Yeah, so the other day I wound up incurring some heavy tip damage on my Izula--couldn't tell you how, I don't pay that close attention to how I use the thing. Anyway, long story short the thing could now double as a small slotted screwdriver. I like my tips to my nice and pointy so that wouldn't stand, and I applied some elbow grease to the benchstone and got it nice and pointy again... Unfortunately I had to remove so much metal in the process, that it thickened the blade up behind the edge up toward the tip.
Well, it's been through a lot of sharpenigns and reprofilings and has thickened out over the entire edge, so I decided it was time to grind a new relief angle. I started grinding some new relief into the blade with the spine at about a penny's height from the surface of the stone. Pretty quickly I started wearing away coating as the slurry built up, so I just decided to heck with it, I'll grind the whole coating off! So my Izula got a new relief angle, and got a nice new polish instead of the coating--it was gonna come off eventually anyway.
It's cutting much better, probably more due to the new thinner edge than the lack of coating. I was able to take the edge from about .045" behind the edge, down to .030-.035" so I'm fairly happy with that. I really didn't grind in as much of a relief angle as I had intended, instead I just ground it until I confirmed with calipers that it thinned the edge, and then I just started slowing increasing the angle until I was back up to the 40* inclusive I prefer--so I got a bit of a convexed effect as well.
Anyway, I'll stop my yapping and show you all some pics. I finished it up with 220, then 320 grit sandpaper. One side was a little pitted so didn't come out as shiny as the other, but I'm not really going for a super nice, scratch-free polish... It's going to get scratched up in use anyway. I just want the finest finish I can get for a little added rust prevention.
Well, it's been through a lot of sharpenigns and reprofilings and has thickened out over the entire edge, so I decided it was time to grind a new relief angle. I started grinding some new relief into the blade with the spine at about a penny's height from the surface of the stone. Pretty quickly I started wearing away coating as the slurry built up, so I just decided to heck with it, I'll grind the whole coating off! So my Izula got a new relief angle, and got a nice new polish instead of the coating--it was gonna come off eventually anyway.
It's cutting much better, probably more due to the new thinner edge than the lack of coating. I was able to take the edge from about .045" behind the edge, down to .030-.035" so I'm fairly happy with that. I really didn't grind in as much of a relief angle as I had intended, instead I just ground it until I confirmed with calipers that it thinned the edge, and then I just started slowing increasing the angle until I was back up to the 40* inclusive I prefer--so I got a bit of a convexed effect as well.
Anyway, I'll stop my yapping and show you all some pics. I finished it up with 220, then 320 grit sandpaper. One side was a little pitted so didn't come out as shiny as the other, but I'm not really going for a super nice, scratch-free polish... It's going to get scratched up in use anyway. I just want the finest finish I can get for a little added rust prevention.
