Edge Pro Newb Questions

[BK14]

Hi everyone!
Due to the insight gained in a thread I posted awhile back, I have made the plunge and purchased the Edge Pro Apex 3 system. I have been watching lots of videos and reading lots of BF threads, and while I haven't been brave enough yet to tackle my more expensive knives, I have already been seeing some really great results on some of my cheaper blades. I have a few technique questions for the pros here... So after using the sharpie on the edge and finding the correct angle, I begin to work the stone over one side until a bur is formed along the entire edge. Then I swap sides and work the bur to the other side, then progress forward in stones. However, the first bur seems to take much longer to form on the first side than it does on the second side, which leaves me with a bigger bevel on the side that I started on. It seems to be purely an aesthetic problem, but how can I remedy this? I hope my wording makes sense. More simply put: the side I start sharpening on might take 5 minutes to form a bur, but when I swap sides, I can get a bur in 2 or 3, which leaves the first side of the edge much wider. Thanks so much for the help, and if I seem to be doing anything else wrong please let me know! I am so looking forward to learning more about sharpening and this system, and I apologize if I'm asking too many questions already!

 

[Wowbagger]

It seems to be purely an aesthetic problem, but how can I remedy this?

Yes for the most part it is no big deal; in fact some Japanese kitchen knives will have different bevels on one side than the other according to which dominate hand the user of the knife favors (left handed or right handed). Some knives are "chisel" ground meaning flat on one side and beveled only on one side. This is for slicing food or for disarming submarines with your sheath knife. (the latter completely escapes me so you will have to look else where for that one).

One "problem" is that many / most knives are hand held ground at the factory on a big powered belt to get the bevels and then touched to a polishing wheel with some form of abrasive and wax to do the final """edge""" and """"deburing"""".

It is my personal opinion that many / most of the people who are forced to do this sort of work are career tasters at the brewery next door and love their work (there). Usually the bevels are far too obtuse to be useful for anything but masonry and iron foundry work (a little joke). To see useful edges for many everyday tasks look at Japanese kitchen cutlery. I can do about anything I need to do at work with an edge like that. If it rolls or dings a bit then it is a matter of a few moments to steepen/widen the angle a degree or two per side to make the edge more robust. That is the way to go. To take a wide edge on a Western knife and grind the angles back (reprofile it) takes a lot of work and makes for wide bevels.

So
You can either just go the way you are form the bur to the second side and then debur or you can start balancing out the way the bevels look and maybe even have to send it off to be reground properly so everything is balanced geometrically and aesthetically. The knife will perform better if it is thinnish behind the edge and that can be done when you send the knife to a pro.
FROM THERE
Sharpening the knife will be quick and a pleasure to do and make sense.
From the factory the edge may be as you are experiencing, problematic to say the least.

Until you really get crazy about this hobby I wouldn't worry about all that and just use the sharpy and set the Edge Pro up so you can get the first stone to abrade the steel right down on the edge and not worry about the difference in look and don't worry about there being a difference in the time or number of strokes from one side to the other. Until you advance past even forming a bur just form the slightest bur that you can get away with and then go to the other bevel and form it very slightly to the opposite direction and then debur it off and then sharpen from there keeping the bur to a minimum.

And as you know certain alloys hold burs more tenaciously than others.
Soft stainless steel just won't let go and plain high carbon tempered to relatively higher hardness and the tool steels such as M4 are going to be easier to debur.

many questions

I wouldn't worry about that. I like to yack but do attempt to search in previous threads and read from the "sticky" threads in the yellow box at the top of the list of posts in the Maintenance forum.

 

[BK14]

Yes for the most part it is no big deal; in fact some Japanese kitchen knives will have different bevels on one side than the other according to which dominate hand the user of the knife favors (left handed or right handed). Some knives are "chisel" ground meaning flat on one side and beveled only on one side. This is for slicing food or for disarming submarines with your sheath knife. (the latter completely escapes me so you will have to look else where for that one).

One "problem" is that many / most knives are hand held ground at the factory on a big powered belt to get the bevels and then touched to a polishing wheel with some form of abrasive and wax to do the final """edge""" and """"deburing"""".

It is my personal opinion that many / most of the people who are forced to do this sort of work are career tasters at the brewery next door and love their work (there). Usually the bevels are far too obtuse to be useful for anything but masonry and iron foundry work (a little joke). To see useful edges for many everyday tasks look at Japanese kitchen cutlery. I can do about anything I need to do at work with an edge like that. If it rolls or dings a bit then it is a matter of a few moments to steepen/widen the angle a degree or two per side to make the edge more robust. That is the way to go. To take a wide edge on a Western knife and grind the angles back (reprofile it) takes a lot of work and makes for wide bevels.

