-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Do the spderco ultra-fine stones help with sharpmaker?
- Thread starter comet
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2001
- Messages
- 924
They will give you a very fine, highly-polished, edge. Much like a good stropping. If that's what you're aiming for they are great. You can get some truly scary/hair-popping results with some knives! I think I got mine from NewGraham but I've seen them lots of places.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 1998
- Messages
- 4,842
Yep, I agree, if it's a more polished edge you're after, the extra fine stones make an obvious noticeable difference. The knife will feel sharper afterwards, due to the polished edge and increased push-cutting ability.
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2002
- Messages
- 9,948
The ultra-fines can make a huge difference, but they work best after achieving a really good edge with the fines. That way, there's not as many scrapes into the edge to smooth out. One, of probably thousands, exception to this is if you make an edge with the 30 degree setting and use the ultra-fines on the 40 degree setting.
edited to add:
Go to NewGraham, as has been said, for your Sharpmaker needs.
edited to add:
Go to NewGraham, as has been said, for your Sharpmaker needs.
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
I generally don't use even the fine hones for my working knives. The slight edge roughness left by the flat sides of the "medium" rods slices more effectively than a polished edge. If I wanted to shave hair with the edge I might want to finish with ultra-fine stones, but I only do that for test purposes. For example I worked a very thin kitchen knife last night down to a 10-degree per side edge. I started with diamond hones, to the brown medium rods, to the white rods, to stropping. It gave me a shaving edge, but with this alloy it would not cut my arm hair above the skin. So I used a 6,000 grit japanese water stone--no luck. Then I tried an old Swaty razor hone--no luck. I tried various types of stropping and in the end I had a blade that shaved well, but still wouldn't cut my rather fine hair above the skin surface. For that single (impractical) purpose I would have wanted to have ultra-fine ceramic hones last night.
Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
Jeff were you using a loaded strop or just leather? What was the steel?
-Cliff
-Cliff
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
Cliff, The knife was an old MAC UK-60 which reportedly has a molybdenum based alloy and is around 58-59 RC (verses their later mix which has vanadium and tungsten in it and is around 60-61 RC) . The extremely thin grind on the blade lets me experiment with very low honing angles. I wanted to see if this moly-based alloy would get as sharp as I can get vanadium and tungsten type alloys. I wanted to try a little of everything to see where the edge topped out in sharpness.
When I stropped I was not trying to really hone, just polish. I used a couple leather strops on hard backing using chromium oxide buffing compound and a traditional razor strop with a little bit of ferric oxide compound on it. I tried in various orders of operations. I did not dig out my old arkansas hones, but tried most of my primary tools.
This does not reflect on the knife's practical performance. The ultrathin blade and the ergonomics make this a favorite with everyone who uses it. For example when I take about 50 knives down to the Marion House soup kitchen for volunteers to use they complain when they have to use something else. With my normal ceramic hone finish on this blade it is outstanding. I was investigating ultra low angles and alloy performance rather than knife performance.
When I stropped I was not trying to really hone, just polish. I used a couple leather strops on hard backing using chromium oxide buffing compound and a traditional razor strop with a little bit of ferric oxide compound on it. I tried in various orders of operations. I did not dig out my old arkansas hones, but tried most of my primary tools.
This does not reflect on the knife's practical performance. The ultrathin blade and the ergonomics make this a favorite with everyone who uses it. For example when I take about 50 knives down to the Marion House soup kitchen for volunteers to use they complain when they have to use something else. With my normal ceramic hone finish on this blade it is outstanding. I was investigating ultra low angles and alloy performance rather than knife performance.