Customer Reviews

Spyderco Tri-Angle Sharpmaker Knife Sharpener 204MF

5 star:		(202)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Boy! If I sound excited about this item, you bet your butt it's true! This marvelous tool belongs in EVERY kitchen, ASAP!



I am 59, almost 60, and have used knives all my life, both outside, and inside, and especially in the kitchen. One thing I was never taught by my dad (died when I was 10) and also was never able to "master" in these subsequent years, was how to sharpen a knife! Trust me, I can take a dull knife and make it duller!



Then, Zam! I'm at a local (big, well-known, name) shop here two weeks ago, and they are giving a knife sharpening seminar in the hunting & archery department, so, naturally, I trecked upstairs to check it out.



Well, the guy doing the demonstration showed us 3 things, a flat oilstone system, a hydrastone system, and this little baby. He thoroughly went through all three systems with us, carefully explaining their workings, and what they are best for.



Hydrastone and oilstone are for outdoor/sporting/pocket knives, where you want and need a very fine edge to the blade, and always polishing at the end with a leather strop and jeweler's polish.



But, for KITCHEN, the single best item is this system from Spyderco. I saw it work, I even tried it myself, and can do it! And, if I can do it, you can, too! Trust me! I purchased this ON THE SPOT, and it was NOT an impulse purchase, either!



Every knife in my block, and in my utility drawer is now razor sharp, able to slice down a piece of adding machine tape (paper). What a truly GREAT feeling to pick up ANY knife and be able to cut with it! I'm in heaven! Another tip...when finished with ANY knife, wash and rinse in hot soapy water and wipe dry immediately....DO NOT allow foodstuff to "sit" for any length of time on a blade, especially if you have been cutting fruit.



OK, I'll stop now, I realize I've made this a long review, but I am very pleased and excited about this product, and want you to know about it, and to know that it is a GREAT product, and it REALLY WORKS! And WELL! ~operabruin

I have been sharpening knives on flat stones by hand for many years. I just got a Spyderco Sharpmaker, and it's the best contraption I have ever used.

The stones are good quality. Similar cheaper brands have lumps on otherwise perfect stones, making them almost useless. Both the coarse and fine stones leave a relatively fine edge considering how well they remove metal.

The triangular shape of the stones makes them work very well for regular knives and serrated knives as well.

It comes with an instruction book that tells you exactly what to do. If you follow the instructions, you will get a very sharp edge. The only skill involved is holding the blade up and down, and that isn't hard at all.

The price looks high, but you get a total of 4 long stones (two fine, two medium) of good quality. It is well worth the price to be able to keep your knives sharp on your own instead of paying someone to do it, which adds up fast.

I don't recommend sharpening systems that involve clamping a guide system to the blade because they tend to slip and/or scratch the blade, are annoying to use for quick touch-ups, and don't actually maintain a good angle along the whole blade due to the mechanics involved.

For 40 years I have been looking for the perfect knife sharpener and this comes pretty close. Sharpens conventional blades plus serrated baldes, sissors, chisels....just about anything that needs a sharp edge. Comes with an excellent 20-25 minute video and a very good full color instruction book.

I've had one for two months and have mixed feelings.

I've never been able to manage the accuracy required to sharpen anything freehand so I needed an aid to help me out. The Sharpmaker is really good at assisting with maintaining the two knife angles. It does take a little attention to make sure that you hold a blade vertical through the entire stroke, but it takes a lot less that holding a blade elevated off a flat stone. In that respect this product works really well.

However, it turns out I have a house full of neglected knives, scissors, etc. Not only are they not sharp, many are actually damaged with nicks out of the blade edge. In order to sharpen these edges, you need to remove quite a bit of material. The medium stones supplied with the Sharpmaker are fine for touching up a mildly dull blade, but they just aren't up to the task of removing lots of material, at least not quickly.

