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Edge Pro Apex 4 Knife Sharpening Kit (EPACK) $235 The Edge Pro Sharpening System gives your cutlery a precision edge that cannot be achieved using other sharpening methods. Edge Pro edges are even, exact and free of burrs, consistently, quickly, and easily every time. The Edge Pro's patented knife guide system does not clamp the blade like inferior sharpening systems, so the Edge Pro will easily sharpen any blade length or blade shape at precisely the same angle every time. Bevel angles are adjustable from a steep 35° to a razor-thin 10°. The effort to resharpen an Edge Pro'd knife is considerably less than with any other sharpening system, and the amount of material removed to achieve a razor-sharp edge is dramatically reduced compared to conventional sharpening systems. The Edge Pro's water stones free you from messy oil stones, and no heat is generated during sharpening so your knife blade will not lose its factory temper. The Edge Pro Apex 4 Kit includes the Apex Model Edge Pro Sharpening System, Water Bottle, 120-Grit Coarse Water Stone, 220-Grit Medium-Fine Water Stone, 320-Grit Fine Water Stone, 600-Grit Extra Fine Water Stone, 1000-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stone, 2000-Grit and 6000-Grit Polish Tapes, Polish Tape holders, 8" Travel Ceramic Sharpening Hone, Instruction Manual, Instructional DVD, and black cordura carrying case. |
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Edge Pro 120-Grit Coarse Water Stone (C120) $14 The Edge Pro 120-Grit Coarse Water Stone is most useful for severe metal removal, and is generally used only to straighten an abused, chipped, or otherwise damaged blade, or to change dramatically the factory bevel angle on a good blade. |
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Edge Pro 220-Grit Medium-Fine Water Stone (MF220) $14 The Edge Pro 220-Grit Medium-Fine Water Stone replaces the old 180-Grit Medium Water Stone, and is the most useful stone to begin with when transforming a knife with a factory edge into an Edge Pro'd knife. |
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Edge Pro 320-Grit Fine Water Stone (F320) $14 The Edge Pro 320-Grit Fine Water Stone is the starter stone for sharpening a previously Edge Pro'd knife. If you previously Edge Pro'd a knife and want to touch it up, this is all the cutting power you really need. |
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Edge Pro 800-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stone (EF800) $14 The Edge Pro 800-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stone is the next step after the 600-Grit Extra Fine Water Stone for honing the edge into razor sharpness. |
The Edge Pro Sharpening System gives your cutlery you a precision edge that cannot be achieved using other sharpening methods. Edge Pro edges are even, exact and free of burrs, consistently, quickly, and easily every time.
A key feature of the Edge Pro design is the lack of a clamp to hold the blade during sharpening. Once you use an Edge Pro, you will invariably find that the clamp is the problem with all the other systems. The clamp severely limits the size and shape of the knives you can sharpen. You can't do serrated knives, double edges, very large or small blades, flexible knives, and any knife that does not have a flat surface for the clamp. The clamp also limits the angles you can sharpen at. The Edge Pro can handle almost any blade length, blade shape, and bevel angle.
The Edge Pro's patented knife guide system does not clamp the blade like inferior sharpening systems, so the Edge Pro will easily sharpen any blade length or blade shape at precisely the same angle every time. Every knife and blade size and shape shown above is easily sharpened with the Edge Pro.
Bevel angles are adjustable from a steep 35° to a razor-thin 10° with the Edge Pro. Just set the stone arm to the desired angle using the marked angle notches. Blue designates 24°, Yellow 21°, Green 18°, Red 15°, and Black 10°.
The Edge Pro accommodates all of these different angles and then some. You can sharpen a knife to whatever bevel angle you desire.
If you want to duplicate the factory angle on a particular knife, it is very easy to set the knife on the Edge Pro, and compare the stone angle to the edge angle. In the photo above, you will see that the stone angle is steeper than the edge angle. If you want to duplicate the factory angle, adjust the stone to match. For this we like to use a Sharpie and stain the edge. Then we stroke a 1000-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stone or Polish Tape very lightly along the edge to mark where the stone or polishing touches the edge. Using this method, it is easy to duplicate the factory edge. This method also works for duplicating the bevel angle on a previously Edge Pro'd knife when you have forgotten the bevel angle previously used.
The effort to resharpen an Edge Pro'd knife is considerably less than with any other sharpening system, and the amount of material removed to achieve a razor-sharp edge is dramatically reduced compared to conventional sharpening systems. The edge on Ho's Benchmade 710HS gets dull from use. It may, however, be honed to razor sharpness by removing only a thousandth an inch at a time using the Edge Pro. No other sharpening system offers this kind of consistent razor sharpness with such little material removal.
