Edge Pro Apex?

I am a home cook, but with some high end knives (Nenox, Konosuke, Carter, and a couple Shun) and am looking for a sharpening set. Since I don't have much of any experience sharpening my knives I was looking at the Edge Pro Apex set. I've used spiderco sharpmaket in the past with some success.

What do the experts here think of the edge pro system, also saw they offer shapton stones for it, is it worth upgrading to shapton? Not sure which model edge pro to get, the lower end one only has 2 stones, the top one seems overkill but the cost difference pushes me toward adge pro apex 4.

Any advice would be helpful
Thanks and happy holidays!

If that is your option, I would suggest sending off your nice knives instead of ruining the geometry with an ep.

Buy a sharpening stone and watch these...all you'll ever need.

Most people don`t know how to sharpen freehand, so no worry you will not destroy geomtry with EP, but! there is nearly no advantage in using systems like this, you can get nearly the same from china (EP Style Sharpeners) for about 25 Dollar.

Pro:
With some skills and the EP System (proper stones needed especially with the cheap chinese model!) it is nearly foolprove sharpening! compared to hand sharpening.


Cons:
Edge retention with same sharpness is only about 10% higher then a pro handsharpener can reach......
You can not thin your blade (that is only bad if you damage the knife, i thin my knives about 1-2 times a year! (in pro business!).
Original EP is much overpriced!

Search Youtube for Bogdan Manko, he makes the world best sharpening systems, that can do (even with benchstones) the best possible edges, sharper then any razor on the market, that outlast every hand sharpening attempt by miles!

Greets Sebastian.

that's nonsense...when you sharpen the first few times all will be great but in addition to not keeping equal angle on entire edge, the knife won't get thinned and eventually it will be sharp as hell and cut like ****. but go for it...and eventually like most everyone else that's been through the same you'll wind up getting a stone and just figuring it out for yourself...good luck

chinacats said:

that's nonsense...when you sharpen the first few times all will be great but in addition to not keeping equal angle on entire edge, the knife won't get thinned and eventually it will be sharp as hell and cut like ****. but go for it...and eventually like most everyone else that's been through the same you'll wind up getting a stone and just figuring it out for yourself...good luck

Click to expand...

Please excuse my bad english!

Knife thinning for me with at least 15 years of hand sharpening experience is only necessary after about 10000 meals cooked and cut..... (as mentioned above....). I have only used Chosera 5k for touchups (this is the grid the handsharpening sence has its end), daily.

If you start sharpening with 1000 grit or below, you may need thinning after two or three sessions, that is the main point. This can`t be done with jigs like EP, you are completely right.

For homecooking and a pro sharpener, with maybe Jnat Awesado touchups you wouln`T need thinning for years....... And i like a laser cut!
Not all about sharpness!

Now i use Bogdan`s Skorpion Benchstone Sharpening System, and my knifes (1.2562 alloy, high tungsten) cut for about 300-1000 dishes with razor like sharpness (far beyond Chosera 5k).
So for homeuse this will be the solution! And you can always thin your knives if you like! Cause i am using Benchstones......

This system just guides your strokes on the stone, constant angle and pressure control.

You can always send me a knife i will sharpen it for you, and you will have a whole new cutting experience!

Greets Sebastian.

I have the apex and it works fine. You use a black marker on the bevel to find the right angle or at least the angle your knife at least the time. it take practice and skill to learn to use it though since you have to set it up right hold your knife in place right and move the knife and then do it left handed. free hand is fine too they both take skill. my hands are not accurate enough now to freehand. there is no magical thing about sharpening all it is is keeping accurate angle and rough through the grits. choosing the right angle and the right grit for the job is the key. maintaining the angle is the had part.

Puff, Use of an Edge Pro (or similar gizmo) is at the least polarizing in the knife world. And for the most part members of this forum prefer sharpening free hand with Japanese water stones.


I was interested in an Edge Pro when I started my obsession with good, sharp, knives. Was nudged towards learning free hand (here) and have never looked back. It's a relatively easy skill to become proficient with though difficult if not impossible one to master. I like being able to literally go into any kitchen, be presented with an unknown knife and an unknown stone and to make it sharper than it was before I started. Kind of cool to have in your bag of tricks.

Some find it relaxing and on occasion I do. Natural stones or soakers work well. Sometimes I just need a knife sharp now and do a quick and dirty with a splash and go. Either way the result is a uniformly sharp knife that's been thinned as I sharpen.

The Gizmos have never been able to address thinning behind the edge or uniformly sharpening the blade. A knife that is not routinely thinned quickly becomes a fatty that results in a sharp knife that does not cut well. And the blade is not straight but the gizmo is. Effective sharpening means adjusting the angle of sharpening at the tip at least, some adjust for more robust heels as well.

