!!!HELP!!! Thought I Was Good At Sharpening: I Can't Knock Off Burrs

Again, thank you all for your input. I want to take the time to answer in detail fully and have had a busy few days, but I will reply!
 
-Higher angle on high grit stone with light alternating passes

I think that this is a major part. I'm not going to light enough strokes on my rougher stones, and doing too many passes per side. I read a lot about this but I think maybe I just need to lighten up my strokes even more than I did initially.

-Passes through wood/cork

I've tried this in random wood and cardboard, and honestly it didn't seem to do much. I tried different angles and such, but it didn't seem to have much effect.

-Too much pressure throughout

This goes along with the one above, I definitely was putting a lot of pressure with my courser stones. I thought if I lightened up later it would even things out. I mostly have GECs and they come with wide and uneven edges so it takes a lot of removal to get them to a good edge, I guess I've been giving myself bad habits.

-Carbide v sharpener + other specialty sharpeners

I can see how one of these would be convenient, it just seems like good ones are not cheap and I would prefer to be able to sharpen by hand.

-Stropping on diverse mediums

I think I have scraped my knives on about every surface and medium available to me in my place. It did seem to help a bit on cardboard after a while. I am thinking about getting a little strop and some compound, I often use a sunshine cloth on a flat surface as a strop and I don't think it cuts it.

-Electric toothbrush thing

I'm sorry, but I didn't really understand this suggestion. If you explain a little further it'd be helpful.

To address some questions for me:

-My system

I use a Smith's Course/Fine Diamond Stone, then a Spyderco Medium/Fine Double Stuff, then whatever strop medium I have available.

-If it cuts then why not just let it be?

I would have, had I not noticed that every knife I put an edge on myself had a consistently similar burr left over. Like I said, I thought I was good at sharpening and have sharpened quite a bit for friends and family. So because of that, seeing that in actuality I had left a burr on every knife (which means I have a consistent technique problem) is just a nagging problem that I can't handle. Like I said, and someone else said, I feel ridiculous having all these nice knives and not having the technique to maintain them.




HeavyHanded said:
This is a current thread on the topic - do a search, there's a ton of info on the site about this. Basically you need to use enough pressure that the abrasive can grind off the burr, but less pressure than it takes to flip the burr. The more they flip, the easier they flip - sometimes one is better off starting the job all over. If the stone you're using is not in good shape, or a poor choice for the steel, it might have trouble operating in the range needed, so make sure your stones are not plugged or glazed.

Formation and removal of the burr is the essence of sharpening, don't give up, just study more.



http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1235495-Thoughts-on-short-stroke-burr-removal
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I think my problem is that though I have read a lot, I didn't understand the degree to which I needed to change my technique. I used softer strokes and such, but not enough. I also think my courser stones (the Smiths) probably aren't ideal, I definitely don't like how it has holes throughout and it seems to be getting pretty worn down.

Again, thank you all for your help. I think the biggest thing is that now I'm less disgusted and inclined to sell off my knives, and think I will get a quality stone/strop and just practice.
 
Perhaps consider using my technique - fold the burr & cut it off. I use it almost 100% when I sharpen knives - even on a very soft 800 grit king waterstone. I usually remove burr from current stone before moving onto the next finer stone.
Burr & Wire-edge removal video
ymmv.
 
In addition to my post nr 17:



Move it along the edge on both sides. No pressure. Repeat if necessary. Only to remove the very last burr remainings.
 
ALLHSS, have you considered not forming a burr in the first place? For really burr prone steels, I will cut directly into the medium stone or even fine forming a flat on the edge that is visible in good light. Then, sharpen/shape the edge at whatever angle you want. Once the light reflection just disappears, then take a high angle pass or 2 on the stone, say 30-40 degrees per side. If you accidentally made a burr, this will get rid of it. Then start alternating passes at the same sharpening angle or just a little greater. This might take a while, and may take 100 passes or more, and all depends on how close you got to actually forming an apex without forming a burr. This procedure has a degree of irony, as the "hard to sharpen" steels are the softer more burr prone steels that require all this extra burr removal/prevention effort.
 
So I have tried the suggestions here, and have gotten good results. In general, my knives are sharper than ever before and don't seem to have burrs or wire edges. However, it will take a good bit of practice before I can remove the burr without creating a tiny microbevel. Several of my knives now have slight microbevels that will result in more work to create a new edge later on. Thanks for all of your help guys, I appreciate it. This is a learning process, and I've found that I wasn't as far along the curve as I had thought but I'm progressing.
 
