Cheap ceramic rod provides sharper edge than Chosera 3000

[Loren Jones]

Be mindful of your single pass strokes, especially the light ones. I know my angle can waffle a bit when I'm focusing on the pressure more than anything. I've surely caught myself messing up on those stone de-burring strokes. Everything feels great, a couple more passes and ...what the Hell happened? For me, it's angle control. When we're getting things this sharp it only takes a pass or two to mess things up.

Cutting paper is easy and it can be misleading. The sound tells you more than the cut itself. The term "hair popping" I think causes confusion as well. A sharp knife will shave arm hair just gliding along the skin. There might be some scrape on the skin but no force is needed and it should be smooth. Feel it. Pay attention to the feedback and be honest with yourself about what you're experiencing. I've many times told myself I was experiencing something I wasn't or stretched it a bit in my mind. Just leads to long term frustration. Not saying you're doing that, just sharing my own decade's-long experiences.

I think what you say holds great merit. I feel that cutting paper testing is a very low threshold.

By hair popping I refer to the effortless shaving you mention.

I’d love to have a KME or wicked edge but don’t want to spend that much so I’ll keep trying to get better with my stones.

But I do think I’m leaving burr on with the stone and it is getting taken off by the ceramic.

Also I dug out am angle cube just now and the bevel I just put on this knife is like 12 degrees. I didn’t intend to go that low. We will see how it holds up.

 

[Loren Jones]

.

The ceramic is more forgiving to angle inconsistences and can hit the apex better and remove the "base" of the burr left behind.

You don't need a stone in-between the 800 and 3k

If you're making a burr on the 3k but not getting sharp on the stone when deburring but getting sharp off the ceramic than that means you're not hitting consistent angles to clean the apex when deburring off the stone.

Slow down, light touch. Same angle. Clean the burr off without angle change and without rounding over the edge underneath

Thanks for the tips and insight. A bit of a practice makes perfect situation. I’ll keep after it.

I may try a strop too. Is it easier to get all the residual burr off on a strop than a stone?

I can always do a couple passes on the seramic rod to deburr hen do some finishing strokes on the stone but I feel like with proper technique on the stone I shouldn’t need to do something other than the stone to deburr.

 

[Craig James]

If it gives you a comparison I can achieve near hair whittling edges without too much effort on VG-10 using just the chosera 800 with a couple of follow up strokes on a bare leather strop just to ensure all burr remnants are removed

 

[ToddS]

....
I then run the knife about 5 alternating strokes on a cheap fine ceramic rod I bought at Woodcraft years ago (held at a 15 deg angle by a hole in a wooden base) and it is hair popping effortless shaving sharp.
....

I'm struggling to understand why this result would surprise anyone.
People do this everyday with a Sharpmaker, and there is essentially no difference between the Sharpmaker rod and the Woodcraft rod.

 

[Loren Jones]

If it gives you a comparison I can achieve near hair whittling edges without too much effort on VG-10 using just the chosera 800 with a couple of follow up strokes on a bare leather strop just to ensure all burr remnants are removed

Looks like I need to work on my skills and consistency. And perhaps try a strop.

And that is what I’ve always thought should be the results from even the 800 stone. I’ve just been trying to figure out why I’m not getting that.

I think it has to be a combo of angle consistency in my sharpening combined with incomplete burr removal.

 

[Loren Jones]

I’m

I'm struggling to understand why this result would surprise anyone.
People do this everyday with a Sharpmaker, and there is essentially no difference between the Sharpmaker rod and the Woodcraft rod.

just trying to understand what the rod is doing and why I’m not getting that result straight off the stone. Gotta be burr removal

 

[ToddS]

I’m

just trying to understand what the rod is doing and why I’m not getting that result straight off the stone. Gotta be burr removal

The ceramic rod removes metal and leaves a keen edge, just like any honing rod does.

https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com/2018/08/22/what-does-steeling-do-part-1/

You aren't going to achieve that level of keenness from a Chosera 3k.

 

[DeadboxHero]

The ceramic rod removes metal and leaves a keen edge, just like any honing rod does.

https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com/2018/08/22/what-does-steeling-do-part-1/

You aren't going to achieve that level of keenness from a Chosera 3k.

Lol nah, angle consistency.

I can treetop hair off a 3k no sweat. The ceramic is hitting the apex better and cleaning off the base of the burr. You can do the SAME thing with angle control on a stone. Just hit the angles better.

