Recommendation? How to sharpen to the next level?

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greatdayatcfa

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I recently received a Spyderco Para 2 S30V and a sharpmaker from my parents as a christmas present, ( i had been talking about it for a while lol) and ive been learning to sharpen accurately and i think im getting pretty good at it. I started out by sharpening some old $5 walmart pocket knives from around the house and whatever else i could find that was dull before i took my new Spyderco to the stones. After a little bit of research i felt confident enough to sharpen my para 2 and worked it up through all the grits successfully. The regular "Fine" stones that came with the sharpmaker easily got it shaving sharp and after I bought some "Ultra Fine" stones on amazon the edge is damn near mirror like and it slices phone books, notebook paper and whatever else really well. I see a lot of the knife dudes on youtube that use leather strops and get their knives sharp enough to whittle hair. How would i do that? I read that "Ultra Fine" spyderco stones are somewhere in the range of 2000 grit/3-4 micron or something. Should i buy higher grit stones before i get a strop or should i just go straight from ultra fine to a strop?
 
7DDE8D67-5E62-47FA-825B-91D70591F8E7.jpeg 93D0889C-B9A5-4986-95AC-8AB6F61CAFD5.jpeg I have achieved these results using a sharpmaker, the ultra fine stones and a strop.

I don’t consider myself to be very good at sharpening and kinda think I got lucky. What’s weird is that I can’t get the same results on my wicked edge. Granted I just got it but the sharpmaker can get a knife hair popping sharp with the addition of a strop.

If I could only choose one I would get the strop.
 
BTW that top photo is of a pm2 in S30v. My strop is just a two sided stropman strop with white and green compound.

The sharpmaker is easy but stropping is not as easy. For me I had to learn how to “feel” for the proper angle.
 
firefighterguy said:
BTW that top photo is of a pm2 in S30v. My strop is just a two sided stropman strop with white and green compound.

The sharpmaker is easy but stropping is not as easy. For me I had to learn how to “feel” for the proper angle.
Click to expand...
Do you recall what the micron size is for the compounds?
 
You should have at least one strop no matter what when sharpening. The strop is to remove the wire edge. There are other ways to remove the wire edge also, like running it across wood or a felt block etc. And leather isn't necessarily the only thing thing you can use for a strop.

I'd suggest to have three strops of whatever you like to use and 3 finishing compounds... I'm going to recommend something like diamond paste or spray or emulsion... But that would be idea for vanadium rich steel. You could use other compound types as well like the famous white red and green.

In any case go from 4micron 1micron point 5micron or 1,.5,.1 or whatever you like.

The series of strops will help remove the scratch pattern and make a mirror. There will probably always be some scratches. This depends on your grit progression and scratch pattern of each stone. They also remove the wire edge of course.

In any case use the stones based on the steel your cutting. If it's got lots of vanadium choose diamonds or cbn. Otherwise SiC (silicon carbide), alumina oxide etc will work.

Perfect your technique and scratch pattern. Check with microscope or loupe.

A good way to think about it, make your scratches with one stone and make them all in one direction. Then switch to the next progression in stones and switch the direction of the scratch pattern. Only continue on to the next stone once the scratches from the first grit are completely removed and try and keep the burr small.

I dunno just some tips I've learned. I generally like to use a working edge but chasing that perfection is nice. You can get a mirror edge easily without being extremely anal about it. But as Micheal Christy suggests the sharper it is, the further away from ‘dull’ state.

Some strop tips... Don't mix grits on the same strop. Don't lay your strops on each other. Keep one in its own bag. Don't get a double or quad side one... Cause no matter when you out it down it will mix grits (unless you got a plan).

You can use various types of wood, leather on wood, denim, news paper on glass, felt, your belt, various qualities of leather, shiny side or rough side of leather. Etc.
 
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Your finest stone should be fine enough. After the stones I strop, leather backed by wood, with 1 micron diamond paste.
 
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Depends on the steel.
And by the way I don't own a Sharpmaker I just have the Ultra Fine triangle stone for hand sharpening.

The other day I was speechless (a very rare condition for me) . . . after a week or so of use at work I tried to take my M4 Para2 from pretty much scrape hair sharp to shave sharp and without really trying, just doing my normal make the smallest bur I can possibly make and then take it off by edge leading then shorter and super light edge trailing strokes watching very closely with pretty strong magnification . . .
do you know what happened ?
The freekin' edge was tree topping. I kid you not. Granted the geometry was pretty low angle and very accurate from sharpening this knife in my Edge Pro Apex with several grits a couple weeks before.

I was just standing there with my mouth open.

So yah get that blade shave sharp . . . then with really light strokes and super minimal bur if any just keep going to the next level . . . the Ultra Fine stone at least has the potential to get some edges as sharp as you would ever want unless you are not squeamish and very brave in deed.
:) ;)

PS: Be sure to keep the stone scrubbed with cleanser so it doesn't get clogged over time with metal.
 
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SKB182 said:
One area I haven't seen mentioned is varying pressure on the same stone. Here is a good video explaining it: LINK
Click to expand...

sure you did. My post.

So yah get that blade shave sharp . . . then with really light strokes and super minimal bur if any just keep going to the next level . . . the Ultra Fine stone at least has the potential to get some edges as sharp as you would ever want unless you are not squeamish and very brave in deed.
:) ;)
Click to expand...

;) :thumbsup:
 
greatdayatcfa said:
Do you recall what the micron size is for the compounds?
Click to expand...

Averages to 3 micron grains - we estimated the size with an optical microscope.
Difference between the two is that White has more particles in the 6-3 micron range, while the Green has more particles in the 3-1 micron range.

compound_100x.jpg


If you check the safety data sheet for White and Green rouge (or similar buffing compounds), you will see that
White is just Alumina;
Green is 95% Alumina, and only 5% Chromium Oxide.

