We have previously written about the various types of sharpeners on the market. Here we take a look at one of the very well priced systems in the market. We use one of the Edge Pro Apex kits to show how easy it is to restore the original factory shaving sharp edge to your Honey Badger knife.
Our kit contained a number of stones including aluminum blanks onto which the supplied polishing tapes can be applied.
The Edge Pro Apex comes in a number of configurations depending on how many stones you wish to have included.
In the past customers have complained about struggling to keep the knife steady on the sharpening platform with one hand while sharpening with the other hand. The folks at Edge Pro listened and introduced a retractable magnet under the sharpening platform. This gives you the option to use it for smaller knives that will remain in a fixed position while sharpening and being able to retract it for the longer kitchen knives that need to be repositioned during sharpening. Below you can see one of the Honey Badger knives being held in place with the magnet under the platform.
Another new accessory is the slide guide made out of machined aluminum. The Slide Guide gives you 2 points of contact on the knife. This improves blade stabilization and allows quicker, more repeatable blade placement.
The common sharpening angle for all our Honey Badger knives are around 23°，except the Claw Models where the angle is 30. On the Edge Pro The sharpening angle is set by sliding an adjustable collar up and own the rear color coded post.
To be sure that we had the correct angle, we used a sharpie to blacken an area of the edge of the blade. We then ran the 220 stone very lightly over that area to see if the ink would be removed as expected. We then made minor adjustments and settled on a position between the yellow and the green markers.
We started with the Edge Pro 220 stone to remove any of the factory grind marks. After every few strokes we used soapy water solution in the provided squeeze bottle to keep the stones clean and to help prevent the swarf from embedding into the stone.
After a dozen or strokes on each side we then moved to the 400 grit stone. Here you can see it really doing it’s job as it refines the edge.
After another dozen or so strokes on each side we were left with a very well defined and shaving sharp edge. We wanted to see how easy it would be to restore a really great edge with the minimum of fuss so we stopped after the 400 grit stone. This also means that the Edge Pro Apex 1 Kit would be all that you needed to get to this point.
