Has Anyone Gone To The Land Of Too Toothy And Survived To Tell The Tail ?

Wowbagger

Wowbagger

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I'm asking because my one foray into the realm of toothy was with a 500 Shapton stone on an Edge Pro and that left a scratch pattern much finer than the stock edge on my Manix CPM-S110V. Ankerson was hinting I should go more coarse for the best effect.

I have been waiting for the vendor of the Shapton stones for my Edge Pro to get a 220 stone back in stock. Looks like that is merely an unrequited dream that I nurture.

In the mean time I have secured a Shapton narrow 150 stone for my Edge Pro.

So
is that going to be silly coarse or good coarse ?
I'm scared.
 
I don't speak Shapton and have only a cursory familiarity with 110V. However, I have yet to find a problem with finishing tool steel (O1, A2 or 52100) on my 300 grit KME diamonds and a two or three very light passes on a leather strop with green compound. This edge still shaves hair, cuts rope, carves wood, preps food and is super strong and durable. I am going to try 140 grit and more stropping next...

YMMV, but I think that toothy is where it is at!
 
I used to sharpen my work EDU on a 60 grit stone with 80 grit microbevel.

On a 240 grit jointer stone I once made a toothy edge with so much variation, when I pressed it into card stock on my benchtop it didn't cut the paper. When I picked up the knife the paper was stuck to it - you could see the high points had pierced the paper and bottomed out on the benchtop, preventing any further penetration of the edge.


Go as coarse as you like for your needs, but keep in mind there is a penalty when it comes to pressure cutting with the same edge, even if worked to a thin inclusive. For hard work and draw cuts it can't be beat without going to a serrated pattern of some sort.
 
A lot of factory edges are finished around ~120 grit on belts, perhaps with a little follow-up buffing to clean the burrs up. So long as the burrs are taken care of, even that can work out pretty well, even shaving hair. I think Spyderco has finished many edges this way, and I have a lot of knives from Case which were finished similarly. One of my Case folding knives with a brand new factory edge neatly clipped 1/4" diameter flaps of skin from the tips of two of my fingers, when the blade snapped shut on them as I extracted the partially opened knife from the display tin, on the day I received it (it's the knife seen below; the smaller clip blade on the left is the one that bit me). Hurt like heck and bled like a stuck pig, but very efficient cutting. I remember seeing one of those flaps of skin falling away from my fingertip to the floor as I dropped the knife & tin, like a snowflake. :eek:

uiAju1S.jpg



David
 
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I love some coarse edges , actually if I do my part even my coarsest edges don't behave like coarse edges , they can shave , slice paper etc. I probably sound like a broken record because I say it all the time .

Right now my coarsest stone is a 220 dmt and a 220 grit bester . I'm in the market for something even lower and got it narrowed down to either the atoma 140 or one of the nubatama stones around or below the 140

I watched videos of guys push cutting newspaper off of bricks , 60 grit stones , 36 grit stones , 140 grit diamonds etc. Personally I thought it was smoke and mirrors .

Tried it and after several failed attempts I really took my time and focused on the lightest pressure I can apply and the results were awesome .
 
I think using very light pressure on a coarse stone just lessens the depth of the cut, much like a loaded stone might produce. I think this gives somewhat the equivelent of a finer grit finish than what the stone is rated at.

I also think this is why the same stone can leave different finishes with the same pressure used, with different steels - 58rc low carbide vs 65rc high carbide, etc.. Some steels just don't get cut as deep due to their properties.

All that being said, my favorite stone is the norton jb8.
But if I could only choose one for everything, it would be about a 50 micron diamond stone (~250 grit coarse eze-lap).
 
I will occasionally start and finish my knives on the diamond Sharpmaker rods and then some stropping with black then white compound. This leaves it pretty toothy, but in my uses it seems to dull faster than when I finish on the medium brown rods. As mentioned in another thread, I would love it if Spyderco came out with a 600-ish grit diamond rod for the Sharpmaker.
 
Thanks EVERY ONE !,

So many adventurous individuals.

Case stock edge [when they hit it right]
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Yah . . . that was my first eye opener (before I read Ankerson's tests / recommendations ). I bought this Case Trapper in stag and it had one of those "nasty old factory coarse grinds" on it. I figured I would use it for a day or two until it dulled or T-ed me off so much I had to sharpen it. I carried that dude for weeks using it every day and it just kept cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting and . . .

That was enlightening.


Yah for me sharpening doesn't begin until I start on a fairly coarse stone (though I am known for getting lost in the polishing of the edge latter). Coarse to start; at least 300 or 700 . . . otherwise if the blade has some little dings and is getting dull from serious use I feel like I am just wasting time taking it to a fine stone like a 4000 and an 8000 is just fantasy. So I don't get stropping as a "touch up" for a EDC blade. Woodworking tools for carving . . . now that is a different situation but . . .

Thanks again ALL, for your experience !
 
I sharpen my Victorinox kitchen knives with a Fine DMT, which produces a toothy edge and cuts tomatoes and the like much better
 
Secret #7 of the Seven Secrets of Sharpening is "The Coarse Stone". Learning to apply the coarse stone properly is a huge game changer. Part of that is recognizing the difference between sharp and refined. Sharp can happen at very low grits.

