Is getting a burr that important?

B

babtron

Joined
Jan 5, 2015
Messages
9
Recently, I've been using Murray Carter's method (and probably a few others) of not primarily (or rather not really mentioned) focusing on getting a burr, rather set the apex where light no longer reflects from the edge. It has worked wonders. I'm now getting my knives shaving sharp, even without using a strop. I am simply setting the apex on my Bester 1200, honing a few passes and then honing on my Suehiro Rika 5000. Great, great results.

Or, am I actually creating a burr by setting the apex and it just isn't noticeable since I'm not trying to necessarily create one?
 
While I can't speak for free hand, I do use a Wicked Edge. I personally do not focus on getting a burr, I simply focus on apexing the edge. I the edge has been apexed, then I don't see a need to continue sharpening. I also believe that building a burr is more something for beginners to focus on as it is almost fool proof. After you know what you're doing, it just wastes steel in my opinion.
 
Your cant sharpen without forming a burr, it is beyond physics if you think you can.

If you have reached an apex or your knife is sharp then you have formed a burr. There is no way around forming a burr when sharpening, be it large or small you will always form a burr when sharpening.
 
oXObsidianXo said:
While I can't speak for free hand, I do use a Wicked Edge. I personally do not focus on getting a burr, I simply focus on apexing the edge. I the edge has been apexed, then I don't see a need to continue sharpening. I also believe that building a burr is more something for beginners to focus on as it is almost fool proof. After you know what you're doing, it just wastes steel in my opinion.
Click to expand...

How do you know then that you apexed the edge?
 
Jason B. said:
Your cant sharpen without forming a burr, it is beyond physics if you think you can.
Click to expand...

Yes, if you're apexing the edge then you're going to form a burr. It might be small, even small enough not to really notice, but it's there if you're doing it correctly.

I try not to raise a large one. But it's going to form. Even on steels that aren't prone to it like M4.
 
Yep - if your knife is properly apexed - you did in fact form a burr. Maybe a very tiny one, but when the two sides meet a tiny bit, at least, folds over the top.
 
Burr's form as the abrasive contacts the steel, as its plowing through the steel and as it exits the steel. In truth, you don't even need to have an edge apex to form a burr.
 
WOW Great answers.

I would add, I believe the goal is to form a burr no larger than necessary, and to have a continuous apex along the entire edge.

As experience with particular steel increases, the size of the burr should decrease. The ability to know (by sight, feel, higher-power, what-ever, etc.)when you've reached the apex increases with experience.

One thing for sure (for me personally), experience ha shown me - the more I "know", the less I know ...
 
bottom line , no burr then you didn't remove the old edge before you started a new one, in effect without a burr you only polish what is there.
 
If you drag the edge on the stone from heel to tip straight down or from tip to heel straight up you won't form a burr. The shadow thing is great and I arrived at it on my own, not knowing Murray Carter did it too. You don't need to form a burr to get an edge which is microscopically sound. Mine are shaving, hair popping, push cut paper sharp and all that and they last long too, especially if I strop a bit after some use. Funny, since I don't tend to form burrs at all except for when I'm grinding on the belt sander.
 
Jason B. said:
In truth, you don't even need to have an edge apex to form a burr.
Click to expand...
Very true. You may raise a burr long before you've reached the very edge, as I noticed when thinning behind the edge. So the burr is necessary but not always sufficient.
 
Forming a burr is not necessary. If it were, sharpening ceramic blades would be even more an exercise in frustration. Forming a burr on purpose is not necessary on steel knives. If you go to high enough magnification on steel, there is likely always a burr, though this quickly becomes similar to saying sitting your knife on a shelf to collect dust helps it chop better because of the extra weight.
 
If I get a burr, I feel I have made a mistake. Do I get burrs? Yes. I am far from perfect.

I just do not get deliberately removing more steel than is necessary to produce an angle acute enough to be "sharp."
 
Let me ask a related question. I will often read advice to sharpen one side till a burr is formed, then switch to the other side and repeat the process. But, at least in the case where a blade is dull and a fair amount of steel needs to removed to initially form a burr, aren't you creating an uneven bevel by following this advice? That is, while you would be doing many passes on the first side to get a burr, once that's done and you switch sides, it won't take much to re-form the burr (or flip it over). So, isn't the result an uneven bevel?

On a dull knife, wouldn't it make more sense to do a moderate number of passes on one side, then switch to the other side (even though a burr hasn't formed yet) and do a similar number of passes, and then switch back, and so on till the burr is formed, thus keeping the amount of steel removed from each side about the same?

Andrew
 
^ I'm with Andrew on this^ Even if we are wrong, I feel better doing even, alternating passes.
 
Given the choice, everyone does what makes them happy.

I prefer to form the apex at the apex and have largely been achieving that for some decades. For the forty or first fifty of those years, a burr was spoken of as evidence of poor technique - to be avoided. Advice was given about how to detect and correct the problem of the dreaded "tinned edge." There were no machines or jigs to sharpen; it was all freehand and typically resulted in a convex edge. The stainless steel knife was thought of as an object of curiosity and suspicion that came either brittle or soft.

I do concede that the goal was not " hair-poppin' " sharp, but few were going to shave with their knives. Shaving with a knife came later, I guess. If the edge caught the skin when the thumb passed sideways across it and bond paper could have chunks smoothly whacked off with a wrist snap, we were happy with the edge, as men had been for millennia.

I am sure I would not have used my razor to whittle wood. That tool, a "Dovo," was shaving sharp. I used it every day for nineteen years, and I still have the razor-sharpening and stropping tools. (Now I use electric, og all things. 0___0 )
 
FTR-14c said:
^ I'm with Andrew on this^ Even if we are wrong, I feel better doing even, alternating passes.
Click to expand...

And I confess that reading your post in the current Work Sharp KO thread motivated me to ask the question here. :thumbup:

I hope some of the learned gents will chime in on this.

Andrew
 
AFAustin said:
Let me ask a related question. I will often read advice to sharpen one side till a burr is formed, then switch to the other side and repeat the process. But, at least in the case where a blade is dull and a fair amount of steel needs to removed to initially form a burr, aren't you creating an uneven bevel by following this advice? That is, while you would be doing many passes on the first side to get a burr, once that's done and you switch sides, it won't take much to re-form the burr (or flip it over). So, isn't the result an uneven bevel?

On a dull knife, wouldn't it make more sense to do a moderate number of passes on one side, then switch to the other side (even though a burr hasn't formed yet) and do a similar number of passes, and then switch back, and so on till the burr is formed, thus keeping the amount of steel removed from each side about the same?

Andrew
Click to expand...

When heavy-grinding to form new bevels from scratch, I've just alternated back & forth to keep progress fairly even on both sides (let the eyes be the judge for symmetry); no point looking for a burr while doing the early part of this. When I can see I'm getting close to apexing, then I'll start reducing the number of passes on each side before switching, and/or reducing pressure, until I see evidence of a burr forming. When I see a full-length burr for the first time, I'll switch to the other side and 'flip it' the other direction, after which I consider the edge to be fully-apexed from both sides, and ready to clean up & remove the burr. Done as such, there's seldom any trouble with over-grinding one side and creating mis-matched bevels.


David
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top