Getting frustrated with stropping Barkie CPM 3V

gadgetgeek said:
Interesting stuff so far. My King 1k didn't even darken the slurry on this thing.

The trouble is I'm getting a lot of generalities. All I'm looking for is a working edge. I like as sharp as practically possible, at the very least the edge should be a little grabby, which it isn't so far. Its getting better with the white compound I've got which should be a diamond compound. But slowly.

Now would 1 micron CBN or Diamond on leather give me a reasonably fast cutting solution, and give a reasonable edge, should I go higher, or lower? will there be an appreciable difference between CBN and Diamond at the same size? Since this is also going to be for field maintenance I'd rather go for a fast robust edge, rather than a polished perfect one. Most of my knives get done on a 800 grit ceramic, and might see a couple swipes over the green strop. Since I'm going for no micro bevel is there a reason not to use leather and just keep going flat on the main grind? Its what I've done on a mora1 and the edge is really nice. Id rather not bother with a wooden paddle strop just for durability sake.

But without knowing much about how the 3V reacts at the edge, I'm feeling like a lot of the stuff I do might not really carry over. Its not a SAK or an ESEE.
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What makes you sure the 'white' compound is actually diamond? It would be very strange/rare if a diamond compound were instead just being marketed as 'white' without specifically mentioning actual diamond makeup or content. I bring this up because, there actually is a 'white diamond' product (as named/branded) out there that's got no diamond in it at all, but is instead tin oxide (made for soft metals & plastics; too soft for steel). Most of the other standard 'white' compounds will be aluminum oxide (OK for most steels, but may struggle with higher-vanadium steels in attempting to polish them highly).

I bolded the other point (about finishing on ceramic, then stropping w/green compound on leather) because, if there are relatively heavy burrs generated on the ceramic (ceramics can do that easily), the green compound on leather may have trouble removing those burrs.

If you are just looking for a 'fast robust edge' produced in 'field maintenance', and not really caring if it's polished, then the stropping issue may not be important anyway. It's likely such an edge could better be made and finished on a stone alone. For something with fairly significant vanadium content, a diamond hone would be a no-brainer choice to me, if the knife were mine and I were looking for such an edge. If you were finishing with an 800 ceramic, try using a 600 or 1200-grit diamond hone instead (F/EF DMT, for example); it'll leave the edge much cleaner (of burrs) & crisper than the ceramic likely will by itself, minimizing the need for cleaning up on a strop. That'll also very closely address the 'I like as sharp as practically possible, at the very least the edge should be a little grabby' characterization you mentioned, of what you'd like to see in your edge.


David
 
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I have found stropping is a tough way to get rid of burrs. I know a few people who use a strop for this, but I'm not sure how they do it because it doesn't really work when I try it....well, I guess it does work, but it takes forever.

Course, it depends on the steel, but it's much easier to use the stone to clean a wire edge. YMMV.
 
Burrs are not a problem, and the edge is sharp-ish. My reason for not wanting to use a stone, is I'd like to take advantage of the convex bevel already in place, that and the mini-bushcrafter has an ever so slight recurve, which would make doing a straight scandi just a little annoying with the stones I have. With my other knives, I generally de-burr them fully on the ceramic, But again, thats steels that are much less resistant, and with totally different geometry, otherwise this wouldn't be troublesome. At this stage, its obvious that my compounds as they stand are not up to the task of removing material at all, so they will not be adequate to refine any edge I do put on with stones.

Obsessed, It may well not be a diamond compound. I have no idea, it was from a pack of compounds that were sort of generic. I do know that so far its been making some difference to the look of the steel, and it darkens up, so it is cutting at least a bit. I'd like something more aggressive.

The other difficult part for me is that for every "should work" there is a "won't work". I get that there is a fair amount of opinion involved. Also a lot of the advice has been pretty vague, or related to technique rather than product. So I need some specifics. What size should I be looking for in a compound? As much as I love KSF, shipping and the exchange rate put that kit out of the range unless that's the perfect solution.

