How sharp is sharp enough?

I finish all my knives with 6,000.

Eventually, when I build the setup, I'll go up to 30k shapton on all my knives.
 
os_tempore said:
Saw that in a movie, didn't go well.

I have a thing about exceptionally sharp blades of any grind angle. 179 degree blade....SHAVE WITH IT.
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I have a 15 n 30k cbn stone. From the chart on gritomatic the 15k is equal to a 30k shapton at .5 micron. I get wanting a perfect mirror. I got a kick out of polishing everything when I first got my setup. Between loss of blade material, loss of stone, and time. For something I'm gonna sharpen again in less than a month of use. Slightly mirrored on one side and slightly toothy on the other gets the win. If I don't need to touch up any defects it takes less than 30 minutes and lasts what seems like noticeably longer.
 
40 degrees total on my Spyderco Sharpmaker using the white stones is sharp enough for me. It will shave hair and does a great job cutting what I need to cut around the shop, house, yard, etc. This is on my Spyderco Gayle Bradley #1 folder.
 
If my knife starts to not cut what I cut on a daily basis, I give it a quick strop on the bottom of a coffee mug. Puts a nice toothy edge on it. Coffee mug bottoms are great.

Its a pocket knife, not a surgical scalpel.
 
I've tried quite a few different ways throughout the years. My latest and current setup is a KME with their standard Gold Series Diamond stones. I can get absolutely just insane edges with it. My go to method is to profile the edge on the KME the first time I sharpen a new knife. I like to reprofile everything to about 15-17 degrees, however if the factory bevel isn't too obtuse I might stick with the factory angle just because if I reprofiled all my knives to 15 degrees, it'd just take up too much of my free time. But no matter the angle, even if I keep the factory angle, I still need to profile every single edge because no edge comes to me already perfectly even unless I bought the knife from a master sharpener (I'm not a master, but can hold my own well enough). I usually progress up to 600 grit on most knives, but go to 1500 on some, and then I'll strop. Then, I'll use a combination of my Sharpmaker and strop to maintain that edge until it really needs a new profiling and I'll use the KME again. I've also been doing a bit of freehand here and there.

Edit: I got going and forgot the main question... I like all my knives to be able to shave my arm or leg hair. Sometimes I'll stretch the edge out a bit longer than I like though just because I can get lazy.
 
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A good working edge that will easily cut my 2" HD Poly and Nylon webbing strap and slice printer paper. That's good enough for me. I don't like to walk around with bald forearms.
 
J. Doyle said:
If it will cleanly slice phone book paper, (that will also be sharp enough to shave arm hair easily so I don't have to test that), then that's plenty sharp enough.
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Same for me.
I sharpen using DMT stones then a quick strop with a piece of plain leather and unknown compound. If I do it properly I will automatically get to that level of sharpness. It's a little more than what I need for my use. I will use the knife until it gets beyond the point where I should resharpen it then I'll finally get around to resharpening. I have lots of knives to use and I rotate through them so a sharpening job will last quite awhile.
 
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