Can't get knives hair popping sharp. Should I buy an extra waterstone?

7

777zzz

Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
20
I have King brand 250, 1000, and 6000 grit waterstones. I am not able to get my knives hair popping sharp with these stones after hours of trying.

I have sharpened Scandinavian and full flat grind knives with these stones, but I can't get any of them hair shaving sharp consistently even though I am very careful about maintaining a steady angle and imagine I am removing a super thin layer of the stone while pushing forward. I have watched and read many tutorials on sharpening.

I don't want to use the 250 grit stone for simply sharpening because it removes too much metal. Would a 600 or 800 grit stone help, or should I be able to get my knives hair shaving sharp with my existing stones? Thanks for any replies.
 
You don't need to buy another stone. You want to get the edge shaving sharp on the 250grit before you move to the 1k. It sounds like either you aren't hitting the apex or you haven't removed the burr. Try looking at the edge under magnification and it might give you a better idea of what the problem is.
 
fsatsil said:
You don't need to buy another stone. You want to get the edge shaving sharp on the 250grit before you move to the 1k. It sounds like either you aren't hitting the apex or you haven't removed the burr. Try looking at the edge under magnification and it might give you a better idea of what the problem is.
Click to expand...

^ this

Look into burr formation and burr removal.

It's attention to details

Your set up is fine.
 
fsatsil said:
You don't need to buy another stone. You want to get the edge shaving sharp on the 250grit before you move to the 1k. It sounds like either you aren't hitting the apex or you haven't removed the burr. Try looking at the edge under magnification and it might give you a better idea of what the problem is.
Click to expand...

+1

Sounds like an apexing and/or cleaning up issue. To pop hair, the edge needs to be fully-appexed and clean. Your stones should be sufficient for your goal. Magnification would help. If that is not possible, it might help to focus time on clean up: lighter and lighter alternating passes, edge trailing, until just barely touching the stone with less than the weight of the blade, followed by stropping on newsprint, jeans, leather belt, etc. That can do a good job of cleaning up an appexed edge if it just has a little bit of burr left.


Of course, that won't help pop hair if the edge isn't appexed.
 
As others have said, your stones are definitely sufficient. If you're not shaving hair, you're most likely leaving a burr. Look into how to handle burrs, and make sure your edge is clean after leaving each grit. So:

- Sharpen at 250 grit.
- Deburr, test edge (should slice paper).
- Sharpen at 1000 grit.
- Deburr, test edge (should shave hair).
- Sharpen at 6000 grit.
- Deburr (might not be needed at this point), lightly apex or microbevel at 6000 grit again, test edge (should whittle hair).

Clean edges = sharp edges. And burr management is paramount to clean edges.
 
+1 all the above, except I wouldn't expect much shaving off the King 250 as its just a bit too loose for clean edge work. If you let it dry up a bit and are very careful, yes, but not worth the effort - just make sure you've ground a new bevel both sides and they meet in the middle.

Off the 1k it should be shaving arm hair, and careful work with a few backhone passes will make a great EDU edge.

The 6k should (IMHO) be thought of as a strop or steel. Unless using it for cosmetic polishing on a broad bevel, just a handful of backhone passes will refine the apex to a very nice edge, as sharp as you could need for any common task and hairs should be popping if not silently piling up on the edge. The edge should be nice and burr free 90% before switching from the 1k to the 6k.

A light leading pass or two might be needed for stubborn burrs but finish trailing. And practice with cheap knives, nothing you really care about till you've gotten over the hump.
 
I have found the King 6k to be a terrible stone for edge-leading strokes.
 
I have the Naniwa Super stones... all of them — along with a lot of other stones, and, pretty much every other main-stream sharpening system out there. Been doin' this stuff for a few decades now and I have realized that you don't need fancy stuff to get divine results. You don't need to go further than 400 to get to hair-poppin' either, but it sure does help if you do. Basically, if you're not getting shaving-sharp results at 400 you should consider your angle, pressure and so forth. Back to basics. Burrs are overrated and there is no substitute for skill. If you're working to get a burr you're really just unskillfully wasting steel and there is no need to. Honestly, it's all in the wrist (muscle-memory) and eyes, but it takes a lot of practice. After 400 it's all refinement. If you can't get to shavin' at like 400 or whatever, you're just covering up your mistakes on finer grits later on. When I'm lazy I'll just slap on an edge at a coarse grit and then super-hone it on a leather wheel or whatever and get to throat-shavin' sharp in no time. Practice though. All the info is out there. Save yourself the money and just put the time in and get some "fu".
 
No offense, but why worry about it being "hair popping sharp"? Who shaves with a pocket or hunting knife? I go to 1000 grit Smith's ceramic with all my users (including kitchen) and they will slice newsprint with easy and holds their edge. Don't get OCD about sharpness.
Rich
 
Rich S said:
No offense, but why worry about it being "hair popping sharp"? Who shaves with a pocket or hunting knife? I go to 1000 grit Smith's ceramic with all my users (including kitchen) and they will slice newsprint with easy and holds their edge. Don't get OCD about sharpness.
Rich
Click to expand...

