More noob sharpening questions: how many steps?

I would like to add a comment on the BESS tester. When I started sharpening in earnest I read “Knife Deburring”. It really messed with my mind thinking I needed a truckload of equipment to achieve a sharp, burr free apex. After much time and a thousand knives later I’m here to say, you don’t…. But, to make this journey shorter for you, save your pennies and spring for a tester. If I had not bought a tester I’d still be standing there with a magazine page or cigarette paper wondering if this was sharper than the last time? Within a couple weeks of buying the tester I discovered I was stropping too much, one of my emulsion’s wasn’t doing what I thought it was, how different steels took an edge and some other eye openers.

I needed some way to measure my progress, successes and failures. The tester let me see how many times I needed to pass the knife over a strop before I rounded the edge and it started getting duller. It will let me know if my stropping emulsion is effective… like, should I use diamonds or is Tormek’s paste good enough?, or better? Is my stropping angle too deep or shallow? Am I using enough pressure or too much? How to approach different steels? And of course, how sharp is my knife? No more magazine pages or cigarette papers, you will truly know.
Honestly, for me, the tester changed almost everything I had been doing to get a knife sharp. It took my knives from meh to YEOW in less time.
Regardless of your goal in sharpening, in my humble opinion, a BESS tester will shorten your journey to get there.

Folks have been sharpening forever without it and achieving their goals. I like being able to measure my results and find the BESS tester an effective tool for my style of knife sharpening.
 
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Definately good advice, its hard to improve what you don't measure. Many of us spend enough money on knives to where this is not a great expense. But is this device measuring the sharpness at one point on the edge or along the edge??
 
It only measures at one point. Once you get some practice using it, you’ll start to know when the entire blade is refined. If I’m trying to get it “perfect” I will measure the tip, the area most used and lower towards the rear. It’s just a tool to look at your progress. Typically, if one section is sharp, the rest will be close. If not, run it on the strop again. I use controlled angle on the Tormek so that edge is fairly consistent. I do freehand when using the belt grinder but again, most of the edge will be similar. I love the BESS. But it’s only a tool.
 
Gottagofishn said:
I would like to add a comment on the BESS tester. When I started sharpening in earnest I read “Knife Deburring”. It really messed with my mind thinking I needed a truckload of equipment to achieve a sharp, burr free apex. After much time and a thousand knives later I’m here to say, you don’t…. But, to make this journey shorter for you, save your pennies and spring for a tester. If I had not bought a tester I’d still be standing there with a magazine page or cigarette paper wondering if this was sharper than the last time? Within a couple weeks of buying the tester I discovered I was stropping too much, one of my emulsion’s wasn’t doing what I thought it was, how different steels took an edge and some other eye openers.

I needed some way to measure my progress, successes and failures. The tester let me see how many times I needed to pass the knife over a strop before I rounded the edge and it started getting duller. It will let me know if my stropping emulsion is effective… like, should I use diamonds or is Tormek’s paste good enough?, or better? Is my stropping angle too deep or shallow? Am I using enough pressure or too much? How to approach different steels? And of course, how sharp is my knife? No more magazine pages or cigarette papers, you will truly know.
Honestly, for me, the tester changed almost everything I had been doing to get a knife sharp. It took my knives from meh to YEOW in less time.
Regardless of your goal in sharpening, in my humble opinion, a BESS tester will shorten your journey to get there.

Folks have been sharpening forever without it and achieving their goals. I like being able to measure my results and find the BESS tester an effective tool for my style of knife sharpening.
Click to expand...
Sigh....thanks for this comment. Unfortunately, you've articulated (beautifully!) where my head is right now: How do I KNOW that I'm getting a knife sharp? Can I do better? And ultimately for me, the goal is not just to figure out how to get knives sharp. How can I figure this process out so that I can get the job done efficiently/quickly?

Bruce
 
Since the subject includes both noob and sharpening I have a question. Pocket sharpeners are very popular. My question is simply does one pull the knife across the sharpener. Or does one pull the sharpener across the blade. Personally, I am more comfortable with the latter.
 
Probably depends on the individual, and even then probably depends for the individual on which knife and sharpener.
 
I guess I'm old school, I just use my fingers to feel the sharpness. The finger tips are a great tool if you use them and IMO, you should know how all levels of sharpness and edge deformation feel. You want a good example of sharp? Go buy a utility blade from the store, the dewalt brand usually has a great edge. This will show you the upper end of sharpeness that can be expected on "most" knives.

