Burr removal troubles

S

Slim7

Joined
Oct 11, 2015
Messages
84
Hello,

I've always had trouble with removing burrs, when I'm done sharpening. I've tried using cork wood, and just plain wood by drawing the knife through the wood and the burr is still there. I've even tried the stropping stokes on the stone to lop the burr off, and yes that works the burr is gone, but my knives goes from sharp to dull when I do that. I have tried to strop my knives on a unloaded strop and canvas, but still no luck? I know I could use a strop loaded with compound but I'm not a fan of mirror polished edges. I want to be able to remove burrs with my stones, but I don't know how to. When I'm finishing my knives on the final stones use very light alternating strokes. I know they are a lot of knowledgeable people hear. Any suggestions?
 
Most important is to stop and study what's happening. If you're alternating sides but not making clean contact on one side, all you're doing is reinforcing the burr from the opposite side. When it comes down to elimination time, check every pass if necessary to make sure you aren't hurting yourself.

It helps to push the burr all to one side first. Elevate the spine and lightly reduce it to where it it is nearly gone. Then drop back down to your original grind angle and remove it with short, light passes. Stop and observe often and only work where the burr is, do not treat the entire edge as a single unit.

It also helps to not flip it too many times. Its spent metal holding on at a thin attachment point, the more times it flips, the easier it will flip and the less pressure you have to work with for removal. Try to only let it flip once or twice. As long as its becoming progressively smaller is not a big deal, but flipping a large one a few times will make the job much tougher than it needs to be.

Tough ones can be made to stand up larger by lightly scraping the edge along a piece of wood to the burr side and then grinding it off.

Don't get too discouraged - burr creation, detection and removal is 80% of quality sharpening and will take minute to figure out.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1353408-The-Seven-Secrets-of-Sharpening/page2#37


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To remove burr on your stone,
if you sharpen at 10 degrees per side,
to remove burr, increase angle to 20 degrees per side (or 40 degrees per side)
and do 1 to 4 strokes per side using less than 100 grams of force,
as light as you can do it without losing control and wobbling the knife
If you have trouble following the curve of the blade use short strokes and do the blade in sections

This will remove all but the most gigantic burrs which require more force (100 grams or more)

Now your knife will easily shave, maybe even whittle hair (beard hair), but should be noticeably noisy slicing newspaper because you have a very big microbevel angle (40dps noisier than 20 dps)

Now to minimize the microbevel,
go back at original angle of 10dps and do 1-4 strokes per side (maybe 1-8) and you're done
or do it at a slightly higher angle like 15 dps (or 13dps) if you want a different microbevel angle

Now when you slice newspaper it will be noticeably less noisier than the freshly deburred edge
 
Thanks for the info! Another question is it to big of a jump going to a fine India to a translucent arky? I did originally said I don't like mirror polished edges, and I dont but I only use the translucent for burr removal, and to tighten up the scratch Patten slightly. I have no trouble removing the burr completely by doing a few edge trailing strokes, but I go from a set bevel/sharp knive to a dull knive when I remove the burr that way. Why is this happening?
 
Slim7 said:
Thanks for the info! Another question is it to big of a jump going to a fine India to a translucent arky? I did originally said I don't like mirror polished edges, and I dont but I only use the translucent for burr removal, and to tighten up the scratch Patten slightly. I have no trouble removing the burr completely by doing a few edge trailing strokes, but I go from a set bevel/sharp knive to a dull knive when I remove the burr that way. Why is this happening?
Click to expand...

It is nearly impossible to remove burrs using trailing passes on a fixed hard abrasive like an Arkansas. You may very well be pulling it off, but more likely you're just aligning the burr.

Is not too big of a jump, but I would say only if you can get the burr 90% or more gone before switching to the Translucent. At that point elevating the spine a slight amount and applying a microbevel with a handful of super light passes will give you a wicked sharp edge. If you were planning to polish the entire bevel you'll need to put some other stones in the mix, at least a good soft Arkansas between the India and the Translucent.
 
Slim7 said:
Thanks for the info! Another question is it to big of a jump going to a fine India to a translucent arky? I did originally said I don't like mirror polished edges, and I dont but I only use the translucent for burr removal, and to tighten up the scratch Patten slightly. I have no trouble removing the burr completely by doing a few edge trailing strokes, but I go from a set bevel/sharp knive to a dull knive when I remove the burr that way. Why is this happening?
Click to expand...

The translucent Arkansas stone is not the best for removing larger/tougher burrs. It's basically the least-aggressive stone you've got, in terms of it's ability to abrade the burr away. You'd likely do best to reduce the burr as much as you can on the India stone in the last few strokes, at much-reduced pressure.