Now I could be totally wrong here, I was under the impression that CPM 3V could handle being at a very acute edge. So thats why I'm going for what I'm going for on this knife, no micro bevel, convex all the way down the primary grind. Is there a reason why this is a terrible idea, and I'll be cursing the heavens by carrying out this plan? The way things are going it doesn't seem like I'll have to touch up this edge all that often so even if the task takes a little time, that's not a big deal. But in total I'm in for a few hours so far and i don't have the factory grind lines removed save for some very small areas and it hasn't been enough to more than lighten the star etching on the main bevel.
 
What i would do if i had to create a new edge by hand on that convex knife with the slight recurve is to first remove the old edge by cutting a few times lightly into a hard sharpening stone to remove possibly weakened steel, and then resharpen it on 400/600/800 wet & dry paper on the back of a stationary pad until you have an even burr all along the edge.
The use of a black marker and something of a jewelers loupe will help quite a bit: color both the edge black and put several stripes from the edge to the back of the blade.
This will help you to see where material is removed during sharpening.

Then carefully abrade that burr away with some 1 micron diamond compound, used also on the back of a stationary pad.
Such a pad or book is of course not as hard as a stone but noticeably harder than a mouse pad, imo providing just the right amount of "give" to follow both the convex curve & the recurve in your blade, yet is also still hard enough to lessen the chance of rounding the new edge during sharpening or abrading the burr.
If done right this will provide you with a very sharp edge (at least arm hair shaving but probably treetopping, also depends on the final edge angle) and has quite a lot of bite.

When i think i'm done i also "test drive" the new edge: first moderately in the edge of a piece of medium hard underlayment to see if there are any burr remnants remaining (these could just stand straight up and hide under bright light, but fold flat when cutting the wood, providing me with those tell-tale reflections) and then with more force in the edge of a piece of laminated desktop to see if the chosen edge angle is strong enough (as in: as thin as possible but thick enough)

This is how i have done several convex Fallkniven knives in 3G steel, and it's also how i sharpen my own kukri with convex edge.
Which is 5160 steel, so i could just abrade the burr with some chromium or aluminum oxide as there are no vanadium carbides in the steel, but i like how diamond compound works: fast & aggressively.

This is where i ordered a diamond product before and plan to order more as soon as my current stock is depleted: http://www.techdiamondtools.com/
 
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Some wet/dry sandpaper in a variety of grits will solve the problem. Start around 320grit and work your way up to 2000grit then finish with a few swipes on the strop and you're done.
 
Get yourself a set of Micromesh sanding paper( grit varies from 1800-12000), a mousemat and some doublesided tape.

Stick the tape to your mousemat, attach your mircomesh, and start stropping! The tape will prevent 'bulging' of the sandpaper, and will prevent scratching your blade!
This will get you sharper than factory( and l know BR sends Sharp knives)
 
gadget- You can use stones to sharpen convexes. I don't even bother with sandpaper anymore, its much easier for me to sharpen convex edges on a stone, either waterstone, or a handheld DC4 or DMT. After I get it sharp- with no microbevels- I will strop lightly with black or white Bark river compound to refine it.

When I started sharpening convexes, I was kind of in your situation- I didn't remove any factory microbevels (I have had some on almost all my Bark Rivers), and I tried to get the knife sharp just by stropping. It was frustrating and didn't work well.

I think the reason you are getting techniques more than products is, because sharpening is a lot like golf- Tiger Woods can out-drive me any day with a basic cheap driver even if I have a fancy high dollar one.

Our members Jason B. and HeavyHanded have some great videos that helped me a lot. Also Murray Carter and VirtuaVice on youtube have some excellent videos. They may help as well.
 
Danketch said:
gadget- You can use stones to sharpen convexes. I don't even bother with sandpaper anymore, its much easier for me to sharpen convex edges on a stone, either waterstone, or a handheld DC4 or DMT. After I get it sharp- with no microbevels- I will strop lightly with black or white Bark river compound to refine it.

When I started sharpening convexes, I was kind of in your situation- I didn't remove any factory microbevels (I have had some on almost all my Bark Rivers), and I tried to get the knife sharp just by stropping. It was frustrating and didn't work well.

I think the reason you are getting techniques more than products is, because sharpening is a lot like golf- Tiger Woods can out-drive me any day with a basic cheap driver even if I have a fancy high dollar one.