Also, start looking closer at the edge. See the scratch pattern, see the burr, then feel it. If you are not getting up close to the edge you will never understand what's going on.

A 2 or 3 step process is standard, grind and polish or Grind, sharpen, polish. In most cases a Coarse stone, a medium stone, and a fine stone is all that's needed for sharpening. Coarse grinding/sharpening should be most of your focus, this is the make or break point for how your edge will end up. Everything after coarse grinding is simply a refinement of the scratch pattern and making the burr smaller.

Being fast and efficient will come when you learn how to sharpen. First, learn how to grind an edge nice and straight. Learn to clean up that coarse edge in the sharpening stage, then learn how to finish that edge so that there is no burr.

(And also)
The edge can be sharp at ANY grit if it is clean. The edge can also be dull at any grit with unmanaged burr and debris in the way. You dont have to polish to make the edge sharp, you only need it clean and precise. Falling down the rabbit hole is easy here, try and stick to the basics and master the fundamentals.
 
With my stones and knives, including Henckels, if I have any burr past the 450 it is because I haven't reached the apex yet. Once I do clean the apex up with them, using edge trailing strokes only, then the burr will disappear. Another funny discovery is if I do too many strokes my sharpness drops, or a minor angle change and wham, the test is 50+ grams higher. I too feel with my finger tips but can not detect the difference between 120 grams and 170 grams without my BESS tester. I don't use the BESS tester or microscope all the time but they have made the biggest difference in how I sharpen knives. They have corrected so many misconceptions of what is supposed to work when sharpening knives.
 
I can honestly say that people who talk about sharpening with coarse stones are absolutely right. I'll tell you even more, folks: when you have a microscope and observe the results of sharpening with a stone, you come to a very simple conclusion. Even at grits like 180, 360, 600, or 800, by making finishing strokes and minimizing the abrasive pressure on the cutting edge, you get an amazing result. Essentially, the primary sharpness, as it seems to me, is achieved at 180 and 360 grits. Everything beyond that is just refining and polishing the cutting edge.

The burr, if you're sharpening on a fixed-angle system, can be removed at the very end, but it's better to address it with each stone. In my opinion, for good sharpening, what's important is:

1. Having the right tools (a sharpening system or doing it by hand).
2. Equally important is having at least a basic lens microscope, like 50x magnification.
3. When you start understanding the nature of the burr and how to remove it, you can achieve incredible sharpness at low grit levels.

For example, here's the result of sharpening on a 28/20 micron stone (roughly 650 grit), even without any polishing. (This was at 22 degrees per side, a total of 44 degrees, for a chopper's edge geometry.) In reality, soft, controlled finishing strokes can essentially act as refinement, even at lower grit levels.

Advice to ALL beginners: Aim to achieve sharpness where the blade can cut paper, a napkin, or shave hair already at 300-400 grit. Then, learn to polish and refine the cutting edge. Essentially, I agree with those who say sharpening is a science! There are many controversial points, and some might say I'm doing something wrong, BUT! Everyone will agree that you need to master getting maximum sharpness from coarse grit levels.

**Simplified with burr minimization**: Achieve a clean, sharp edge at low grits (300-400) by minimizing burrs with controlled, light finishing strokes, then refine and polish as needed.
P.S
To objectively assess the level of sharpness, you can do this:
Try cutting something soft and free-hanging. Then you won't need any other tools, except maybe a bunch of napkins, A4 paper, or receipt tape for testing. 🫣
 
Think of all edges as being serated at the microscopic level. The finer grits don’t make the edge sharper just finer

Mostly I use a worn coarse stone so medium? I don’t need it finer than that.
 
I'm not 100% sure you can achieve an Edge that would test at 50 (Gillette razor blade) on the BESS. I believe the unit documentation states that somewhere... (or I could be dreaming).
The numbers might be inaccurate as with a very toothy edge, as you cut a thread to measure the force it takes to do so. With the toothy edge, the force to cut said thread might be different. Might need a different sharpness tester. That being said, most seem to find a toothy edge desirable.

One other comment. I used to test sharpness by pulling my thumb across the blade. However, all I could really tell is whether it is a working edge or not (for most folks that's good enough). I can't really tell how sharp it is, as in is it 100 or 200 on a BESS tester. The late great Vadim Kraichuk from Australian Knife Grinders discusses that in his "Knife Deburring " book.

Lastly, if you don't get rid of ALL of the burr, it will be the cause of premature dulling.
 