The other part is recognizing what types of edges cut in different ways in different materials.

You know the old saying, that once you learn enough about something, you realize that you really don't know much about it at all? I kind of feel that way about sharpening from time to time. Like edge finishes. I used to say all the time that I could beat a factory edge, even from a really good manufacturer all day long. Because I could refine the edge WAY further than they would and do crazy push cuts and paper tricks and have hair jump off of your arm from my edges.

But once you start using these "scary" edges in real materials you learn that super refined edges aren't at all practical. They dull extremely quickly in coarse materials. So I began moving back towards more coarse edges, but *sharp* and properly deburred. After doing some experiments, I realized that a 100 to 200 grit edge, properly done, is a nice long lasting edge for every day use. It's a funny thing. Most factory edges are sharpened on a 180 to 220 grit belt and then buffed on a cotton wheel to take off the burr. Hmmm..

So it turns out the manufacturers *do* know something. Imagine that!

I'm such a slow learner sometimes. Play with those coarse edges. They have some real benefits.

Brian.
 
wvdavidr,

Which stone do you stop at with the Edge Pro (their stones, not diamonds)?
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I'm going to assume you are asking me.

On the Manix I have stopped at 500 Shapton Glass (made especially for the Edge Pro commission from Shapton by Knives To Go). I have no diamond stones for the Edge Pro yet.
And
Now I have stopped at the Jende 120 narrow which in theory is also a Shapton.

I have also stopped on the edge pro with my finest stone a Shapton 4000. For some reason I keep calling it a 5000. It produces a mirror like finish. Not like my Shapton full size Pro stones in the 8000 or 16,000 range but pretty darned impressive for a 4000 stone.

For the stuff I been cutting lately with it (kind of dirty and abrasive) I don't see much difference, mirror or toothy, both get dull fairly fast. The mirror is more fun to use.

Not the same stuff I was cutting with the Case Trapper.
 
Case knives IMHO take an extra toothy edge . I've been playing with one all day and I normally like a 220-325 grit edge on my knives but on the case a 4k king is just about perfect for my cutting needs still toothy but more refined . Bout to pull out a 120 grit Sic stone just for fun.
 
Dick Persons, the noted Yukon guide and knife aficionado, told me he always used his coarsest hone on his D2 blades. They would just snick through big game knee joints that way. I find that large carbide steels work best with coarse or medium grit hones; high carbon works best with a polished edge.
 
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Spartan00,

Bout to pull out a 120 grit Sic stone just for fun.
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NOOOOOoooooooo, come back off that ledge . . . look . . . can't we talk about this ? No reason for such extremes. We are all your friends here. We will help you through this.
Don't do it Spartan00. :eek:

:)

Sorry to be so weird. A new knife is out for delivery and it is USPS which means I could get it here any minute if it comes with the normal mail delivery OR it could come by a second truck as late as 8pm. Making my crazy.
 
Yes, do it. Go for it. You'll then see how long the edge lasts and have gained some good experience. DM
 
Not too long ago I came across one of my old EDU work knives from back when I used a 60/80 grit tile rubbing stone. Edge was just as I remembered, could just shave some arm hair and could part freehanging t-shirt material with a shallow swat, using only the belly of the edge, no tip.

This edge lasted orders of magnitude longer in that work environment than a polished edge all else being equal.

I will say this as well, unless one has limited resources at hand there is no real gain in attempting to coax fine edge performance from a coarse stone - it defeats the purpose of the coarse edge - the results won't be as nice and will take more QC than just using a proper progression to finer stones, and it won't have the same draw cut performance or longevity of the rougher edge. I actually used to lean on it just a bit initially to get the maximum depth of the abrasive.
 
I don't own a stone that coarse so, I've not done any cutting test at that level. I guess I could do it on a file. But man, that's coarse. Agreed, it does take some patience and light touch to pull off a coarse edge. (100 grit) Yes, it's a different edge and it holds different benefits. DM
 
Following up on Zandstra Foss stone I picked up recently from:

http://www.nordicskaters.com/

foss-stone.jpg


This stone really works well with a good long soak in water. Despite being rated a slightly finer grit than the Crystalon it makes an edge a bit more coarse. It takes a few tricks to refine the edge out, like crossing the scratch pattern, stropping on plain paper over a very hard surface etc.

Straight off the stone with a clean scratch pattern it will just shave some arm hair and slices paper and textiles like a laser. My kitchen utility knife went through some half frozen 1lb chicken breasts with an easy pull, sticks to the cutting board when slicing veges. Serious toothy, almost too unrefined.

This goes back to my earlier thoughts on "coarse edges" in that I really don't care if they can cleanly shave arm hair or push cut anything. If they can do too much of that well, they aren't really coarse anymore IMHO.

Side note, the coarse side of this stone is very fast, faster than my XC DMT maybe - still need more time with it. Is a good option for a coarse SIC stone that works well with water or dry. This stone doesn't load up with either, didn't work well with oil though not terrible.
 
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