So
You can either just go the way you are form the bur to the second side and then debur or you can start balancing out the way the bevels look and maybe even have to send it off to be reground properly so everything is balanced geometrically and aesthetically. The knife will perform better if it is thinnish behind the edge and that can be done when you send the knife to a pro.
FROM THERE
Sharpening the knife will be quick and a pleasure to do and make sense.
From the factory the edge may be as you are experiencing, problematic to say the least.

Until you really get crazy about this hobby I wouldn't worry about all that and just use the sharpy and set the Edge Pro up so you can get the first stone to abrade the steel right down on the edge and not worry about the difference in look and don't worry about there being a difference in the time or number of strokes from one side to the other. Until you advance past even forming a bur just form the slightest bur that you can get away with and then go to the other bevel and form it very slightly to the opposite direction and then debur it off and then sharpen from there keeping the bur to a minimum.

And as you know certain alloys hold burs more tenaciously than others.
Soft stainless steel just won't let go and plain high carbon tempered to relatively higher hardness and the tool steels such as M4 are going to be easier to debur.


I wouldn't worry about that. I like to yack but do attempt to search in previous threads and read from the "sticky" threads in the yellow box at the top of the list of posts in the Maintenance forum.

I so appreciate the detailed response!! I will continue doing what I'm doing and looking for a smaller bur. My main reason for buying the edge pro was to have some ability to fix bad factory edges. So if there's an uneven or overly thick edge, with enough work one a coarse stone like the 120 grit, the edge should thin to the angle I set it at eventually? I have a Benchmade 710 that when sharpening on the sharpmaker, I have to hold the blade at a totally different angle to remove sharpie from the base of the blade. So if I set the edge pro to a consistent angle, it'll eventually totally even out? I have really been enjoying this part of the forum and the sticky threads have some great info! It amazes me how intricate the whole process of sharpening can be.

 

[Wowbagger]

I have a Benchmade 710 that when sharpening on the sharpmaker, I have to hold the blade at a totally different angle to remove sharpie from the base of the blade.

YUUUUUUUUUUUP !
I feel your pain.

So if there's an uneven or overly thick edge, with enough work one a coarse stone like the 120 grit, the edge should thin to the angle I set it at eventually?

Yes but a reserved yes.
Depends on the steel and the 120 stone. If you are working the high vanadium alloys like S110V, S90V etc you may not be able to get very far unless you use a very coarse diamond stone.

All you can do is try it and if it is glazing the stone and taking too long order a coarse diamond plate. For instance S30V might be the cut off; barely doable without diamond.

As far as ACTUALLY THINNING behind the edge you probably want to set the Edge Pro to a shallower angle than the bevel you want to cut with, thin the edge then sharpen at the steeper angle you want to cut with. The advantage to that is when you sharpen to touch up and especially if you want to refine to a polished cutting edge you will wear your stones less and be able to touch up faster because you will be working a much less wide bevel than if you had just stayed at the same angle to thin the blade which usually creates a big wide sharpening bevel. The Japanese like big wide cutting bevels (woodworking tools):

• LINK<<<<< go to 31 minutes in; be patient (he Jay van Arsedale and Toshio Odate are very knowledgeable)
• LINK<<<,

the Sweeds like big wide cutting bevels (Mora) <<<YouTube link but takes some serious effort to polish it all.

 

[miso2]

Which side do you start with and get a wider edge bevel?
In my early days, I did not realize that I held and positioned a knife differently on one side to the other. This created different sharpening angles. I tended to make a shallower wider edge when I sharpened the show side (on a framelock knife).

 

[singularity35]

I had that problem before. If it's aesthetically unacceptable to you as it was for me, I would just grind the side with the smaller bevel more than I would the side with the wider bevel. For example, I'd just grind the wider side for 20 strokes and 40 strokes for the narrower bevel. I would do this until both bevels looked the same, at which point, I'd grind both bevels with the same number of strokes. I never could see that the edge was off center after I rebeveled.

 

[BK14]

Which side do you start with and get a wider edge bevel?
In my early days, I did not realize that I held and positioned a knife differently on one side to the other. This created different sharpening angles. I tended to make a shallower wider edge when I sharpened the show side (on a framelock knife).

I start on what would be the lock side of a framelock. However the last blade I did is pretty even, so maybe my technique for my off hand is getting more solid. Thanks everyone for the responses! I tackled the 710 yesterday and am thrilled with the results. I believe I sharpened at 22 dps and now the edge is even all the way to the base, and one of the sharpest knives I own. Also, I am loving the look of the big shiny bevels I'm getting with the Edge Pro! Now I want some polishing tape!