An observation, steeling as part of a finishing step? -New to the forums!

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xSweep

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Jan 25, 2013
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Hello all! I've been a lurker for quite some time and I must confess my appreciation for this forum. I've learned an incredible amount of info on a wide array of subjects from many of you.

Now to the observation...

First a little background...I've been a meat cutter for 4+ years now and I process anywhere from 300lbs to 1200 lbs of meat 5 days a week. My hands hurt simply because they've been through a lot even before I started cutting. I've been sharpening knives all the while in a more primitive fashion from the get go with the stones at my work. About 4 months ago my father gifted me a brand new set of water stones. Then began the pursuit of perfecting my craft with my new present. I'll say, what a pleasant journey its been!!

Over the past couple weeks I've been at a different shop helping out a team that's short handed. I'm in Portland, Oregon. Around where I am its fairly taboo to use another cutters blades. The boss at the shop I'm helping immediately picked up one of my blades to cut something real quick, I suspect this is because it was conveniently right there and as a way to "measure" me. I didn't mind, the guy is well respected and honestly it doesn't bother me much. Half way through the cut he says "man you gotta sharpen my knives." I light heartedly agree.

so I finally get around to it. I had some spare time at work the other day so I bust out the old Arkansas stones available at work and go to work on his 10" blade. The stones don't have a good finishing stone so I strop up the finished edge on some paper laid over the stone. My goal was to get it better, not perfect. It sliced paper alright after a small investment of time scrubbing and stropping. I took it to my smooth steel, 2 passes per side and then stropped the paper a few more passes and it went from fairly slicing paper to effortlessly slicing paper with a very very noticeable improvement!

I'm not suggesting this as a step, but Being away from my stones I used whatever I had around.

is there any credibility to the steel adding any meaningful influence in my scenario? It sure felt like it did add to the actual process.


sorry for being long winded.
 
Just a guess here, since I did not see or feel the knife in question. The steel probably removed a wire edge, or a left over burr, thereby making the knife sharper and better performing. Had you used your waterstones that you were used to using, then you would have already removed any remaining burr or wire edge. The stropping on the paper was good, but not agressive enough to remove the burr.

Blessings,

Omar
 
In the tiny bit of experimenting I've done using a steel, I am impressed at how quickly it can add some bite to an edge. The steels I've used are the grooved/ridged variety (I don't have any 'smooth' steels), and these do seem to create/amplify a wire edge, if it's not there already. On the one hand, it's great for 'flipping' a wire edge from one side to another. On the other hand, if the blade steel is very ductile, it may need some other means to completely remove the wire. At a minimum, pressure needs to be at absolute minimum when using it, to at least minimize the chance and/or size of the burr. That's my 2 cents' worth (almost literally)... ;)


David
 
HeavyHanded said:
Steeling can do some amazing things for an edge and in very short order. I still don't know much about it as a long term maintenance activity, but learned some interesting things here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...and-close-look-at-steeling?highlight=steeling

Your edge was probably exactly as you thought, and the steel really did jump it up noticeably.
Click to expand...

Wow that thread there had some very informative info. I steel rather often so its nice to know more.

as an added note I do believe, personally and in my experiences, that 'over steeling' (as I like to call it) will eventually give diminishing returns since its so easy to miss the angle. I also imagine fatiguing the metal plays some role.
 
OHALLUM said:
Just a guess here, since I did not see or feel the knife in question. The steel probably removed a wire edge, or a left over burr, thereby making the knife sharper and better performing. Had you used your waterstones that you were used to using, then you would have already removed any remaining burr or wire edge. The stropping on the paper was good, but not agressive enough to remove the burr.

Blessings,

Omar
Click to expand...

It's good to hear your thoughts on it. That all makes perfect sense.



I've read about people using stone slurry as a compound-type agent.

I'm tempted to load up a piece of cardboard with some slurry and use that as a step before hitting the paper strop. Or do you guys think that won't be aggressive enough before hitting the paper?
 
xSweep said:
It's good to hear your thoughts on it. That all makes perfect sense.



I've read about people using stone slurry as a compound-type agent.

I'm tempted to load up a piece of cardboard with some slurry and use that as a step before hitting the paper strop. Or do you guys think that won't be aggressive enough before hitting the paper?
Click to expand...


If you use the mud from a waterstone, the last stone you ground at, and wipe that across some paper you'll get great results. Maybe not as nice as going to a finer polishing stone, but much faster and more simple. I went as far as sawing off a piece of my waterstones (Kings) to use for generating mud in a hurry and for cleaning the stone up like a matched Nagura. I've also had very good luck claiming the mud from a silicon carbide stone with oil and finishing off with that - it works great as a finish but not quite aggressive enough for maintenance. In either case I wipe it up with a sheet of paper and just wrap it tight around the same stone.
 
Oh yes I'm going to have to try that.

I've very recently discovered that I enjoy seeing the results from some of the make-shifty solutions. It may not be as pristine a solutions but it sure is satisfying.
 
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