Also, per the 2nd bolded point, edge-trailing on the translucent might be creating more of a burr than it removes, and/or the existing burr is being straightened temporarily, but then folds over immediately in use (resulting in the 'dull' edge). It's best to remove the burr with edge-leading passes at featherlight pressure on a more aggressive stone (as mentioned above). OR, an appropriately compounded strop can work well with the right choice of substrate & compound (example: hard-backed denim with an aluminum oxide 'white rouge', or similar compounds like Flitz or Mother's Mag polishing paste, work really well).


David
 
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Are the burr and wire edge the same? If I do raise the angle to put a micro bevel, do I need to put a micro bevel on the opposite side also? If I want to blend the micro bevel with the original bevel together, meaning going back to the original bevel and blend the two together. Will this be possible?
 
Slim7 said:
Are the burr and wire edge the same? If I do raise the angle to put a micro bevel, do I need to put a micro bevel on the opposite side also? If I want to blend the micro bevel with the original bevel together, meaning going back to the original bevel and blend the two together. Will this be possible?
Click to expand...

yes the burr and wire edge are synonymous.

when u raise the angle take an even number of strokes--perhaps a dozen-- and use very light pressure... u dont want to accidentally make a super burr

the even number of strokes will apply the micro to both sides.

as far as blending maybe a light stropping on copy white paper or newspaper on a hard surface with a little give like the back of a notebook...real blending in the true sense will not be possible bc even tho the micro is tiny its still its own bevel... think of it this way--- if u were to really blend them u would end up with your original edge bevel.

if you worry that the micro will be obvious remember that its width is truly tiny. u probably would not see it except under bright light.

hope that helps some
 
Bucketstove has the basic solution. Note that the burr is thin and ductile blade residue. You get more of that residue with edge-trailing strokes as this drags material to the edge where it can bend away from the hone. Soft material can snag and rip off some of burr, but that is a very sloppy process. If you use a soft strop with abrasive grit you tend to round off the edge. The best way to reduce burrs is to hone edge-forwards and periodically super-elevate for a few gentle strokes.

If you hone or strop with smooth flat material you are smoothing and aligning the burr similar to using a smooth steel. This produces a fine, but very weak edge. You can do some light shaving or very effective meat cutting, but it is not durable. Almost any fine hone may do this if used edge-trailing. If you want to make a more durable edge do some light edge-forwards strokes at an elevated angle. It may not feel as sharp, but it is much stronger.

Once the burr is gone you can go back and lightly hone edge-forwards or edge-trailing for a few strokes at your favored reduced angle. Note that many stainless alloys are not sufficiently fine-grained to finish at an arbitrarily low angle. My favorite primary honing angle is about 10 degrees per side. Over the years I have found that I have to finish my SAK edge with a few strokes at 20 degrees per side to get the keenest edge. After that I often lightly strop on photo paper with 100,000 grit diamond paste.
 
Slim7 said:
Hello,

I've always had trouble with removing burrs, when I'm done sharpening. I've tried using cork wood, and just plain wood by drawing the knife through the wood and the burr is still there. I've even tried the stropping stokes on the stone to lop the burr off, and yes that works the burr is gone, but my knives goes from sharp to dull when I do that. I have tried to strop my knives on a unloaded strop and canvas, but still no luck? I know I could use a strop loaded with compound but I'm not a fan of mirror polished edges. I want to be able to remove burrs with my stones, but I don't know how to. When I'm finishing my knives on the final stones use very light alternating strokes. I know they are a lot of knowledgeable people hear. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

You mean, you have that problem TOO?
 
Everything you guys are saying makes total sense. Especially when paired with the answers from a couple different threads I've recently either started, or read.
 
Here's our man Bluntcut discussing burrs. Showing how they sometimes don't seem to be burrs. Then showing the "push it all to one side and cut it off" technique. There's a little bit of a language barrier here. If you watch and listen carefully to what he says, you can definitely learn something from this:

[video=youtube;l2ynSDYEUYI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ynSDYEUYI[/video]

Brian.
 
Brian - please make videos (overall and 7+ short) for your '7+ sharpening secrets' thread :thumbup: Hello, sticky :)


bgentry said:
Here's our man Bluntcut discussing burrs. Showing how they sometimes don't seem to be burrs. Then showing the "push it all to one side and cut it off" technique. There's a little bit of a language barrier here. If you watch and listen carefully to what he says, you can definitely learn something from this:

[video=youtube;l2ynSDYEUYI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ynSDYEUYI[/video]

Brian.
Click to expand...
 
bluntcut said:
Brian - please make videos (overall and 7+ short) for your '7+ sharpening secrets' thread :thumbup: Hello, sticky :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement. :)

I originally planned on a series of videos, but I have a hard time making them for some reason. I may still do it, as video can be a superior way of explaining certain things.

Brian.
 
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