Depends on what you use it for.

For wood work, I like a polished edge since I use a lot of push cutting. Polished = shaving to me.
 
stoffi said:
Back to basics. Burrs are overrated and there is no substitute for skill. If you're working to get a burr you're really just unskillfully wasting steel
Click to expand...

No burr aye?

Perhaps some pictures of your results?

Sorry man but your proclamations seem off.


It's with great skill that a burrs size is reduced to being almost undetectable to all but the most keen attention from experience.

Going "back to the basics" is forming a larger burr for dead certainty otherwise results are in consistent.

Not forming a burr is cutting corners .Laziness, alot of self employed knife sharping companies come and go because of this.

burr removing can be elusive at first. Reducing the size helps and the stickys have great advice on how to cut off a burr or strip it off with softwood.

Getting a knife sharp without a burr is called honing but only "tunes up" or refines the apex that's been established.
It doesn't work well if the knife is dull (rounded apex)and damaged( micro chipping)

In the end,
The paper doesn't lie.
Observation on the apex with bright direct light is great but an edge is working at a level smaller the ln the eye can see.( the width of an apex can be hundredths or even thousandths of a micron)

Any snag or rip when slicing with the full length of the edge is an area that needs refinement.

If honing and stroping takes out the snags then perfect, if not then burr time.

If a hair popping edge is desired it time to start from scratch and make the burr. Consistent angles at the appropriate geometry for the given steel and use and burr removing and honing make a hair popping edge everytime.
 
Some good advice here as well as some total bovine excrement. Tough for a new fellow to sort through the crap, some of you posting here just plain shouldnt.
Russ
 
Try sharpening edge-trailing. It sounds like you are using too much pressure, and are pushing your edge into the stone.
 
Check if your waterstones are flat,maybe youre rounding off the edge.These should be flattened sometimes,otherwise they will make the edge too rounded,depends on the angle.
 
lonestar1979 said:
Check if your waterstones are flat,maybe youre rounding off the edge.These should be flattened sometimes,otherwise they will make the edge too rounded,depends on the angle.
Click to expand...
+1
This is especially true with soft stones like the King.
 
Are you testing your knives in any manner other than shaving hair. I recently made my first knife. After spending considerable time trying to get it sharp enough to shave hairs, I just gave up and said it's as good as I'll ever get it. Later while showing it to my friend he promptly shaves a nice path down his arm with it! I've tried several knives with other people since that had the same result.

The point is, maybe you're putting too much emphasis on something not likely to happen.
 
mycough said:
Some good advice here as well as some total bovine excrement. Tough for a new fellow to sort through the crap, some of you posting here just plain shouldnt.
Russ
Click to expand...

Yep.

OP, are you raising a burr along the entire edge and on both sides?
Are you removing it? (I reccomend extremly light alternating edge leading strokes)
If you get good at the above technique you shouod be able to get shaving sharp edges off stones much coarser than the 250 king.
 
DeadboxHero said:
No burr aye?

Perhaps some pictures of your results?

Sorry man but your proclamations seem off.


It's with great skill that a burrs size is reduced to being almost undetectable to all but the most keen attention from experience.

Going "back to the basics" is forming a larger burr for dead certainty otherwise results are in consistent.

Not forming a burr is cutting corners .Laziness, alot of self employed knife sharping companies come and go because of this.

burr removing can be elusive at first. Reducing the size helps and the stickys have great advice on how to cut off a burr or strip it off with softwood.

Getting a knife sharp without a burr is called honing but only "tunes up" or refines the apex that's been established.
It doesn't work well if the knife is dull (rounded apex)and damaged( micro chipping)

In the end,
The paper doesn't lie.
Observation on the apex with bright direct light is great but an edge is working at a level smaller the ln the eye can see.( the width of an apex can be hundredths or even thousandths of a micron)

Any snag or rip when slicing with the full length of the edge is an area that needs refinement.

If honing and stroping takes out the snags then perfect, if not then burr time.

If a hair popping edge is desired it time to start from scratch and make the burr. Consistent angles at the appropriate geometry for the given steel and use and burr removing and honing make a hair popping edge everytime.
Click to expand...

Nah man, u don't need to form a burr. Most do and many books say you should, but I don't agree with that at all. It wastes steel to purposely form a burr, just like it wastes stones if you flatten them. When you know when to stop working one side you know... obviously you need to inspect the edge and test it on mediums for inconsistencies. You can get amazing results by simply sharpening heel-to-tip or vice versa, going along the line of the edge, for instance, which doesn't leave a burr, since you're knocking off all the material in the stroke... well OK, perhaps there is some minute burr or dust at the very tip or heel, depending on the action, but nowhere else. Stick it into a medium and its gone, but there is no need to use a burr as a guide or reference.

There's no point for me to show you any pics of my results. I have nothing to prove out of honor or whatever on the internet to strangers, but for the sake of argument, just assume for a second that I'm getting extremely high end results and that what I'm on about might be worth considering. Just offering what I know works, and, yeah you're right about one thing — the paper doesn't lie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top