So in the Green compounds you have chiefly 3 micron Alumina, and little 0.5 micron Chromium Oxide.
For final finish I use a strop with CHROMOX, a pure 0.3-0.5 micron Chromium Oxide.

Wowbagger Wowbagger
What you've discovered is a well-known fact that finishing on a strop with short 2-inch alternating strokes invariably gives better sharpness, than with long ones;
Try finishing on a strop with <= 0.5 micron compound using short 2-inch strokes, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

S30V is at the limit of the Chromium Oxide; for harder alloys, e.g. S90V let alone S110V you will need 0.25 micron CBN or diamonds.
 
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Show me hundred sharpeners and I'll show you hundred different ways of sharpening.

I use Shapton Pro and Naniwa Pro stones: 120, 400, 1000, 2000, 5000, 8000, and 12000 grit. The 400 and 1000 are Naniwas. For stropping - a must, to remove burr and micro burr - I use a piece of soft carpet. Wood, leather or newspaper work as well for stropping, but the carpet gives the edge a beautiful shine. The sharpness of my kitchen knives is beyond any expectations. Hair-splitting sharp.

Shapton stones are my favorites. These ceramic stones take away steel like no other, and don't suck up water. Just splash and go. I don't use compounds, paste, or anything else.
 
wootzblade said:
What you've discovered is a well-known fact that finishing on a strop with short 2-inch alternating strokes invariably gives better sharpness, than with long ones;
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate why this would be the case? Have seen this approach used with good results, an example is this Michael Christy video starting at 8:20. But hadn't heard that this invariably works better than the traditional long strop stroke.
 
That was meant in the context of my reply, and applicable to hard strops.
- Short passes increase control over the stropping angle, and reduce risk of rounding the edge.
- Finishing on an abrasive strop, short passes deburr without creating a micro-burr on the other side (at least not detectable under the magnification I have).
- Finishing on a clean strop, short passes is all needed to straighten and align structural elements of the apex and increase initial sharpness, especially noticeable in push-cuts.
- Freehand short passes resembles working an edge in a jig on a slow wheel.
- Long strop is for straight razors, where polished edge is an advantage, while short strop is for knives, as little stropping preserves toothiness.
- The best freehand sharpeners in my circles finish with short passes. :)
 
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A good summary, thanks for details. I had actually been trying short stropping strokes like this recently after seeing some of the Christy videos, but I can't tell any difference in the outcome. If you can hold a consistent angle, then a single 12" stropping stroke seems unlikely to have a different outcome than 6 separate 2" strokes. I have no dog in this hunt, but don't see anything other than anecdotal reports and user preference, to indicate that short stroke versus long stroke would make any real world difference.

wootzblade said:
That was meant in the context of my reply, and applicable to hard strops.
- Short passes increase control over the stropping angle, and reduce risk of rounding the edge.
- Finishing on an abrasive strop, short passes deburr without creating a micro-burr on the other side (at least not detectable under the magnification I have).
- Finishing on a clean strop, short passes is all needed to straighten and align structural elements of the apex and increase initial sharpness, especially noticeable in push-cuts.
- Freehand short passes resembles working an edge in a jig on a slow wheel.
- Long strop is for straight razors, where polished edge is an advantage, while short strop is for knives, as little stropping preserves toothiness.
- The best freehand sharpeners in my circles finish with short passes. :)
Click to expand...
 
Max, I should have known I can't get away with anecdotal evidences talking to you.

Doing the full length of an abrasive strop, let say 12" you mentioned, you cause a constant amount of abrasion to the edge.
The amount of abrasion is the same at all times, but not all steels are the same.
A 58HRC edge will obtain the desired keenness by the end of your strop, but a 53HRC will get its apex abraded off.
We reckon that in by how much stropping we give, and give a milder steel less strokes.
But finishing, not to overstrop, better go for short passes.

Take this analogy. Let me tell you how we differentiate quality kitchen knives at our workshop.
In our standard protocol every knife gets the same amount of honing by passing the edge 2 times across a slotted paper wheel with a diamond paste at high RPM.
Quality blades obtain the desired sharpness.
Lower quality get blunted by that.

We already know which brand is what, and give the milder just one pass, and the blatant junk one pass at a shallower honing angle.
Talking strops, you would be doing them with short passes.
 
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Thanks that's good info about the different results with different steels. I'm probably going to keep experimenting with the short stropping strokes for a bit and see if I can tell any difference in the steels I'm working with. I had read through Todd's blog recently to see if there was anything regarding stropping STYLE, beyond just which materials to use. But the only major takeaway I found there on method was that his findings seem to indicate you don't need a lot of strokes to get the desired stropping effect, such as 'micro-convexity.' If he has any more detailed info about the lapping procedure you use, I haven't run across it yet.

One practical difference is if you have a blade with tricky curves in it, like a large belly area, it's easier for me at least to use short strokes working on that area of the blade in sections, rather than one long continuous edge trailing stroke trying to hold consistent angle throughout all the blade curves. Some people can do that with perfect consistency running a long edge-trailing stroke down a 12" to 18" strop with a super curvy blade. I cannot do that very well yet, so the "use short strokes on overlapping sections" approach does work really well on tricky blade shapes for me.
 
Max, we've been talking about short stropping strokes for FINISHING, it seems to be dropping out of the context. We do start stropping running the full length of the strop, and finish with short strokes - this gives the best sharpness.

I can't readily link to certain threads on the http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/ forum, but I took it from there, and liked it.
I still feel grateful to one sharpening talent in Australia who told me of the Cliff Stamp resource, it is like this Maintenance subforum on steroids.
 
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