You guys are too fast for me! Here's what I've been doing. I, too, like the thin edges. I started out thinning some of my D2 knives, Queen 4180 Hunter and others, and had it down to 10 per side, give or take. Keep in mind this is all on my edgepro so the actual angle is a little bit less since the edgepro indexes off the flat grind of the blade, not the centerline. Anyway, once I got my Queen D2 down like that, wow! This would outcut *every* knife I have, and by a large margin. I could go through what seemed like a mile of cardboard and it would hardly start to dull. A couple of swipes on the ceramic rod, put a nice microbevel on it, and it would cut for *another* mile. Those are South Dakota miles, which means they are as long or short as I care to make them.
But you get the idea. I thought I had it all figured out. D2, and thiiiiiiiin.
Well, diversity is a good thing in cutting. After enjoying this for several weeks, I was making a fuzz stick out of pitch pine, wood so soft you could dent it with your fingernail. What I was doing was cutting the stick with a slight scooping motion. To my shock, I was taking very large chunks out of my edge. Probably 1/16 of an inch or so, maybe larger. Yikes! The only good thing is that I found the limits of D2, at least on that particular knife. I put the knife on a DMT blue, and eyeballed a microbevel on the blade, and removed the damage in 5 minutes. There is still evidence of one of the missing chunks, but it will sharpen out. The microbevel also strengthened the blade enough that when I went back to making the fuzz stick, no more damage was incurred. I tried this with another D2 blade, with similar results, although I was a helluva lot more careful on the scooping, let me tell you!
Anyway, a couple of nights ago I put my Calypso Jr in VG10 on the edgepro, and took it down to 15 deg per side, all the way up to the 3000 grit tape. The edge was perfectly dark, no light reflecting, and I could "tree top" trim arm hair, a couple or three per pass. Not as good as a straight razor, but plenty sharp for me. They I went and cut some cardboard, a milk box from Costco, to be exact. I made about 2 dozen cut from top to bottom, working my way around the box. After doing that, the blade was pretty warm. Not enough to burn your fingers, but it got your attention. The edge was now reflecting light in a "wavy" pattern. Not good. So, I decided to try the fuzz stick. Started scooping, started chipping. *Much* smaller chips than the D2, but I didn't mike them. Once again, the chips came out quickly on a DMT blue, but this time I kept the bevel, and microbeveled on a DMT red (600 grit). So far, no problems, but I haven't had time to get back to it. I am planning on doing a lot of testing in the next couple of weeks on both of these.
A couple of observations. First of all, I really like both D2 and VG10. I also like this Queen model and Spyderco model. Nothing at all against either company or knife. I'm trying to find the limits for both, and the only way to do it is to go past the limit. I'm trying to do that without destroying either one, so I can come back from the edge and still use the knife for a long time. So please don't take this as a slam on either company. I'm not irritated or anything, just curious.
As CMSpeedy and db have undoubtably found out, having a really thin edge that just glides through media is a wonderful feeling. I can't describe it, you really have to experience it for yourself. It takes cutting to a whole 'nuther level. Plus, these thin edges stay sharp a WHOLE lot longer than thick edges, and can be brought back to full sharpness in less than a minute, even freehand. They are fantastic. Db, enjoy your re-ground Calypso. I'll bet it's a real pleasure to use.
I apologize to everyone who's heard this story 5 times already. Even with the hard lessons I'm learning, it's well worth it. Good stuff!