Further, it seems that most of the edges I have to sharpen aren't anywhere near preset angles that the Sharpmaker is designed to sharpen. I have some knives at just over 40 degrees. I have some kitchen knives that are chisel ground to around 12 degrees on one side (a little steeper than the 15-degree angle that the 30-degree edge is designed for). Of my 5 pairs of scissors (different brands), none of them is angle to match the 12.5 degree slot in the base of the shapener. For scissors, it isn't too hard to hold the cutting face flat to a stone since most are pretty broad. But for knives, if they don't match the 30 or 40 degree angles, you have two choices if you don't want to revert to free hand sharpening.

1) For edges that are a tiny bit steeper than 30 or 40 degrees
a) put a micro-bevel primary edge on them.
b) if you want to retain a nice chisel ground edge, the microbevel is not an option and you'll have to reprofile the blade by removing a lot of material at the blades edge.
2) For edges with an angle just over 30 degrees:
a) put a 40 degree microbevel on the edge
b) reprofile the blade by removing a lot of material at the shoulder of the edge.
3) For edges that are just over 40 degrees your only option is to reprofile the blade removing a lot of material at the shoulder of the edge.

Of course, reverting to free hand is always an option, but that sort of negates the system that this product offers.

If you do decide you want to reprofile or remove a lot of material to eliminate nicks, you are not going to be able to do it easily with the medium stones. I've tried, it's a time consuming affair. I have ordered a set of these to hopefully address this problem. I hear that they make re-profiling blades much easier.

I know this review sounded fairly negative. But it's not a bad product. It just works well only if you have edges that are already in good condition and are at the right angles. If your edges are, then you're golden. Use this sharpener regularly to keep them in good condition. If you have edges that aren't, then you are almost necessarily looking at spending another $45-50 on Diamond SharpMaker Stones or using a different product to do the rough reprofiling required to get an edge to exactly 30 or 40 degrees.

Update (2009-Jan-23):
I've received the Diamond SharpMaker Stones and used them for a little while. These really help a lot to remove material when steepening an angle or removing chips in the edge. Unless you have edges at the right angle and in good condition, I think you really need to pick up the diamond stones along with the Sharpmaker to have a versatile enough system.

I purchased one of the Tri-Angle sharpeners years ago when they first came out. I used it for literally thousands of sharpenings, without a single problem.

Unfortunately that late, lamented sharpener vanished in a move, and I replaced it with a new one.

Big mistake.

I opened my shiny new sharpener, and went to insert the sharpening stones. Unfortunately, the base holes were too small. After several frustrating minutes of forcing the sharpening rods, I got the unit setup, and sharpened my first knife.

Or tried to.

Now, remember, I used to own one of these, and used it almost daily for years. The new unit was having a terrible time sharpening a dull knife with the course stones. Worse, after no more than a dozen passes on these stones, I noticed more wear on the triangle edge than I had seen with 4 years of regular use with the old set.

In the end, I finally got a passable edge by hand sharpening the knife on a diamond stone for the course stage, and using the fine stones on my Spyderco. -- But in the interim, my handy calipers say the triangle point on the course stones had been worn by .072" (that's more than 1/16 of an inch)!

So, while the design of this sharpener can't be beat, the new manufacturing leaves a lot to be desired. Until Spyderco fixes their quality, avoid this sharpener like the plague.

I bought this on the recommendation from a knife sharpening FAQ that my brother had referred me to. I would have preferred to get the EdgePro (which you can't find on Amazon), but the price was prohibitive.

Nevertheless, this item is wonderful for anyone willing to spend a little time reading the instructions, watching the video, reading the instructions again, and watching the video again, to sharpen a dull knife into a precision cutting instrument. I learned a long time ago that the most dangerous knife was a dull knife.

The 4-stage approach to most blades is very straightforward. There are special instructions for serrated blades, hatchets, and even hair cutting instruments, as well as scissors of all kinds. For this reason, the Spyderco outshines the rest because the rest only focus on knife blades (as far as I know).

I've sharpened almost every knife in my house, along with all the other cutting instruments, like scissors, and I'm very happy with the results. It even made my little Swiss Army credit card knife as sharp as a razor, even without getting the ultra-fine stones (which I plan to buy later).

