Spyderco Calypso Jr Zdp-189 Question!

[badevilcow]

Greetings!

I was lucky enough to get one of the fabled Calypso Jr zdp's from the great folks at McHenry knives! Okay now I have a question.. i've just gotten used to putting a decent edge on my bigger spyder's.. This is the smallest blade i've seen yet! do i have to worry about sharpening it the first time? It seems to have a very thin edge.. should i just use the 40 slots? I usually follow the directions of the sharpmaker as it seems to do a great job..(ie 40's for touch up.. 40-30-40 once a quarter or so then back to 40)

anyway should i use the 40's at first? or jump righ to the 30 degree slots?!? Any help or comments will be very very helpful and I thank you all in advance!


Cheers!

[Zwaplat]

Use 30. Spyderco actually puts an angle closer to 30 than to 40 on their knives. Also, that steel is well capable of holding an edge at 30.

[badevilcow]

Thanks!

so with the caly jr. there is no need to ever use 40? 30 all the way?

Any one else?? Thanks everyone in advance!!


Cheers

[d.g.g]

I would use 40 degrees total. You always want the microbevel edge to be more than the primary relief edge. This save lots of time in sharpening, makes the blade last longer because you don't have to remove as much steel, and is what Spyderco says to do in their Sharpmaker instructions. The difference is only 5 degrees per side which is very little, IMHO.

Here is some info about sharpening that may be of help.

If you want to sharpen at 30 degrees then you should reprofile at 25 degrees or so but you will take off a bunch of steel probably.

A good trick is to blacken the bottom cutting edge with a magic marker sharpie and make a couple of passes on the rods/stone. Then inspect the edge to see where you are actually removing meta.

Good luck!

http://forums.egullet.com/index.php?showtopic=26036

http://users.ameritech.net/knives/Juranitch1977Feb.htm

http://knifeart.com/geomofcutedb.html

http://knifeart.com/knifedfaqbyj1.html

[badevilcow]

awesome! thank you very much.. i've seen that post before on blade forums ;) I used to try making my military (my beat em' up work knife) 30' but i found doing the 40 touch ups and 30 back bevel (as they tell you to do on the spyderco 204 dvd) to be much better.. I was just worried about thal calypso because a review on bladeforums said it was such an acute edge that he had to free hand! (i can't free hand.. but i can use the 204)

so in two weeks when i see a degrade in performance i'll just use the 40's and i should not have any problems?? i've never felt such care, love, and fear of hurting a knife before.. this caly zdp is just sooo.. beautiful she's making me do lots and lots of research! ahhh while the military will continue to get whats coming to it ;) ;) ;)

Thanks again everyone, you guys are the best!

Cheers!

[HoB]

On most knives I would agree with d.g.g. but on the ZDP Caly the edge is ground so acute (at least on the models that I got to handle), around 12 deg. per side, that you actually work with a microbevel using the 30 deg setting on the sharpmaker. So in this particular case I would go with 30 deg all the way. Also, ZDP seem to burr very little so you don't really need to increase the angle to control the burr. There is a reason why the Caly Jr. is called the Lightsaber of pocket knives :) .

[badevilcow]

Hmmmm.. lots of different thoughts here! Sal! I'd love to know what your opinion on all this would be.. since your the "pappa spyder" here ;)

anyone else wonder whats Sal's thoughts would be on getting the RIGHT edge on the caly zdp???

Cheers!
:D

[Michael Cook]

:spyder: Don't let that hair popper get dull, touch it up regularly. Much easier than re -sharpening it after letting it get dull. :spyder: