Do you always 'complete' the grit?

Joined
Apr 23, 2013
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I personaly like to give just few passes on a high grit stone after a low grit stone, therefore not realy changing the scratch pattern on the edge. The bevel is unifiorm yet toothy. Do you do this?
 
I used to, after a while I decided I had more consistent results finding a surface that made the finish I was after. As an example, I used to grind a new edge on the 1k and then backhone on the 6k, but not enough to complete the grit. After a few times touching up, I found myself wanting to go back to the 1k before hitting the 6k again, not because the edge wasn't still clean, but because I wanted more tooth. Finally just started finishing on a 4k and leave it at that, going back to the 800 or 1k only when the edge needed repair and not to customize the finish.

Sort of a variation on how I used to finish with a hard Arkansas and then rough up the edge with a few passes on a medium or coarse diamond. Realized I could get a comparable result with better control by just stopping on the "roughing" stone and with a lot less effort and time.
 
"Not really changing the scratch pattern?" Of course you are.

Agree w/ the post above-- why bother taking it to finer in the first place.
 
Closest thing I am doing to that is experimenting with salvaging the loose abrasive from my silicon carbide stone and using it to strop with to get a slightly finer finish.

I have in the past jumped from my DMT coarse to extra fine to quickly refine it and while that was successful it was less than ideal and was all I had at the time. It still left a toothy edge but not as much as just using a coarse stone. I imagine a jump from coarse to extra extra fine would have probably got me results closer to what I wanted.

If it works for you go for it, I just found that it didn't give me the exact results I wanted and I now prefer using my cheap norton economy stones over my 4in DMT's so it's doubtful I try it again anytime soon.
 
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