I feel uncomfortable about insisting on this point, but have you tried the electric tooth brush trick, as stupid as it might sound?
 
Benuser said:
I feel uncomfortable about insisting on this point, but have you tried the electric tooth brush trick, as stupid as it might sound?
Click to expand...

I have not yet tried that trick. So are you supposed to put toothpaste on? That's not a jibe, I've heard of people using toothpaste as a strop compound.
 
ALLHSS said:
I have not yet tried that trick. So are you supposed to put toothpaste on? That's not a jibe, I've heard of people using toothpaste as a strop compound.
Click to expand...

Any toothpaste that's safe for people's teeth will be essentially worthless on a strop for a knife blade; no more effective than bare-leather stropping itself. The abrasive used in most toothpastes is 'hydrated silica', which is mild enough to avoid stripping enamel from teeth. Being so mild, it won't be hard enough to abrade (therefore refine, polish) hardened cutlery steel. Easy way to test this, is to put some toothpaste on a piece of clean white paper, on a hard backing, and strop on it. Look for dark streaks of metal swarf on the paper (I've yet to see this happen). No dark streaks = no metal being removed. At best, if there are loose tatters of weak & damaged steel from stonework done, those'll be scrubbed off. This would also happen on a bare stropping surface anyway (leather, denim, paper, wood, etc), so adding toothpaste wouldn't lend any additional advantage. If one happens to find a toothpaste that actually removes metal from a hardened knife blade, I'd not want to use it on my teeth.

(Toothpaste can polish softer metals, like silver. I've actually done that, just to see if it works, and it does.)


David
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Any toothpaste that's safe for people's teeth will be essentially worthless on a strop for a knife blade; no more effective than bare-leather stropping itself. The abrasive used in most toothpastes is 'hydrated silica', which is mild enough to avoid stripping enamel from teeth. Being so mild, it won't be hard enough to abrade (therefore refine, polish) hardened cutlery steel. Easy way to test this, is to put some toothpaste on a piece of clean white paper, on a hard backing, and strop on it. Look for dark streaks of metal swarf on the paper (I've yet to see this happen). No dark streaks = no metal being removed. At best, if there are loose tatters of weak & damaged steel from stonework done, those'll be scrubbed off. This would also happen on a bare stropping surface anyway (leather, denim, paper, wood, etc), so adding toothpaste wouldn't lend any additional advantage. If one happens to find a toothpaste that actually removes metal from a hardened knife blade, I'd not want to use it on my teeth.

(Toothpaste can polish softer metals, like silver. I've actually done that, just to see if it works, and it does.)


David
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Thanks for your input David. That's what I thought, to be honest.
 
I saw your post earlier today. I have found that removing the burr is what separates the men from the boys in sharpening. I know that I struggled with it more than anything else. What helped was advice from....! I can't think of his name. Oi! Well, it was one of our members. He said to very, very gently grind the burr off WITHOUT flipping it. Sounds hard doesn't it? It is hard but not as hard as trying to remove the burr through flipping. As soon as you have the bevels set and a burr generated, back all the way of sharpening. You will know it when you find it, though.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
Any toothpaste that's safe for people's teeth will be essentially worthless on a strop for a knife blade; no more effective than bare-leather stropping itself. The abrasive used in most toothpastes is 'hydrated silica', which is mild enough to avoid stripping enamel from teeth. Being so mild, it won't be hard enough to abrade (therefore refine, polish) hardened cutlery steel. Easy way to test this, is to put some toothpaste on a piece of clean white paper, on a hard backing, and strop on it. Look for dark streaks of metal swarf on the paper (I've yet to see this happen). No dark streaks = no metal being removed. At best, if there are loose tatters of weak & damaged steel from stonework done, those'll be scrubbed off. This would also happen on a bare stropping surface anyway (leather, denim, paper, wood, etc), so adding toothpaste wouldn't lend any additional advantage. If one happens to find a toothpaste that actually removes metal from a hardened knife blade, I'd not want to use it on my teeth.

(Toothpaste can polish softer metals, like silver. I've actually done that, just to see if it works, and it does.)


David
Click to expand...

Yep I even tried it once , doesn't do a thing... On knives anyways.
 
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