first time sharpening m4

R

Rawrzors

Joined
May 20, 2014
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i just finished it and its perfect. i spent about 2 hours on my contego. the F***ing burr just kept flipping back and forth, for probably 20 minutes. i finally deburred it (or was it wire edge, it ran the entire length of the blade and kept flipping) i can now tap cut news paper, but im tired and i dont even know if it was worth it lol.

also also messed up and tapped the blade on the corner of the ceramic stone.... left a nice dent in the blade, that was not included in my time sharpening, as it was just removing a dent... that took so long...

im thinking my next knife is going to be 154cm or vg10. not SO hard to sharpen.

i really should invest in a machine sharpener of some sort...

anyways, it was nice to sharpen a knife to perfection after a long days work. im now going to go and pass out. excuse the sloppy grammar. good night!
 
Yeah diamonds chew through more wear resistant steels with ease.

If you want powered sharpening try a 1x30 belt sander. I picked one up for like 30 bucks and bought some very fine grit belts as well as a leather strop belt. I use it to sharpen my cheaper kitchen and steak knives. You can get a screaming edge very quickly. Just takes practice. I probably wouldn't try it on my expensive knives but it works well.
 
Take one or two knives off your future want list, or even just postpone them and buy an edge pro, or a wicked edge. The edge pro has made sharpening so much nicer and easier for me. I used to dread the time it took to sharpen, now I enjoy it and see how sharp I can actually get things.
 
A bunch of steels hang on to their burrs so hard it causes more than a few complaints of poor performance from people on steels like Elmax, S30V, M4 and some others. Good job on figuring out you had a burr still hanging on. Many don't.
 
How does BM treat their M4? I've gotten small burrs off M2, but none I'd call floppy like this. However, that was high hardness M2.
 
me2 said:
How does BM treat their M4? I've gotten small burrs off M2, but none I'd call floppy like this. However, that was high hardness M2.
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I'm no expert on heat treating, so I honestly have no idea. I think they do a good job though.

I wouldn't call the burr floppy till late, when the connection was super thin. I had to work on it pretty good to get the burr to flip over for a few of the passes. I then took a wooden dowel rod and pushed it over farther in the same direction. Then I gave it about another three passes on the burr to shave it off.

Bob6794 said:
What kind of abrasive are you using to sharpen with?
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Fine through ultra fine ceramic. Definitely going to invest in some diamond sharpening stones here soon. I've got other priorities first, but I'll make it happen. =]
 
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Aha. Those fine and ultrafine ceramics push burrs around worse than most things. You have to go very lighton clean stones. I use Spyderco ceramics a lot and find it best to deburr before going to the ceramics using either diamond or water stones.
 
me2 said:
Aha. Those fine and ultrafine ceramics push burrs around worse than most things. You have to go very lighton clean stones. I use Spyderco ceramics a lot and find it best to deburr before going to the ceramics using either diamond or water stones.
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^^This. :thumbup:

I've minimized use of ceramics myself, except AFTER I've cleaned up all detectable burrs on previous steps. An edge that's already nicely sharp and clean off of a diamond hone can really pop with just a few feather-light passes on a medium ceramic, if burrs aren't already in the way. Trying to remove burrs with ceramics can be frustrating, and leaning just a tad too heavy into it will make them worse.

A Fine or EF diamond hone can do a nice job cleaning up burrs, if the pressure is reduced to very light levels in the last few strokes.

In the past, I have recommended using ceramics to clean up burrs. But my sharpening 'education' is still evolving, and my view has changed on that. It can be done, but the touch has to be perfectly light. On the already minimally-aggressive ceramics, it can be tedious if done that way. ;)


David
 
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Rawrzors said:
Fine through ultra fine ceramic. Definitely going to invest in some diamond sharpening stones here soon. I've got other priorities first, but I'll make it happen. =]
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You might try Jeff Clark's technique for removing a burr with ceramic. Basically raise the angle and do a couple of light, alternating, edge-leading strokes. Here he describes it on the Sharpmaker, but it can also be done freehand...

Jeff Clark said:
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.
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http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-a-burr-on-a-sharpmaker?p=2896447#post2896447
 
Yep, that's where I learned to deburr on the Sharpmaker. It's a little easier on a freshly cleaned 1000 grit King water stone. The medium SM stones will work, but require a light touch. I have been known to put my Sharpmaker on rollers (magic markers) and use pressure light enough that the base doesn't roll sideways.
 
First time I reprofiled an M4 Gayle Bradley to 15 dps I was spent afterwards, but every bit worth it.
 
The Spyderco brown ceramics deburr well for me also. I'm happy enough with the finish that I often stop at the brown (medium).
 
i used a lansky sharpener, and rolled the burr over far enough to be sharpened off using a wooden table. i saw a guy on yt using a wooden dowel rod to push over a burr on a kitchen knife.
 
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