The gizmos certainly have their advocates, many of them long term advocates. You just won't find many here.

[video=youtube;fnl9s-o_JE8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl9s-o_JE8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl9s-o_JE8[/video]


I talk about systems like this.....

And you can always let the system go, and thin your blades manually, but it would be possible with this system too, i can sharpen 0 degree angle with it, no problems..... Even Yanagibas get a new level of sharpness...... Because the Angle control is much better then with EP Systems and i got a pressure control as well....

Btw. Sorry for so much offtopic.......

Greets Sebastian.

Jigs are sort of like training wheels on a bicycle. They make it easy to ride and get to where you are going but there are limitations, cornering fast being one (thinning a knife for better cutting in the case of Edgepro). You will also discover other bicyclists politely trying not to snicker when they see you go by. I started with the Edgepro Apex. I sold it once I learned to freehand. Do a thread search on the Edgepro and you will find all this has been hashed out before. It would also be pretty awkward to try to maintain a Japanese single bevel knife with an EdgePro if you're ever interested in single bevels.

I went from freehand Sharpening thousands of plane irons to now the edge pro because my hands are not great and I don't sharpen often. maybe once a month for the most part. so it is hard to get back to free hand when you do it so seldom. I wore out many a 1000 grit water stones one a month I think. I used to have three makita horizontal sharpeners ( gave up on the stone wheels because I wore too many out) and went to sandpaper on a flat disc. and shapton hippo stones that were huge that they no longer made. I was able to sharped a rough ground blade from heat treating to sharp in about 2.5 minutes. but it was hard on my hands and really wanted something else after so many years. I have never had to sharpen a knife to where it needs thinned yet.
all sharpening setups have good and bad points and you just need to choose what will work for you.

Sharpchef said:

[video=youtube;fnl9s-o_JE8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl9s-o_JE8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl9s-o_JE8[/video]


I talk about systems like this.....

And you can always let the system go, and thin your blades manually, but it would be possible with this system too, i can sharpen 0 degree angle with it, no problems..... Even Yanagibas get a new level of sharpness...... Because the Angle control is much better then with EP Systems and i got a pressure control as well....

Btw. Sorry for so much offtopic.......

Greets Sebastian.

Click to expand...

I feel free hand sharpening relaxing and it's good to see that one's skills are increasing over the months, years..
The Sharchef's system seems to be very effective and offers a perfect consistency. I couldnt use it a long time but the results seems to be better than freehand.
I would buy one for myself if had enough space at home. I'll do it one day 😋😋
Anyway the "make up" on the blade can be done afterwards freehand.

Former Edge Pro user here. I agree with the idea of the edge pro being like training wheels on a bicycle. If you have the budget, try the edge pro for a few months. In the end though, if you appreciate fine knives, I think you will come around to sharpening freehand on water stones. Watch the videos from Jon at JKI, get some stones and get started, without all the fussy set up the edge pro entails (along with not being able to thin). People seem to think that sharpening is some magical alchemy, but it is just a learned skill for taking care of knives. Not that big a deal.

Well lets call it frustrating for a perfectionist that i will never be able to exactly hold an angle by hand..no one can.. i want physical alchemy!
but well ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ .. everybody should use what he likes! (i ordered a bogdan system today)

I used Edgepro when I first started using Japanese knives. It will put a screaming sharp edge on a blade with very little experience. It makes it pretty easy to deburr too. It does however have some significant limitations. It is difficult to use it to maintain the blade geometry (behind the edge) of Japanese knives and it cannot sharpen Hamigaburi. This is why I learned freehanding. I suspect the Pro model, which allows a very low thinning angle, would be fine for Westren knives (which I think are mostly symmetrically ground).

I learned a lot about edges from sharpening with Edgepro and I suspect that this is why I picked free handing up quite quickly. Being able to fall back on the Edgepro (which I've never had to do) gave me the confidence to try freehanding. Would I have been better off just starting with freehanding? Maybe. Certainly it would have been cheaper. But then again maybe I'd have thought that this whole J-Knife thing was all just a bit too hard and I'd still be using blunt Mundials, Furis and Wusties. I don't really regret having used it but I'm glad to be freehanding now.

BTW, Ben who designed the Edgepro is very helpful and promptly answers emails. The after sales service is exceptional.

When I used Edgepro, I initially went crazy with polishing. I had stones, tapes and homemade balsa strops that would polish down to 0.25 micron. And the knives were really sharp. But this isn't really required with kitchen knives and a bit of toothiness to the edge is quite useful in the kitchen. I quite like a 1k/8k edge that pkjames showed me for it's combination of toothiness and refinement but many here would recommend a 1k/3k or 1k/5k edge for general kitchen use. I guess that 1k JIS is roughly equivalent to 400 or 600 EP stone. 3K JIS is probably similar to EP 1000 or 1200. 8K is probably similar to EP2000 or 3000.