The Edge Pro's Water Stones free you from messy oil stones, and no heat is generated during sharpening so your knife blade will not lose its factory temper.
The Water Stones are easily changed on the stone arm by twisting the knob. The 120-Grit Coarse and 220-Grit Medium-Fine Water Stones are provided for initial grinding or changing of bevel angles. Once the desired bevel angle is reached, touchups require only the 320-Grit fine and 800-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stones to achieve razor-sharpness on a previously Edge Pro'd knife.
The Edge Pro Apex 3 Kit comes complete with everything required to sharpen knives, and includes:
the Apex Model Edge Pro Sharpening System,
Water Bottle,
120-Grit Coarse Water Stone, 220-Grit Medium-Fine Water Stone, 320-Grit Fine Water Stone, 600-Grit Extra Fine Water Stone, 1000-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stone,
respectively marked on the back ("C". "M", "F", "EF", and "UF")
2000-Grit Polish Tapes, 6000-Grit Polish Tapes, and Polish Tape Holders,
8" Travel Ceramic Sharpening Hone,
very complete and easily understood Instruction Manual and Instructional DVD,
and black cordura carrying case. Everything you require to sharpen knives is included. Just bring the knives.
The Edge Pro will sharpen almost any knife. Here are some of our shop knives. From left to right are the Cold Steel Laredo Bowie, Cold Steel Stag Trail Master Bowie, two beater Henckels slicer and sandwich knives, Benchmade 710HS, Benchmade 710, and Victorinox SwissTool RS. Each of these knives presents various issues to sharpening, but the Edge Pro handles them all easily.
The Cold Steel Laredo Bowie presents several different sharpening challenges, including its immense size, small-radius front edge, and sharpened concave clip point. But the Edge Pro handles the Laredo Bowie easily.
This is John's personal Laredo Bowie. John reshaped the handle so that there is increased concavity at the bottom edge of the handle so that it will better fit his hand. John then refinished the laminated hardwood handle with gunstock oil to seal it against the elements. Both the main edge and the concave clip point are sharpened with the Edge Pro. The cutting edges appear to be polished, but John finished them with the 600-Grit Ultra Fine Water Stone only and did not polish them with Polish Tape. Getting a perfect edge, even from front to back and side to side, is easily achieved with the Edge Pro.
The Laredo Bowie is a very large knife. Bowies, Big Knives, and the best of Battle Blades measures 8.5" x 11". This gives you an idea of how big the Laredo Bowie is.
Sharpening the Laredo Bowie on the Edge Pro is not a problem at all, as the knife is simply moved along the edge of the Edge Pro's blade table. There is no clamp on the Edge Pro system, so it is easy to move the large blade along the blade table during sharpening.
Even the small-radius convex edge is evenly sharpened. From the rear of the blade to the very tip, the bevel angle remains perfectly consistent.
The Laredo Bowie features a concave clip point that is sharpened. Thus, the Laredo Bowie is capable of the very effective back cut. Single-edged knives are incapable of performing the back cut and even double-edged daggers are not capable of an effective back cut. The concavity is why the Laredo Bowie's clip point is more effective than the back edge of a double-edged dagger. On a double-edged dagger, the tip is a trailing edge. The slight concavity of the Bowie's clip point makes the point a leading edge and draws the object being cut into the clip point to be cut rather than skip or skate across the surface of the clip point.
For maximum performance, the Laredo Bowie's concave clip point should be razor sharp. Concave surfaces are not a problem at all for the Edge Pro, even though the Edge Pro employs flat stones.
The Laredo Bowie is a working knife, and thus should be sharpened with a steep edge to prevent chipping or rolling the edge during hard use such as cleaving or chopping. The Edge Pro accommodates all edge angles and easily sharpens steep edge angles. Most knives with edge bevels this steep would not be sharp and would not slice well. John's personal Laredo Bowie, however, is shaving sharp. The edge bevel is steep but the edge is finely honed to its very edge. Only the Edge Pro can do this.
Above are John's personal Laredo Bowie and Stag Trail Master Bowie. Both have Edge Pro edges. The edges are very sharp and will easily slice paper and shave, yet have steep angles to resist chipping and rolling of the edge from heavy cleaves and chops. Both the concave clip point of the Laredo Bowie and straight clip point of the Stag Trail Master Bowie are sharpened as well.
Kitchen knives like the Victorinox Forged Professional Knives are easily sharpened on the Edge Pro. The Edge Pro accommodates all blade heights, lengths, and shapes. Plain edges or granton edges do not matter on the Edge Pro.
Knives with granton edges are becoming more and more popular. Here is a Victorinox Forged Professional 7" Granton Edge Santoku, a very common kitchen and field knife.
Here is what the Granton Edge Santoku's edge looks like from the factory. This is a very good factory edge.
