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

i do some water stone sharpening on many Japanese knives that i see, but i also use my wicked edge and the diamonds, ceramics and tape finish will slice and cut most anything really well......just time consuming......and to me, time is money.
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i considered diamond belts once, but have never taken the plunge......$$$
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most of my sharpening takes place at farmers markets and the local gun shows (2). i do sharpen inside the local williams-sonoma store 1 thur. each month. tomorrow i work for the first time a harley-davidson event from 9 to 5.....should prove very interesting.
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nov. & dec. i work for whole foods as a paid vendor to sharpen customer knives for free......limited to 3 knives per visit......last year was many blades.....usually weekend before turkey day and xmas.
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maximus83 said:
So here's a question: What is the most practical, all-purpose edge in terms of "toothiness vs refinement" and most cutting tasks? Is it possible to have any consensus on that, or will that just degenerate into endless rounds of debating? :)
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[Edited upon further reflection of my past duties and recollections...]

Endless rounds of debate, I suspect :) . I helped manage the sushi restaurant owned by my in-laws for years. As such, I was often slotted into line cook positions when staff was short handed. In our case, there were specific knives sharpened in specific ways for specific uses. Pushing a one-grit, one-angle range in a restaurant with three sushi chefs would have proved to be an impossible proposition. Though the 400/8K combo proposed by HH may have improved performance over the straight 1K that was typical with the cooking knives in the back of the house. Sushi chefs followed a 1K to 6K progression. There was no one-knife-does-it-all reservation save for the sushi chef gyuto which was differentially sharpened with a thinner edge at the heel. No one applied a micro bevel outside of myself. We sharpened in house. At minimum once every morning with touch ups as required.
 
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As it just so happens, a coarse edge and a refined apex is the typical result of Stamp's three-step plateau sharpening method. 400/8K (JIS) is close enough to what I put on my own kitchen knives (400/6K). Hence, I am biased to concur with 400/8K as a grit combination of choice for kitchen utility.
 
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adamlau said:
As it just so happens, a coarse edge and a refined apex is the typical result of Stamp's three-step plateau sharpening method. 400/8K (JIS) is close enough to what I put on my own kitchen knives (400/6K). Hence, I am biased to concur with 400/8K as a grit combination of choice for kitchen utility.
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Good to know. I did some experimenting with this last night, took a 400-grit stone and put a nice edge on a cheap kitchen slicer, estimated around 10 to 12 dps, no stropping and no finishing stone, just a few light edge-trailing strokes to finish. Compared this edge to a $70 Wuesthof that was a gift to my wife and had very recently been professionally sharpened. Cut through a variety of things, including hard stuff like celery, and other tricky things like tomatoes. Different kinds of cuts: chopping, push cut, pull cut, thin slices, etc. The cheap knife with this "toothy" finish actually outperformed the more expensive Wuesthof, with its professionally sharpened, polished edge. In no way would I claim the cheap knife is "better than" the Wuesthof. But just focusing on the type of edge and how well it cuts, this to me illustrated the value of a "toothy" edge versus polished, and is a good takeaway for practical sharpening of my kitchen knives.
 
Refreshed the Wilkins Mytuko Cobalt and Mini Cobalt at 10/15 with 240/400 (JIS). They took care of breakfast and lunch without a hitch. Going to be sticking with this grit combination for the next few weeks to see how the edge holds up versus 400/6K...
 
^Soooooo....

Exactly. When you see the rather fantastic results you can get for most practical kitchen and EDC knife usage by sharpening with a single coarse grit or maybe 2 coarse grits, doesn't it make you wonder if all the fancy high-grit stones, "progression of grits", etc., is WAY overkill for most knives and most users?

It's like you need one grit to profile and repair, another to finish. Not much more. I just cleaned up a folder with a DMT EC (220) and DMT C (325). Pops hair off my arm no friction, nice and toothy.
 
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Perhaps. In general, I would agree with you. But this is BladeForums where we buy knives we don’t need (and may already have multiples of) and look into plates and stones and jigs when we already have satisfactory plates and stones and jigs.
 
adamlau said:
Going to be sticking with [240/400 (JIS)] for the next few weeks to see how the edge holds up versus 400/6K...
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Well that lasted less than a day :) . Nothing to do with edge retention, rather we ran across issues with push cutting during dinner prep which were not evident with 400/6K. 240 edge to 400 apex appears to be too large of a jump without further refining the scratch pattern by way of 1. cross-hatching/random blending and/or 2. introducing an intermediate grit and/or 3. applying additional apexing passes. I will apply options 1 and 3 tomorrow and see what happens (sacrificing the potential for increased edge retention in favor of the potential for improved push cutting)...
 
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adamlau said:
Well that lasted less than a day :) . Nothing to do with edge retention, rather we ran across issues with push cutting during dinner prep which were not evident with 400/6K. 240 edge to 400 apex appears to be too large of a jump without further refining the scratch pattern by way of 1. cross-hatching/random blending and/or 2. introducing an intermediate grit and/or 3. applying additional apexing passes. I will apply options 1 and 3 tomorrow and see what happens (sacrificing the potential for increased edge retention in favor of the potential for improved push cutting)...
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Interested to hear your results. This could also impact the grits I use for folders. Also trying to figure out the optimal performing 1 or 2-grit sequence after profiling.

