 20 dps for the secondary bevel. I have about 17 different hones - all diamonds, all Al/Ox up to blue, Lansky leather strops, and some homemade wood ones with peel and stick fine 3M grits on them. I use hanger wire for extra rods :). And definitely change out the thumb screws for Allen set screws for the rods! I've also replaced the clamp screws with different lower profile screws, which you need for lower edge angles.

The Lansky system is for either fixing or redoing a primary bevel, but can be used to get an almost polished edge. I use the Sharpmaker for almost all quick resharpening of the secondary bevel. The ultra fine stones are amazing!

The Sharpmaker is one of the most brilliant devices ever made for touching up an edge. Even a neophyte can use one with a little practice. but it takes too long to completely redo an edge even with the coarser media.

I just finished fixing the edge on a Puma Bowie knife, 6 1/2" blade (but with 1 1/4" of serrations, 1981 vintage knife). On one side I could use the same bevel angle for the whole blade, on the other side I had to use three different blade angles as I reached the tip due to the uneven grind. Still came out really well.
 
enhance


Not a great shot, but does show the edge. You can see the primary bevel widens as the blade thickens towards the tip, as I used the same bevel angle on this whole side.
 
I have used the lansky, (the first one I bought 32 years ago) the smith, the sharpmaker, the kme, out of all of them I like the kme the best, between the lansky and smith, I prefer the smith because of the type of stones you get, you get more angle options with the lansky but I don't care for the lansky stones, both clamps on the smith and lansky scream budget, it really comes down to preference, I seen some very good results with both systems. I your looking to a major reprofile I would highly recommend diamond stones, if your just maintaining your edge arkansas stones are fine, a lot of factory edges come around 15 to 20 degrees, if your looking to lower your angles below that, get ready to work, I like to set my bevel at about 17 degrees with the kme and then micro bevel and maintain at 20 degrees with the sharpmaker.
 
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Im new to knife collecting and knife sharpening..I got the Lansky guided sharpening system and I’ve had decent luck with it so far but after reading this,it sounds like I should pick up a SharpMaker...how is the WorkSharp guided system?Ive heard pretty good things about both the original model and the field sharpener
 
Garrett Ferrell said:
Im new to knife collecting and knife sharpening..I got the Lansky guided sharpening system and I’ve had decent luck with it so far but after reading this,it sounds like I should pick up a SharpMaker...how is the WorkSharp guided system?Ive heard pretty good things about both the original model and the field sharpener
Click to expand...
if you mean the worksharp A frame, it is a good system, I really like the type of stones it has, and the price, to me I would say it's about the same as the sharpmaker but I really like the utra-fine rods you can get for the sharpmaker, like most systems there is a learning curve but if I had to pick one, it would be the sharpmaker.
th
 
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