One thing I must say about this thing is that it's imperative to keep the blade as vertical as possible when sharpening anything.

What happenned? I bought this sharpener after much research, based largely on the very positive reviews. But the ill-made junk that I received, and promptly returned, seems to have nothing on common with its descriptions.

Nothing "snaps" into anything. The rods, not even cut to a uniform length, are completely loose in the case, and for sharpening, they fit so poorly in the "keyed slots" that they wobble a good inch in every direction. Not accurate. Not precise. I think with this much deflection, you'd do just as well sharpening by hand on a $10 stone. And certainly these wiggly rods are going to grind the slots even bigger with each use, since the base is flimsy, poorly-glued plastic, not the solid ABS I expected (so much for American made; the Chinese would put this thing to shame). And the "channels" for supposedly using the rods as a bench stone are less than a quarter inch deep, laughably inadequate to hold the triangular rods squarely.

It is impossible for me to believe that this sloppy junk has garnered so many 5 star reviews, so I have to assume the product has been changed. This theory is supported by the fact that the product shown in the included DVD manual is, in fact, noticably different from the actual Sharpmaker I received. In any case, don't waste your time on it, because you will not receive what has been described. What a disappointment.

I recently purchased the Spyderco Sharpmaker and without a doubt it is one of the easiest sharpening systems to use. Previously, I used a flat stone coated with oil. However, with the recent purchase of some serrated knives I needed a system to sharpen them. The Sharpmaker does it all: plain blades, serrated blades, and more. With the video and instructions it is easy to use. One last testimonial concerning the Sharpmaker, is a old Buck knife that I had buried in the drawer. I never liked the edge on the knife; never could get it sharp. The knife is now on my dresser, sharp as a razor and ready to go!

Before buying the Spyderco 204 I researched sharpeners because I wanted to get one that was easy to use but would put a long-lasting edge on kitchen, hunting, pocket knives. Most sharpeners are more trouble to operate than they are worth, or don't do a decent job, or worse, damage knives in the process. The Spyderco was recommended as being the easiest to use for the best results. It is simple to set up and use and comes with a video that shows you exactly how to operate it which is a big help.
It sharpens my knives very effectively. Best of all, the plastic base that came with mine was defective, so I sent it back and the company replaced the entire case promptly.

Dear prospective buyers,

I've read all of the negative reviews on this product, as well as many positive, and have come to the conclusion (with the additional experience of my own use) that if this isn't working for you the error is the your own.

I've been able to get shave sharp edges on every blade I've passed on this sharpener and have had no similar results from any other sharpening device. Please be aware, however, that I have spent innumerable passes on some knives that do not have an edge close to 40 degrees, have thick blades, and are composed of hard steel (Chris Reeve Mark VI in particular, A2 tool steel at 55-57 rockwell hardness). Your results will definitely differ based on these factors, your technique, and tenacity. If you have a friend with a grinder and a steady hand, you can have him/her back bevel the blade to around 30 degrees, which will make the initial 40 degree edge setting process much easier. Basically, as long as the back bevel is less than 40, honing in the edge will be a snap.

If you keep the stones cleansed of steel it will help immensely. This may require frequent Ajax scrub downs, but it's worth the extra effort in the end. I must admit that the coarse stones are beginning to wear on the triangle points of my sharpener, but I've had the thing for at least 3 years and use it all the time. My guess with unsuccsessful users is that they don't stick with the coarse stone long enough to get the edge to 40 degrees.

Some additional advice: do not go past the tip of the blade when using the triangle point of the stones. It rounds the point and (because I made this mistake I know) makes reshaping the point very time consuming and difficult. Do all of your tip work with the flat sides of the stones and do not let the knife slide off - keep the point of the blade on the flat part of the stone all the way through your stroke. This may take a little more time than the rest of the edge because the flat side does not remove as much metal, but much less than bringing a point back if you neglect the technique.

I do not believe you will find a better sharpener. Get it!
Cheers,
JK