Also: I wonder if the 240/400 stone choice also makes a difference (in addition to the grits). I've noticed for example, the quality and attributes of the edge I get on the 400 grit Arctic Fox are quite different from the edge I get on a similar 300 to 400 grit diamond stone.


adamlau said:
Perhaps. In general, I would agree with you. But this is BladeForums where we buy knives we don’t need (and may already have multiples of) and look into plates and stones and jigs when we already have satisfactory plates and stones and jigs.
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Truer words were never spoken. :D
 
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While searching for additional information on improving push cutting for coarse edges, I discovered that Stamp himself is following a three to four grit progression when sharpening knives for friends. The post date for the progression is timestamped June 26, 2017 on his website. In light of this tidbit of information, I am now following a 240 edge > 400 edge reset > 1000 apex progression.
 
adamlau said:
I am now following a 240 edge > 400 edge reset > 1000 apex progression.
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So does this mean you profile your edge bevel on the 240, refine that bevel at 400, and then use the 1000 to do light finishing strokes, and after that to apply a micro bevel?
 
adamlau said:
Well that lasted less than a day :) . Nothing to do with edge retention, rather we ran across issues with push cutting during dinner prep which were not evident with 400/6K. 240 edge to 400 apex appears to be too large of a jump without further refining the scratch pattern by way of 1. cross-hatching/random blending and/or 2. introducing an intermediate grit and/or 3. applying additional apexing passes. I will apply options 1 and 3 tomorrow and see what happens (sacrificing the potential for increased edge retention in favor of the potential for improved push cutting)...
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I've gotten very good results doing about 24-26° reset and a micro at about 2 additional degrees ( a bit more when freehanding). Have used this with a 220 grit straight to an 8k but works better going from 800 or 1k to 8k. Is all in the amount of time one spends on the micro will get a range of results.

Either way, it takes the same variation along the edge and shrinks the variation across. If you keep going the variation along will reduce as well.

For a 1-2 the 800 or 1k / 6-8k is tough to beat. I do this with diamond plates too, but in that case I don't get good results unless I at least go to a fine DMT and then microbevel. It will work with a more coarse base finish, but the EEF is just too slow compared to the polishing grade waterstones. Can be stepped down to a XC or C DMT/EF.
 
adamlau said:
Perhaps. In general, I would agree with you. But this is BladeForums where we buy knives we don’t need (and may already have multiples of) and look into plates and stones and jigs when we already have satisfactory plates and stones and jigs.
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Ain't that the truth. I am finding this out already even as a Noob. I bought a cheap combo stone off Amazon, Honing Steel, Combination Felt & Leather Strop w/Green Compound a couple months ago. This setup does great for (me), Kitchen Duty and pocket folders but yet I find myself looking at Guided Systems now i.e. Hapstone V7 and the EdgePro Apex 4, and also looking at DMT Dia Sharp Line with the MagnaBase. So yeah, I hear ya...
 
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Push cutting is not always best on an shiny edge, the guy in the video push cuts strips of cardboard and gets an 1/3 more cuts with tooth, Then he put a tooth edge on the shiny knife and it looks like the tooth won again.

 
For me DMT coarse folding stone works best and gives nice edge toothy but it shaves too.no mess and is really fast.sharpmaker is other fast option and brown stones give me nice edge.sometimes couple strokes on white stones.i do not polish my edges as I don't find them useful for my cutting as I don't cut wood.middle ground is best in my opinion.
 
maximus83 said:
So does this mean you profile your edge bevel on the 240, refine that bevel at 400, and then use the 1000 to do light finishing strokes, and after that to apply a micro bevel?
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More or less. 1000 is for the micro only.
 
PoorUserName said:
Push cutting is not always best on an shiny edge, the guy in the video push cuts strips of cardboard and gets an 1/3 more cuts with tooth, Then he put a tooth edge on the shiny knife and it looks like the tooth won again.

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It is always going to be dependent on the stuff you're cutting and the edge geometry, but in my testing on 3/8" Manila I noticed an inverse relationship between coarse and polished when it came to draw vs pressure cuts.

The toothier edge cut rope with a draw using a lot less pressure than the polished edge, but when the test was switched to a straight pressure cut, the polished edge enjoyed a similar wide margin in pounds needed to complete the cut.

The rougher/more polished the edge the more it underperformed when used for the opposite task, but the better it did on its intended task.

I needed to do more testing but it looked like somewhere around 800 grit ANSI or 1k Japanese was the break point where both did well. I need to go back and really pin down where the weight needed to do both is the same, and that would be the theoretical "neutral" edge finish for that same geometry.

Both edge types held up a lot longer when used in a manner taking advantage of the edge finish.
 
HeavyHanded said:
I've gotten very good results doing about 24-26° reset and a micro at about 2 additional degrees ( a bit more when freehanding). Have used this with a 220 grit straight to an 8k but works better going from 800 or 1k to 8k. Is all in the amount of time one spends on the micro will get a range of results.

Either way, it takes the same variation along the edge and shrinks the variation across. If you keep going the variation along will reduce as well.

For a 1-2 the 800 or 1k / 6-8k is tough to beat. I do this with diamond plates too, but in that case I don't get good results unless I at least go to a fine DMT and then microbevel. It will work with a more coarse base finish, but the EEF is just too slow compared to the polishing grade waterstones. Can be stepped down to a XC or C DMT/EF.
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Martin,

The DMT available grit is exactly EF (1200) to EEF (8000), about same jump. That’s my step, especially for S110V as recommended only with diamonds.

Not a coincidence I guess?
 
Chris "Anagarika" said:
Martin,

The DMT available grit is exactly EF (1200) to EEF (8000), about same jump. That’s my step, especially for S110V as recommended only with diamonds.

Not a coincidence I guess?
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That's one of my favorites for s110v as well. Just as often I will jump from the F to the EEF for a bitier edge.

Relative to the topic, my current "working edge" both commercial and for myself if I have my belt grinder all set up, is the 125 micron diamond belt followed by a microbevel with the G8 Suehiro SiC stone and just a handful of passes on Washboard w/compound. This is the best 1-2 (2.5?) I currently use and makes a great all around edge.
 
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