 

[Twindog]

I'd agree with the Bear.

You put a 12 degree-per-side bevel on your edge with the Chosera. The edge wasn't quite optimal because you freehanded it and didn't maintain a consistent angle.

The 15 DPS Woodcraft rod put on a micro-bevel on the 12 DPS bevel. It was a better edge because the angled rod is a jig that allowed you to maintain a consistent angle.

A micro-bevel is a lot easier to maintain than a full bevel, and your 15 DPS micro-bevel will give you good performance. If you find that the edge doesn't hold up, you can switch to a 20 DPS micro-bevel.

The time to strop is after you have a really nice, clean apex. Stropping, if you do it correctly, will work better on the edge you got off your Woodcraft rod than the edge you got off your Chosera stone.

 

[Loren Jones]

I'd agree with the Bear.

You put a 12 degree-per-side bevel on your edge with the Chosera. The edge wasn't quite optimal because you freehanded it and didn't maintain a consistent angle.

The 15 DPS Woodcraft rod put on a micro-bevel on the 12 DPS bevel. It was a better edge because the angled rod is a jig that allowed you to maintain a consistent angle.

A micro-bevel is a lot easier to maintain than a full bevel, and your 15 DPS micro-bevel will give you good performance. If you find that the edge doesn't hold up, you can switch to a 20 DPS micro-bevel.

The time to strop is after you have a really nice, clean apex. Stropping, if you do it correctly, will work better on the edge you got off your Woodcraft rod than the edge you got off your Chosera stone.

Looking back now after I measured my bevel I’m sure this is absolutely correct. I just got some strops

 

[Loren Jones]

I read the science of sharp blog and am looking forward to adapting his method to kitchen and edc knives.

Has anyone here found success with that? It seems like in the comments there was some people who had done so.

 

[Wowbagger]

a cheap fine ceramic rod I bought at Woodcraft years ago

Huh
you must have got a good one. I have several CHEAP ceramic rods (not anything to do with Woodcraft and not to disparage Woodcraft) . . . these cheep rods have extrusion ridges (not regularly spaced intentional ridges like a steel would have). I have tried many times over decades to make some kind of use of these rods, both in the wooden holder and hand held, they are some of the most useless sharpening gear I have. I would throw them away but they were my Father's. By all indications, from looking at the edges of his knives, he found no regular use for them either. All his knives were sharpened on Wet or Dry paper and left pretty coarse (no smoother micro bevel at the edge from the ceramic rods).

My best advice for getting the Chosera 3000 to put a hair whittling edge on a knife is to buy an example that will fit in an Edge Pro Apex and just use that.

This is from a person who REGULARLY touches up M4 knives with a hand held Spyderco Ceramic Ultra Fine Triangle Rod.

 

[Loren Jones]

Huh
you must have got a good one. I have several CHEAP ceramic rods (not anything to do with Woodcraft and not to disparage Woodcraft) . . . these cheep rods have extrusion ridges (not regularly spaced intentional ridges like a steel would have). I have tried many times over decades to make some kind of use of these rods, both in the wooden holder and hand held, they are some of the most useless sharpening gear I have. I would throw them away but they were my Father's. By all indications, from looking at the edges of his knives, he found no regular use for them either. All his knives were sharpened on Wet or Dry paper and left pretty coarse (no smoother micro bevel at the edge from the ceramic rods).

My best advice for getting the Chosera 3000 to put a hair whittling edge on a knife is to buy an example that will fit in an Edge Pro Apex and just use that.

This is from a person who REGULARLY touches up M4 knives with a hand held Spyderco Ceramic Ultra Fine Triangle Rod.

I’m not sure if the rod is anything special but it is smooth and round and quite a fine grit compared to the other one I have. I’m sure it’s lower quality than your Spyderco rod. I suspect my improved edge with the rod was due to the higher angle edge leading strokes done after my lower angle edge trailing Chosera 3k strokes removed a burr and put a tiny microbevel on (even though I only did 5 or 10 light strokes per side).

I’m sure that a proper angle controlled sharpening system would give me the most reliably consistent keen edges but I don’t have one.

Reading in scienceofsharp it appears likely that by finishing with edge trailing strokes I was building up more burr and it needed to be removed somehow. I think the rod did that but I’m going to try strops next. Just got some leather and some green compound for one leather strop and some metal polish (Mother’s) which I’ll use with a hanging denim strop. I hope I’m learning a lot here.