Here is the identical knife after after the Edge Pro. Note how the edge is perfectly even and mirror polished. There is no comparison to the factory edge. The difference in slicing efficiency between the factory edge and Edge Pro edge is more dramatic than the visual difference.
Knives with thin blades often present sharpening issues because their blades easily flex and the consistency of the edge angles can be affected. This is not a problem on the Edge Pro, because the portion of the blade being sharpened rests upon the blade table during sharpening and blade flex is eliminated. Even on very long and thin bread knives, the edge remains consistent from front to back and side to side. Sharpening this Victorinox Forged Professional 8" Slicer is child's play on the Edge Pro.
After an Edge Pro session, the edge looks like this. The edge is perfectly even and razor-sharp from tip to bolster.
Thin slicing knives like the one shown above are easily sharpened, even to shallow edge angles if desired.
Here is the Victorinox Forged Professional 6" Boning.
The 6" Boning features a blade with recurve at the rear and a tip with a very small radius.
The Edge Pro can sharpen this odd blade shape easily. The Edge Pro edge is perfectly even and razor sharp from tip to bolster. No other sharpening method can produce such a result.
Paring knives like this Benchmade Prestigedges are not a problem at all for the Edge Pro. Paring knives usually do not meet bone and tough sinew and thus may generally be sharpened with shallower edge angles for better slicing performance. This Prestigedges features a shallow edge but has not been polished with Polish Tape because it is a working knife for us and we dispense with the polishing on all of our shop knives.
Pocketknives like this Benchmade 710HS can present sharpening problems because of the blade's concavity in the rear section.
Blade recurve is not a problem for the Edge Pro. Simply place the blade to be sharpened on the Edge Pro's blade table and sharpen. When the stone goes through the recurve portion of the blade, it cuts only at the edges of the stone but this is not a problem at all. A smooth finish is the result.
Sharpening the recurve on the Benchmade 710's blade is no different from sharpening the concave clip point on the Cold Steel Laredo Bowie. The Edge Pro handles concave blade shapes without a problem.
The Benchmade 710's edge forms an S shape of sorts, but the Edge Pro edge is perfectly even from front to back and side to side.
Many Benchmade AXIS Folders, like the two Benchmade 721S knives shown above, come with ComboEdge blades. These blades are not a problem for the Edge Pro either. In the photo above, the top 721S features a very shallow Edge Pro edge while the 721S at the bottom retains its Benchmade factory edge.
The edge on the Edge Pro'd 721S was made very shallow and then polished for fine slicing. The Edge Pro handles these shallow angles easily.
The Edge Pro even handles compound-bevel edges. The blade of this Benchmade 710S features compound bevels. That is, the cutting edge is relatively steep for edge strength. The transition from the cutting edge to the sides of the blade is softened with the second bevel. The compound-bevel edge makes the knife slice more effectively as it reduces blade drag, and yet the cutting edge is kept relatively steep and not shallowed to the point that it will be susceptible to rolling and chipping.
The blade on Ho's 710HS features a compound-bevel, but in a different fashion. Look closely at the edge in the photo above. There appears to be a single, large cutting edge. But upon close inspection, there is a steeper cutting edge ground into the very edge of the cutting edge.
The compound bevel is more easily viewed from this angle. The relatively shallow large edge makes the blade glide through objects more easily, yet the cutting edge is kept steep for chipping and rolling resistance. Resharpening this knife is made easier by the compound bevel as well, as honing the edge requires only a scintilla of material removal to achieve a razor-sharp edge. This steep-then-shallow compound bevel is our favorite method of sharpening our personal Benchmade AXIS Folders.
One of the best things about the Edge Pro is how it can rejuvenate an old knives and bring them back to razor sharpness.
Even old, beater knives can be brought back to razor sharpness. This old filet knife has an Edge Pro edge and is now able to make the most delicate cuts once again.
There are almost no limits the Edge Pro's versatility or sharpening performance. It really the only way to fly for achieving exceptional cutting performance from your cutlery. Take your cutlery to the next level with the Edge Pro Sharpening System.
Though an Edge Pro edge will remain sharp much longer than a standard edge, even Edge Pro'd knives will become dull with use. Use the supplied Ceramic Sharpening Hone in between sharpenings to rejuvenate your Edge Pro'd knife. The Ceramic Sharpening Hone will resharpen an Edge Pro'd knife in seconds and it will do it over and over again because it removes so little metal. You will find you can go through several different honings in between Edge Pro sharpenings. The Ceramic Sharpening Hone is very fine 1200-grit and is useless on factory edges. But it is magic on Edge Pro'd knives.
Benchmade AXIS Folders
Cold Steel Laredo Bowie
Victorinox SwissTool Spirit Multitools