If I were buying an EP now, for Japanese kitchen knives, I'd want 400, 600, 1000 stones and 2000 tape. The 120 stone is probably useful for thinning Western knives if you need to do that. The 220 stone is useful for setting a bevel on a very blunt knife if you need to do that. I'd probably opt for the professional model because it does allow much lower thinning angles.

OTOH, it's not that difficult to learn freehanding and it's certainly more versatile, so consider that as well. Because you will probably end up there eventually anyway.

Krassi said:

Well lets call it frustrating for a perfectionist that i will never be able to exactly hold an angle by hand..no one can.. i want physical alchemy!
but well ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ .. everybody should use what he likes! (i ordered a bogdan system today)

Click to expand...

Is there an English page that explains his system?

On the Shapton/ Chosera upgrades: Never used them. Have read some good reports, not sure how biased those reports were. AFAIK, they are only available from one vendor which I have never purchased from but many here seem to have had poor experiences with.

The stock stones are fine. The 400 and 1000 stones have no problem cutting hard steels like srs15 and hap40.

Krassi said:

Well lets call it frustrating for a perfectionist that i will never be able to exactly hold an angle by hand..no one can.. i want physical alchemy!
but well ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ .. everybody should use what he likes! (i ordered a bogdan system today)

Click to expand...

I fully agree. I earned my points hand sharpening plane irons. I was hoping to find a pic of my setup but I can't find it. I loved the shapton hippo stones though they don't make them anymore. I almost wore 1/2 of the 1000 grit out. they even made me the first and only shapton stone for the makita sharpener. Now I just want a consistent edge with my infrequent sharpening. my hands are not precise enough now to sharpen by hand accurately.

Great edges, poor cutters. The knives I've seen had invariably fantastic edges but a poor geometry.

Benuser said:

Great edges, poor cutters. The knives I've seen had invariably fantastic edges but a poor geometry.

Click to expand...

huh? the geometry is whatever you choose it to be. just like hand sharpening. unless you change the geometry over the knifes curve.

I finally found a pic of my setup. this is before I changed to sandpaper on the makitas. I had three grits and I would go from rough grind to about 90% sharpened in 2.5 minutes.

cncrouting said:

huh? the geometry is whatever you choose it to be. just like hand sharpening. unless you change the geometry over the knifes curve.

Click to expand...

But that's the problem. The jig systems do not compensate for the curve so over time they end up changing the geometry. I don't think asymmetrical sharpening is easily achieved either. This also changes the geometry. Let's not even talk about single bevel.

ThEoRy said:

But that's the problem. The jig systems do not compensate for the curve so over time they end up changing the geometry. I don't think asymmetrical sharpening is easily achieved either. This also changes the geometry. Let's not even talk about single bevel.

Click to expand...

with the edge pro you move the knife so you can keep the same angle all the way through. with the wicked edge you choose the part of the blade you want the geometry on then the whole blade get it it will change with the curve of the blade and i think the length. with the edge pro you move the knife length wise and when you get the the curve of the tip you tilt the blade to get the same angle. that I found tricky especially with my left hand. but once I worked out the right angle on my benchmade it came out perfectly even and uniformly sharp. the edge was pretty much the same as my new Murrey career knife that was hand sharpened. pretty close to the same sharpness and the same evenness. this is a pretty poor video but as long as the part of the blade you are sharpening is even with the edge of the rest the angle will be the same. but you have to move the blade to do it.
[video=youtube;r4BOaN71hqU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4BOaN71hqU&feature=em-upload_owner[/video]

ThEoRy said:

But that's the problem. The jig systems do not compensate for the curve so over time they end up changing the geometry. I don't think asymmetrical sharpening is easily achieved either. This also changes the geometry. Let's not even talk about single bevel.

Click to expand...

With Bogdans jig (the one on bench stones which shaprchef posted) you can lift the handle to get the curve at the tip, just like free hand, you can even fine tune the clip which holds the knife (theres either a magnet or clip) with little screws to adjust the symmetry or asymmetry, if you want that. It's basically exactly like free hand sharpening, just that you keep a nearly 100% perfect angle. And of course, you can still thin your blades.

It's interesting if you follow the entire history of how sharpchef came to use this jig. He free hand sharpens since 15 years and it basically started out with him challenging another user on the German forum that a blade that he sharpened free hand would keep it's sharpness longer than one sharpened with Bogdans jig and he had to admit defeat. Since than he has been experimenting a lot with this jig and gets constantly better results than free hand. At home he still free hands but working in canteen kitchens he needs edges which last and Bogdans jig really delivers. I recently visited him with nutmeg and his knives don't wedge or stir at all but cut perfectly.

