Hapstone R2 Lite Clamps

made a small knife blade holder for the T4

Actually had one thumbscrew that was hand tight that I couldn't loosen. I am not a gorilla so when I say hand tight I mean hand tight. Hat to use pliers to loosen which in turn chewed up the knob. Wasn't happy about this. Maybe a bad thread or something. Not sure

R2 Module (Lite) I already own a Hapstone M3 and wanted this R2 Module and "Lite" clamps to sharpen narrow width knives. Works great! The modularity of the Hapstone sharpeners is the reason I purchased Hapstone vs other Mfgs. I now own a M3 and R2.

Nice product. I recommend the small size. The small clamps work well for just any normal thickness knife you would have. I have 4 to enable clamping 10 inch knives. Put masking tape on both sides of your blade for better clamping and reduce the risk of marring the knife. I went with the small size because flexing of the knife blade holding system while sharpening is worse with longer clamps. See for yourself on the UTube review videos.

Very good Small enough to sharpen small knives without contacting the clamp. Strong enough to hold. Well done.

High quality clamps BUT The milled clamps are of high quality HOWEVER they are 0.8 degrees off from side to side. I have tried everything u know to try and get them closer to 0 degrees error on both sides 0.8 degrees is perfectly fine for 90% of people and will still allow a lazer sharp edge but when your putting show quality edges on knives and the bevels are .8 degree different in angle there is a noticeable size difference in the bevel of both sides. To most they wouldn't notice the slightly larger bevel on the shallower side but again when someone's paying me to put a prefect 15 degree per side full mirror edge on a 1000 dollar knife I can not have have a 15 degree bevel on one side and a 14.2 or 15.8 degree bevel on the other (depends on the side I set the angle on would make it either 14.2 or 15.8). Now the thing is I do most of my show type edge free hand anyhow but on some knives that have certain blade shapes it's very hard to free hand a perfectly consistent bevel without slight angle changes and for those knives is what I have a fixed angle system for it just makes it faster. Are this clamps with 42 dollars? Well they are high quality (I have the hapstone angled twin clamps and the center clamp and they are great but have some flex in them and these have near zero flex in them) and they will allow a lower angle than the normal hapstone clamps but 0.8 degree error makes them not usable for what I need them for. The normal non one piece hapstone clamps have around .3 to .4 degree flex in them and with consistent pressure you can keep that around .1 to .2 degree so that's less error overall then these clamps have. The flex on the non one piece clamps will cause facets if your not super consistent on your pressure and those facets will stick out like a sore thumb on a super high grit finish mirror bevel. These do not have that flex so the facets will not happen due to slight pressure differences on each side these will just cause a different bevel size on each side of the knife so it a toss up. So I still haven't found a way to give prefect fixed angle edges that are as consistent as free hand edges. Free hand edges take longer of course and I have to charge customers more for a free hand mirror edge. I really wish I could get a fixed angle to have no error and near no flex and allow me to cut the time in half so I could offer a cheaper show edge service to the customers that don't want to go all out on a free hand show quality edge. In a nut shell these are great for someone that just wants to put a screaming edge on a knife and if you want to put a beautiful mirror edge on a knife this will do it to.. just remember if yours are like mine your gonna have error between the sides and near 1 degree of error is a lot, anyone that's even decent at free hand can hold their angle within 0.5 degree with no problem and someone that's really good at free hand can hold their angle to within a couple 100ths of a degree. With this in mind you will have to decide if these will work for you. For me these was a waste of 50 bucks with shipping and i have zero use for them. It's like this, if your someone like me that bought CNC clamps for no flex and high accuracy these will not give you what you looking for there is to much error in the clamps from side to side, so for a user like me they are 1 star. If your a user that wants no flex and don't mind a .5 to 1 degree difference in bevel size from one side to the other then these will give you exactly that. You will have a edge apex that isn't dead centered in the blade and you will have one bevel bigger then the other but there will be no flex and your edge quality will be excellent sharpness wise. If you don't mind those issues and just looking for sharpness and being able to take the bevel shallower then the Normal multi piece clamps then these in that case are 5 stars.