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do you raise a burr on a sharpmaker?
- Thread starter spyder8
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
Regardless of whether you intend to raise a burr on a Sharpmaker, you will always create at least a tiny one whenever you hone off more than a small amount of blade material. If you do your honing by stroking alternating rods, left-right-left-right... you will get the minimum amount of burr that will need removing.
So let's assume that you have done most of your normal honing at 30 degrees and now want to remove your burr:
Switch the rods to the 40-degree slots. To deburr you need to tilt the spine of the blade towards the center (away from the rods) as you do about 5 left-right stroke pairs using light pressure. What I do to be consistant is lay the blade flat on the right-hand rod to set the angle that I want to use and then move the blade over to the top of the left hand rod and stroke down the rod while holding that angle. Then I tip the blade over so that it is flat against the left-hand rod to set the angle I will use when I stroke down the right hand rod. Don't worry about being precise. The exact angles are not important. You are basically doing a few very light strokes at an 80-degree included angle (40 degrees per side) so that you can cut off the floppy burr material at the edge.
Once you have deburred the edge put the medium (dark colored) rods back into the 30-degree slots rotated so that you are working on the flats of the rods. You want to get rid of that 80-degree micro bevel you just put on. Do about 15 pairs of left-right strokes at this angle using light pressure. Now switch to the flats of the white rods and do about 10 pairs of left-right strokes using light pressure. To finish off, move the white rods to the 40-degree slots and do about 5 to 10 pairs of left-right side strokes on the rod flats using only feathery light strokes. This should leave you with an extremely sharp shaving edge along the entire blade length.
So let's assume that you have done most of your normal honing at 30 degrees and now want to remove your burr:
Switch the rods to the 40-degree slots. To deburr you need to tilt the spine of the blade towards the center (away from the rods) as you do about 5 left-right stroke pairs using light pressure. What I do to be consistant is lay the blade flat on the right-hand rod to set the angle that I want to use and then move the blade over to the top of the left hand rod and stroke down the rod while holding that angle. Then I tip the blade over so that it is flat against the left-hand rod to set the angle I will use when I stroke down the right hand rod. Don't worry about being precise. The exact angles are not important. You are basically doing a few very light strokes at an 80-degree included angle (40 degrees per side) so that you can cut off the floppy burr material at the edge.
Once you have deburred the edge put the medium (dark colored) rods back into the 30-degree slots rotated so that you are working on the flats of the rods. You want to get rid of that 80-degree micro bevel you just put on. Do about 15 pairs of left-right strokes at this angle using light pressure. Now switch to the flats of the white rods and do about 10 pairs of left-right strokes using light pressure. To finish off, move the white rods to the 40-degree slots and do about 5 to 10 pairs of left-right side strokes on the rod flats using only feathery light strokes. This should leave you with an extremely sharp shaving edge along the entire blade length.
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2004
- Messages
- 75
Jeff, I just read your instructions, and I tried it on my Merc-Worx folder (BG-42 Steel)
Great results.
Thanks.
Great results.
Thanks.
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2004
- Messages
- 1,675
OMG Sooooo complicated. Sounds good though, I'll give it a try tomorrow. 
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2003
- Messages
- 346
To correctly sharpen any blade, where the maximum sharpness is required, you must raise a burr on one side, and then with one stroke of the hone (or what ever)down the other side, the burr must 'flop' over. If one stroke on the other side does not produce a burr down the whole length of the edge, more work is required.
On good steel, the burr is still viable with 3000 grit, and behaves exactly the same way.
Whether you are doing a full sharpening or just a few light strokes of 'touch up',
if you do not get the burr, then you are deciding, quite understandably is some instances, that you do not need full sharpness.
If you have done everything correctly the burr can be removed quite simply by stropping on leather , preferably, or cardboard or a jean pant leg ( emergency use only . Do so at your own risk ) .
S30V and come other high performance steels requirer a little extra work to remove the burr, but experimentation will soon find the best way.
On good steel, the burr is still viable with 3000 grit, and behaves exactly the same way.
Whether you are doing a full sharpening or just a few light strokes of 'touch up',
if you do not get the burr, then you are deciding, quite understandably is some instances, that you do not need full sharpness.
If you have done everything correctly the burr can be removed quite simply by stropping on leather , preferably, or cardboard or a jean pant leg ( emergency use only . Do so at your own risk ) .
S30V and come other high performance steels requirer a little extra work to remove the burr, but experimentation will soon find the best way.
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
Raising a burr is neither necessary nor desireable for getting ultimate sharpness; it is however, virtually inevitable. The burr is primarily a residue that indicates how much excess edge material you have removed in the sharpening process. The length of the burr shows how far you have moved the edge back from the apex of your previous (dull) edge. If you could control your sharpening to only remove material at the sides of that old apex you wouldn't have a burr.
This is talking about an almost impossibly ideal case. Your old dull edge was dinged and unevenly worn. You really need to remove a bit of excess material along the apex of the old edge to smooth out the high and low spots. The old edge material is also probably a bit weakened by metal fatigue. You want to remove at least a little metal from the low spots since those areas are probably the most fatigued. When you do this you will get at least a microscopic burr along almost the entire edge. You can minimise this burr (and you do want to minimise the burr) by using edge-forwards honing strokes--which is automatic with a Sharpmaker. If you use the maintenance method that I described in my previous posting the final micro-bevel at 20-degrees per side will help to take it off.
As long as you can tell when you have removed enough material from the edge to know when to stop you don't need to go out of your way to create a burr. In fact a burr is a hazard to your edge. It is subject to tearing metal out of the edge when you work to remove it. If you hone to a low angle you are particularly vulnerable to edge damage from a burr. That is why you are supposed to try hard not to raise a burr when you sharpen a straight razor. It is considered a sign of over-sharpening and you have to deburr and almost restart your honing from scratch. Raising a burr is just an easy way to see when you have removed enough material. With good light and a magnifying glass you never need to intentionally raise a burr.
This is talking about an almost impossibly ideal case. Your old dull edge was dinged and unevenly worn. You really need to remove a bit of excess material along the apex of the old edge to smooth out the high and low spots. The old edge material is also probably a bit weakened by metal fatigue. You want to remove at least a little metal from the low spots since those areas are probably the most fatigued. When you do this you will get at least a microscopic burr along almost the entire edge. You can minimise this burr (and you do want to minimise the burr) by using edge-forwards honing strokes--which is automatic with a Sharpmaker. If you use the maintenance method that I described in my previous posting the final micro-bevel at 20-degrees per side will help to take it off.
As long as you can tell when you have removed enough material from the edge to know when to stop you don't need to go out of your way to create a burr. In fact a burr is a hazard to your edge. It is subject to tearing metal out of the edge when you work to remove it. If you hone to a low angle you are particularly vulnerable to edge damage from a burr. That is why you are supposed to try hard not to raise a burr when you sharpen a straight razor. It is considered a sign of over-sharpening and you have to deburr and almost restart your honing from scratch. Raising a burr is just an easy way to see when you have removed enough material. With good light and a magnifying glass you never need to intentionally raise a burr.