Our members Jason B. and HeavyHanded have some great videos that helped me a lot. Also Murray Carter and VirtuaVice on youtube have some excellent videos. They may help as well.
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Ditto that. :thumbup:

There are lots of tools & methods capable of getting the job done; technique (good vs not so good) is what will make the tools work or not. No tool or method will work very well if the technique isn't supporting it; thus all the emphasis on technique in advice given.

I still think the root of the difficulty here is an edge that's not quite ready for stropping, coming off the stone(s). Stropping to make an edge sharp is usually difficult or impossible, as the edge should already be sharp enough for easily slicing paper at least, and perhaps taking some hairs off the arm, coming off the stone before any stropping is attempted. If so, stropping should be a breeze, and it will elevate the 'reasonably sharp' edge to 'slick & scary' sharp after stropping. If the edge is a bit shy of sharp off the stones/hones/sandpaper or whatever, stropping with compound usually just polishes a wide & flat/round apex and further dulls the edge.


David
 
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kwackster said:
If you want the best possible edge on CPM-3V and many other high vanadium carbide steels like S30V, S90V, S110V, etc, you need CBN and/or diamond.
Other compounds will only abrade the matrix, giving you a sub-par edge.
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Hand American 1micron Diamond spray on balsa has been working great for me w/ s110v & S35vn
 
I agree. A strop won't sharpen anything. More like refine what's already sharp. If it's not sharp, then a strop is a waste of time and effort. I _have_ gotten non shaving edges to shave after a stropping. I believe this is evidence of a wire edge, but don't have a loope to prove it....it's just a theory.
 
Hey guys, thanks for all the help, I know you guys are trying. We are just missing the mark a bit, and I'll chalk it up to myself not being able to communicate as clearly as I'd like.
On the topic of golf, tiger woods might out drive you with any driver, he won't with a mini-putt putter, no matter how good he is.

as it stands the whole project will have to go on hold until I can get some diamond compound. unfortunately that is a bit of a project in and of itself since my address will change shortly, so I'll have to wait until after the move to order anything from china, and the budget doesn't support any of the more local options. the best I can do is autosol, but without knowing what its made of, I'm not going to bother with it. I might be able to find micromesh local, but I doubt that as well.

I might go at it with the stones, but I don't want to end up with a ground up mess if I don't have anything fine to make it look like it wasn't sharpened on a cinder block. This thing is harder than anything else I've used.

Last question, does anyone have experience with cheaper diamond compounds, what do you loose when it comes to going low end compared to the DMT stuff or others?
 
gadgetgeek said:
Last question, does anyone have experience with cheaper diamond compounds, what do you loose when it comes to going low end compared to the DMT stuff or others?
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Well, where are you getting them from? The ones I bought on eBay were pretty much colored toothpaste, smells funny and is utterly useless.

Don't cheap out. Get either DMT or Hand American Diamond Sprays. Do NOT buy anything from China.:thumbdn::thumbdn::thumbdn:
 
Noctis3880 said:
Well, where are you getting them from? The ones I bought on eBay were pretty much colored toothpaste, smells funny and is utterly useless.

Don't cheap out. Get either DMT or Hand American Diamond Sprays. Do NOT buy anything from China.:thumbdn::thumbdn::thumbdn:
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I have no idea if they are made in China or not but I have used some of the less expensive diamond compounds made by Kent and Tech Diamond Tools and they seem to do the job just as well as the DMT paste.
 
I'll keep an eye out for those. I've found DMT paste reasonably local, but 50$ for a little bit, kinda bites.

Took it to the stones last night, figured why not, see what kind of mess I can make of it. took a couple hours but the edge is much better. right near the heel it looks nasty because of the very slight re-curve. it just skates on my king 1k, so I kept working slurry with one of my kitchen knives. I can't imagine doing a full re-profile by hand on something like this. the diamond stone I have is a cheap one, but its nearly dead now. Guess it might be time for some proper ones.
 
Same here. I'm looking at the diasharps in 8 inches. It's going to be around 500 bucks for all of them. But, it's time.
 
gadgetgeek, if you haven't found anything that works yet grab some Flexcut gold compound. I've used it to strop and polish edges a Bark River Essential in CPM M4 without any hassles. It worked well on the convex edge with both & thick and thin leather strop. Carbatec here in Australia keeps it so it should be easier to acquire, and it's a lot cheaper than diamonds 😉
 
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