Of course, free hand sharpening is a really nice and relaxing thing to do and most don't have a need for this jig (using this jig is actually also quite nice and not monotonous like an edge pro or sharp maker, it's like someone guiding your golf swing and could even be used as a teaching system for free hand).

Disclaimer: I recently got the smaller version of this bench stone jig and quite like using it. I feel that it already has improved my free hand sharpening as I am still quite a novice with less than a year of practise. Here is a little video I made: https://vid.me/TSv5 And here are two pictures: http://imgur.com/a/ULGF8

I think that Benuser and Theory are not talking about the profile of the knife (the shape of the edge from heel to tip). They are talking about a change to the cross sectional geometry of the blade. The part of the blade behind the edge will get thicker and thicker as the edge moves up with each sharpening. This causes the knife to wedge in food even if the edge is super sharp, making the knife a poor cutter. It is corrected by thinning the blade. This can be accomplished with an Edgepro (especially the pro model) on Euro knives. The issue with Japanese knives is that the cross sectional geometey is almost always highly assymetrical (even if the edge is 50-50). If they are thinned as though they were symetrically ground they will begin to steer in food. So if you use an Edgepro on a Japanese knife you will need to adjust the angle when thinning each side. Not only that, most Japanese knives have a degree of convexity in the grind which helps with food release. The Edgepro simply cannot fillow this convexity.

If I have to thin the one knife that requires it I will send it or take it to the maker for it. but I usually only need to sharpen once a month so it will not happen anytime soon.

Sharpchef said:

[video=youtube;fnl9s-o_JE8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl9s-o_JE8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnl9s-o_JE8[/video]


I talk about systems like this.....

And you can always let the system go, and thin your blades manually, but it would be possible with this system too, i can sharpen 0 degree angle with it, no problems..... Even Yanagibas get a new level of sharpness...... Because the Angle control is much better then with EP Systems and i got a pressure control as well....

Btw. Sorry for so much offtopic.......

Greets Sebastian.

Click to expand...

that looks great though I would hate to see the cost.

Nemo said:

I think that Benuser and Theory are not talking about the profile of the knife (the shape of the edge from heel to tip). They are talking about a change to the cross sectional geometry of the blade. The part of the blade behind the edge will get thicker and thicker as the edge moves up with each sharpening. This causes the knife to wedge in food even if the edge is super sharp, making the knife a poor cutter. It is corrected by thinning the blade. This can be accomplished with an Edgepro (especially the pro model) on Euro knives. The issue with Japanese knives is that the cross sectional geometey is almost always highly assymetrical (even if the edge is 50-50). If they are thinned as though they were symetrically ground they will begin to steer in food. So if you use an Edgepro on a Japanese knife you will need to adjust the angle when thinning each side. Not only that, most Japanese knives have a degree of convexity in the grind which helps with food release. The Edgepro simply cannot fillow this convexity.

Click to expand...

No they are talking about the fact that the angle is fixed at the point of connection and doesn't follow the curve of the knife.. hence as you move the blade around the angle shifts.

Not to mention once you talk about shifting for asymmetry then what the heck is the point? Might as well just practice freehand a bit more.

Sorry but jigs just arent flexible to cope with long or curved blades. And that makes sense. Their positive is that they hold an angle. But that is also a negative depending what you are sharpening.

Remember angle is determined by height and length. Either of them change and the angle changes.

I should at the jig that sharpchef uses seems a lot better but I still think that is would have the same issue. Otherwise rather than giving you your angle it would just assist in holding it... which again I don't see the point

malexthekid said:

No they are talking about the fact that the angle is fixed at the point of connection and doesn't follow the curve of the knife.. hence as you move the blade around the angle shifts.

Not to mention once you talk about shifting for asymmetry then what the heck is the point? Might as well just practice freehand a bit more.

Click to expand...

Yes, the angle does change because of 2 factors:
1) The heel end of most gyutos is a lot taller than the nose end, which means that the heel sticks out further and receives a lower angle.

2) As the stone arm swings from side to side, the length of arm effectively increases the further one gets from the midpoint of the stone arm's arc.

I was curious, so I've just measured the magnitude of this change. I used my knife with the greatest variation in blade heigh (270mm Fujiwarra Kanefusa FKM gyuto).

At a set 15 degrees, factor (1) Accounted for a 1.3 degree variation (which would obviously change gradually down the length of the blade). Factor (2) accounted for 0.3 degrees at the nose end but only 0.1 degrees at the heel end. This would obviously vary from point to point depending on where the blade was positioned relative to the blade table.

So there is a 1.4 degree maximum variation in the angle produced. I suspect you would have to be a pretty good sharpener to do better than this freehand.

I agree that the jigs are fiddly WRT asymmetry at the edge and cope very poorly with asymmetry in the grind when thinning.