Choosing toothy or polished based on steel?

[David Martin]

I sharpen my blades of S30V to around 300 grit all the time and have not noticed micro chipping. Plus, I almost never polish an edge and haven't noticed any micro chipping. DM

 

[Ratman79]

i only have one s30 blade-- a nice black on black PM2. i use it in my edc rotation and the blade is polished. on a couple occasions after plenty of cardboard it was duller than ithought it should have been...so be4 sharpening i looked at the edge with a cheap-o microscope and saw these very small nicks that i could not see with my eyes but could feel. those could have been microchips. im not an expert by any means though so maybe they were just small dings from impurities/silicates in the cardboard

 

[Bobby3326]

Yep, a bunch of flapping in the wind right there...

Well @&$#.... I'm over here thinking I learned something new from a renowned knife maker, just to get kicked in the balls and told it's bs [emoji34] ... god the internet sucks tonight.[emoji17] lol


I will say this thou I typically sharpened my benchmade Bushcrafter with a 65 micron belt and deburred on a 4 micron an finished on a leather strop with .5 micron compound...I experimented the other day and reprofiled it using a 80 grit belt, then went to 120, then 65 micron, then 22 micron, then 4 micron, and finished on a 12k , followed buy stropping on .5 micron...I ended up with a fairly polished edge, and I'm actually liking how it performs carving and such compared to before... That's why I thought what he said made sense... Go figure.

 

[uofaengr]

My guess is that Spyderco uses somewhere between a 320 and 400 grit belt to grind the cutting bevel. Then they polish the burr off with a buffer. I normally see an ultra thin shiny line at the edge of the edge; a microbevel that's quite shiny. That probably comes from the buffer; at least that's what I've been told here.

So maybe sharpen on a stone of approximately that grit and then deburr, at an elevated angle, on the finest stone you've got. It's worth a try. It's also sort of what John Jurranich teaches in his book; more or less.

Brian.

I'm going to try something similar next time I sharpen. Wondering how a combination of 400 grit and 1 micron or 0.5 micron would turn out...

 

[uofaengr]

Reprofiled my SnG this weekend stopping at 400 grit and stropped with 0.5 micron. Talk about an aggressive slicer.

Hoping Josh can chime in here on this... I've been using the WEPS for a couple years but tried a new technique to finish. I have always gone with the typical forward up and away strokes, orienting the scratches in the direction of the tip. I tried the technique where the bottom of the stone is placed at the heel and finish going down to the tip orienting the scratches for draw cuts and slicing. The only thing is the play in the stones puts on a visible slightly more obtuse angle at the heel portion. I've seen the video where Josh does this, but just wonder how you account for this and make it more consistent?

 

[cbwx34]

I tried the technique where the bottom of the stone is placed at the heel and finish going down to the tip orienting the scratches for draw cuts and slicing. The only thing is the play in the stones puts on a visible slightly more obtuse angle at the heel portion. I've seen the video where Josh does this, but just wonder how you account for this and make it more consistent?

Not sure how Josh does it, but if you place your palm at the base of the stone with slight pressure (basically rest it there), it will keep the stone consistent.

 

[Jason B.]

FYI, most factory edges are 80-120 grit followed by a buffing.

 

[Skimo]

I know with BM knives (may be belt wear) the finish looks and feels very closely to a 220 Edge Pro stone after stropping with CrO.

 

[uofaengr]

Not sure how Josh does it, but if you place your palm at the base of the stone with slight pressure (basically rest it there), it will keep the stone consistent.

I was thinking this too and it makes sense. I will try it when I go to touch up next time. Need to get some different materials and try out this edge. Feels aggressive but will shave hair and wave cut phone book paper just like the best Spyderco factory edges.

 

[REK Knives]

Reprofiled my SnG this weekend stopping at 400 grit and stropped with 0.5 micron. Talk about an aggressive slicer.

Hoping Josh can chime in here on this... I've been using the WEPS for a couple years but tried a new technique to finish. I have always gone with the typical forward up and away strokes, orienting the scratches in the direction of the tip. I tried the technique where the bottom of the stone is placed at the heel and finish going down to the tip orienting the scratches for draw cuts and slicing. The only thing is the play in the stones puts on a visible slightly more obtuse angle at the heel portion. I've seen the video where Josh does this, but just wonder how you account for this and make it more consistent?

