High grit finishing stones?

L

Lineman1

Joined
Jul 21, 2011
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So I currently have a set of the dmt course, medium, and fine stones. I usually finish off with a good stropping and this gets my knives sharp enough to get a bit of hair. How ever I want a nice mirror edge and a wicked sharp finish. What stone or stones can I add to my current set to finish that up?
I have been thinking about a spyderco ultra fine...let me know what you think!
 
Not sure what you mean by DMT 'medium', as they don't have anything between the Coarse (325 mesh/45 micron) and Fine (600 mesh/25 micron), so far as I know.

If you're looking for a mirror finish, the sequence needs to be tight. Very difficult to produce a mirror if the gap between grits is too wide. The DMT 'Fine' is still much more coarse in finish than the Spyderco UF, so inserting the Spyderco Medium and Fine in the sequence, prior to the UF, would make it much easier to produce a mirror.

You could also utilize DMT's EF and EEF in the progression. The DMT EEF is fine enough that you might be able to skip the Spyderco medium.

In terms of the finish produced, all these in tandem might be sequenced as:

DMT Coarse --> DMT Fine --> DMT EF --> DMT EEF or Spyderco 'Medium' > Spyderco 'Fine' > Spyderco 'UltraFine'

Another possibility would be to go with DMT's stropping pastes (6/3/1 micron); those would best be utilized after the full DMT F > EF > EEF sequence. Might be difficult to strop to mirror finish if not utilizing the F/EF/EEF DMT hones ahead of the pastes.


David
 
Also thank you. I didnt realize I would need another stone in there too. So I might plan to buy the spyderco fine and ultra fine. Is that a good place for me to finish with the stones or is there another level I should take it to before stropping? Thank you.
 
Lineman1 said:
Its the red blue and green box set.
Click to expand...

That would be the 'Coarse' (blue), 'Fine' (red) and 'Extra-Fine' (green).

Lineman1 said:
Also thank you. I didnt realize I would need another stone in there too. So I might plan to buy the spyderco fine and ultra fine. Is that a good place for me to finish with the stones or is there another level I should take it to before stropping? Thank you.
Click to expand...

All depends on how bad you really want a mirrored finish, which is essentially independent of making the edge 'sharp'. A sharp edge can be made at almost any single level of finish, from extra-coarse to extra-extra-fine. Stropping only needs to follow whichever grit you finish on (preference). I think, in terms of overall usefulness (mirrored finish aside), the DMT's you have, plus either/both of the Spyderco Medium & Fine, are likely the most versatile. If you become comfortable with using those and seeing what they can do, you might re-think the finer options later on, in terms of deciding if you really need/want them.

For a mirror though, I'd still recommend putting an intermediate step in between the DMT 'Fine' and the Spyderco 'Fine'. That's a pretty wide jump in grit, and making a mirror from that will be more difficult. If you want to narrow that gap with one additional hone, I'd go with DMT's EF to fill it. The EF DMT will be a little more versatile down the road (as compared to Spyderco's medium), with a wider variety of steels, which is why I'd choose that one first.


David
 
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Thanks David.
As far as a mirror edge I went ahead and ordered the EEF, fine and ultra fine.
As far as real world sharpness goes, after going through all these steps (of course depending on the skill of the sharpener) will the knife be absolutely as sharp as I would want to take it? I would love to get hair popping edged, but I dont want a dull knife after a few cuts.
 
Sharpness and refinement (mirror polish) are different things. Think of it this way you can make a knife extremely sharp with an XC stone that will do all those knife cutting feats but when you refine it by going up in the grits you are sanding it smooth. To take it to the extreme to prove a point you can "sharpen" the spine of the blade to a mirror polish and it still won't be sharp. (Hopefully that answered your question if I understood it right, I knew this took a bit of getting used to for me to understand this concept)

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1014274-What-is-sharpening-a-knife-about

As for getting the hair popping edge, I've never was able to get that yet but to my understanding those types of edges dull relatively fast as in a few cuts of cardboard fast (if not the first). Than it's just freaking sharp and not hair popping sharp. I've gotten my practice knife a Victorinox paring knife sharp enough that if I were to attempt to shave my arm I am betting my arm be hairless now but the second I go through my first cardboard box it loses that high level of sharpness and is just stuck at being very sharp, I imagine that it be the same thing even if I were to get it sharper and wither higher end steels.
 
Lineman1 said:
Thanks David.
As far as a mirror edge I went ahead and ordered the EEF, fine and ultra fine.
As far as real world sharpness goes, after going through all these steps (of course depending on the skill of the sharpener) will the knife be absolutely as sharp as I would want to take it? I would love to get hair popping edged, but I dont want a dull knife after a few cuts.
Click to expand...

A knife that's dull after a few cuts more likely has an issue with burrs folding over, or an edge that's too thin to be supported by the steel. Again, that's independent of the finish. If the edge is fully apexed, the geometry is good (edge angle) and the burrs are cleaned up, sharp will be sharp and durability won't be an issue, regardless of the finish. In experienced hands, hair-popping edges can come at most any grit level. The main difference due to the grit will be in what types of cutting the edge will do best. In very general terms, coarser/toothy edges excel at slicing tasks, and very high-polished edges excel at push-cutting (chopping, etc.). Other attributes like shaving/hair-whittling will be more dependent on edge angle; thinner edge angles will do better at that (compare to the 15-17° inclusive angles often seen on straight razors). Shaving/hair-popping edges get easier to make at inclusive angles around ~30° or lower, in particular.

How 'sharp' an edge will ultimately be, this depends more on the experience and 'touch' of the person doing the sharpening. That just comes down to doing more of it, and training the hands to feel and adjust to feedback felt from the contact between blade and stone. Personally, I'd first focus on improving technique with a basic set of hones, such as the three you already have. With some focused practice, it'll likely stun you at some point, in seeing what that assortment alone can do. The other attributes of edge finish (polish to mirror, etc.) and other cosmetic touches (even bevels, etc.) get a LOT easier after you've already figured out how to make the edge truly SHARP. :)


David
 
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