Feeling the burr?

N

nksmfamjp

Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
24
Tthis probably sounds stupid to man heree, but how do you feel for the burr? In the past, I have felt the burr running my hand opposite the cutting direction. With the knife I sharpened last night, I could only feel it pulling my thumb across the blade in the cutting direction. Is this a difference in steels, or am I nuts?

I recut the bevel from about 20 + to 15 degrees on this knife. I used the diamond rods on my sharpmaker and about 50 strokes a side with minimal pressure and speed. The bevels look ok, but not perfect, The tip is wider than the main part of the blade. I think that means it was thinned more and less than 15 degrees. Any tips for getting the right bevel on the tip? I think this is a common issue with anything other than a flat stone metod.

The knife is pretty sharp because the whole blade slices paper easily and without catching or tearing.
 
Sounds like you're not maintaining the angle thoughout the sharpening, so you're thinning the tip a bit. Makes the tip a bit weaker, but increases cutting efficiency. No biggy AFAIC. And some knives have thicker tips from the factory, so rebevelling will remove more metal from the tip.

I usually end up using two hands to control the knife when tip thinning occurs or aesthetics is an issue. Just a matter of lift.

Sometimes I will secure the knife and move the stones. This works with larger blades.

As to burr detection, there a bunch of methods. Visual under magnification, running the edge over your fingernail, visual using a light source to see reflections, etc.

I mix them up depending what I'm sharpening and how the edge is behaving as I sharpen.

Sharpening is a learn as you go thing.
 
In my opinion, feeling for the burr is less effective than finding one in bright light. Once the burr becomes small enough (sometimes they don't even have to be all that small), it can feel as smooth as a good edge, but if you look in the light, you'll see that dreaded highlight along the edge. That's the burr.
 
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