Funny you should do that... I just put a 400 grit edge on my 0561 w/ a light stropping after. Love this edge for edc!

Anyway, yes you are correct the play is maddening. What I do is actually vary the pressure points during the stroke. I have finished the way you described for years...1. edge leading will have the best chance of removing the burr/wire edge fully and 2. the grind direction has a large play in the effectiveness of the edge (as you will find if you haven't yet ).

So what I do is put pressure on my palm part of the stone at the raised position at the heel of the edge, then transition through the stroke to where I have all the pressure at the tip of the stone when at the tip of the knife. Hope this helps.

 

[uofaengr]

Funny you should do that... I just put a 400 grit edge on my 0561 w/ a light stropping after. Love this edge for edc!

Anyway, yes you are correct the play is maddening. What I do is actually vary the pressure points during the stroke. I have finished the way you described for years...1. edge leading will have the best chance of removing the burr/wire edge fully and 2. the grind direction has a large play in the effectiveness of the edge (as you will find if you haven't yet ).

So what I do is put pressure on my palm part of the stone at the raised position at the heel of the edge, then transition through the stroke to where I have all the pressure at the tip of the stone when at the tip of the knife. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the response. Sounds like that takes some serious coordination/concentration which would take some practice lol. I will definitely give it a shot though.

 

[uofaengr]

Tried Josh's technique last night on the SnG. I wanted to fix that obtuse portion near the heel and flat of the blade so I started back with the 400 grit, and the technique worked perfectly. I did go up to 600 grit to see if I like it better. Moved the arms in 2 degrees to strop and didn't get it as sharp as I like so I took the kangaroo strop off and stropped by hand. Got so much sharper and extremely pleased with the results. The sound and feeling it has going through phone book paper feels almost exactly like that Spyderco edge. Love how aggressive it is and how it bites into plastic.

 

[Wolf7]

I read somewhere that intended use + blade type PE vs SE, shape and grind, matters more than steel type used when it comes to choosing toothy vs polished edge.
Also, PE vs SE makes big difference, I always prefer SE it gives you best of both worlds for slicing and sawing/ripping.
For average multi purpose EDC with PE - toothy better for cutting fibrous materials.
For average multi purpose EDC with SE - polished on plain edge portion best because it's already has serrations for cutting fibrous materials.
Single purpose blades may require specific polish for it's main purpose ex: shaving razors, chisels, medical scalpels, axes, kitchen, utility, etc.

IMHE with cheap mystery steel Chinese knife that has thin hollow ground blade,
when I hand sharpened with Lansky stones up to fine stones it still had toothy edge I constantly had edge rolling issues.
It was OK at cutting cardboard, wasn't that great at slicing paper either.
After I sharpened it on KOWS belt sharpener I started out @15DPS but because it kept snagging on thumb stud on one side I switched to @20DPS on medium 220 belt.
Since it's main use as utility knife I didn't need to use fine or extra fine polishing belts but it ended up with mirror polish edge anyway!
It started out matte toothy polish V shape and rolled edge with minor dings.
Ended with shiny mirror polish convex shape edge.
Now it's wicked slicer both on paper and cardboard, fruit and veggies.
No more rolled edge, few dings from hitting tin cans when opening pet food packaging boxes, but you would get dings from hitting tin cans on many other average steels also.

IMHO in conclusion, for best EDC performance for me is SE hollow ground convex mirror polished blades!

 

[Butcher1]

Whenever I hear a discussion about toothy edges it makes me wonder what each persons definition of toothy is and where the cut off is, would 1k or 1.2k king stones be as refined as you can go before getting away from toothy?

Or maybe even that is too fine to be considered toothy, a fine India stone followed by a light stropping would be quite aggressive, I could see people saying that is the cut off for being considered toothy

 

[Jason B.]

A 1k King stone could be considered the cutoff, it's only slightly finer than an India stone but still toothy as long as it's not stropped. Around 300 grit is what most of us consider toothy though.