Max Knives SP62 — Folding diamond sharpener, perforated face

Overview

You recognise the SP62 by its surface: it is perforated, dotted with regular hollows across the diamond. Those hollows keep metal from building up and make each sharpening session more effective. Everything else follows the folding principle: 230 mm open, 125 mm closed, with a sharpening area of 100 mm by 20 mm. One face in 400 coarse grit, one in 600 fine grit, chosen according to the state of the edge in front of you.

What the hollows are for

Sharpening means tearing metal off a blade, and that metal has to go somewhere. On a solid surface it stays where it was made: the dust packs in between the grains, the blade ends up riding on a bed of filings, and the diamond — untouched underneath — seems to bite less and less. The hollows in the SP62 give that debris somewhere to fall. The grit stays clear, contact between abrasive and steel stays direct, and the tool holds its output through a full pass instead of clogging after a few strokes.

Technical specifications

Folding diamond sharpener with a perforated surface and two abrasive faces: 600 grit for finishing on one side, 400 coarse grit for reshaping on the other. Length open 230 mm, length folded 125 mm. The sharpening area measures 100 mm long by 20 mm wide. Of the 230 mm on offer when open, more than a hundred millimetres therefore do real work, the rest serving as the grip once the tool is unfolded.

Care

The hollows do much of the work while you sharpen, but they empty out better with a brush: run soft bristles along them to drive out the filings, rinse if needed, then wipe and let the faces dry before folding the SP62 shut. Put away clean and dry, it starts the next session on clear grit, which is exactly what that surface is there for.