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In researching fixed agle sharpening on the internet, I came away thinking I needed a "set" of 5 or so stones and use all of them. I struggled to get consistently good results. After picking up the idea on this forum, I started using on only three stones, stopping at about 400 grit. Much better results and more enjoyment! It also allows me to focus more on technique.
 
Tensaw said:
In researching fixed agle sharpening on the internet, I came away thinking I needed a "set" of 5 or so stones and use all of them. I struggled to get consistently good results. After picking up the idea on this forum, I started using on only three stones, stopping at about 400 grit. Much better results and more enjoyment! It also allows me to focus more on technique.
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I sharpen and strop via mechanical means, either a 10” whetstone(Tormek) or bench sander. When grinding, you just need an apex with a burr. As I run through a progression of grits I sometimes remove the burr before moving onto a finer grit. If you already have a burr, it’s difficult to tell if a finer grit has raised a burr as the finer grit burr is tiny in comparison.

The point I am trying to make is, for me, if I can’t get it sharp, the first thing I think is I didn’t apex it properly. Whatever grit I am using. If you’re positive you’ve raised a burr the entire length, stropping would likely be the reason you’re blade didn’t perform as expected.
 
If you want to get real technical one of the first things to think about when sharpening is that the abrasive fractures the steel when scratching it. The rule of thumb I have heard is the fracture is as deep as the scratch. So if you only use a coarse stone to sharpen with you will have a degraded edge when you are done due to the deeper fractures. When properly going through the grits you need to remove twice as much material as your deepest scratch to remove the fractures caused by your last stone. I have heard this from two people. The first was an engineer I made parts for who spent 6 months studying polishing optics for one of the last Apollo programs. A softer stainless steel part he needed me to make needed a section to be polished, so he educated me a little on how to do it and what was involved so I would do it right. The other is a section on Science of Sharp, where he talks about this and says the same thing about how deep the fractures are. I can't help but think the substrate, steel or such, and the abrasive should matter but have heard or read nothing that supports this idea.

Since the details are everything I use resin bond diamond stones on a guided sharpener, like my edges as refined and polished as I can get them, and use a good microscope to inspect with as well as a BESS tester. In my experience, with harder steel, I find stones will tear the apex off when sharpening, leaving a blunt broken surface in place of the apex. The finer the stone the smaller the blunt, broken surface is. Much of what sharpening is about is minimizing this so you are left with as fine of an apex as possible when you are done. To me this is what a toothy or working edge is, it is not scratches right down to a refined apex leaving a saw tooth type edge. I know Science of sharp does not show this in his photos but he has posted one here to support my findings. Since the apex was never refined to begin with it will degrade slower, hence last longer. I think a lot depends on how hard the steel is, softer and tougher will be easier to get a refined apex with coarser stones. But I don't have much interest in knives with softer steel since they don't hold an edge long enough to make sharpening worthwhile, IMO.

When sharpening I like to start with a stone coarse enough to quickly set the bevel, if it is too fine then it will take longer and I don't think it does as good of a job as the coarser stone. If you feel the coarser stone leaves scratches that are so deep they take a long time to remove then your next finer stone is too fine. With my sharpening and steels I find the apex does not start to refine until I am done with the 20 micron stone, the 40 still leaves much to be desired. This is if I just sharpen with each stone knowing I will be moving to finer grits. If you don't have the finer grits then continue with your last stone using lighter and lighter strokes to produce finer scratches. I can get nearly the same edge with an 80 micron stone as I can with a normally used 20, but it doesn't save time and the edge is not quite as refined, but a good stropping sure evens them up. Anyway, onward. The next stone is the 10 micron which normally does what is expected leaving a more refined apex and a little sharper according to the BESS tester. Past this I find things can get quirky in my stones. While the 5 micron will leave a more polished bevel there are times the BESS tester says the edge is not as sharp as what the previous stone left. I see this in all stone progressions that go ultra fine, just because they are available does NOT mean they work. At what grit this change happens depends on the stones and the knife you are sharpening. You need to know where this transition is, so you know when to stop using stones and transition to strops to continue.

I think strops and what you put on them are about as varied as stones. You have to be very careful with the abrasive and medium mix. Diamond on leather will start to convex your apex in just a few passes, and can radically change the angle that you shave with just a few more passes. I personally think bare leather is best for most of the steels used, and a soft white Alox is all that you want if you want a little more bite to your strop. This is just for deburring, if you want to polish then leather is not it. It is too soft, starts off dirty, only gets worse as you use it, and is impossible to really clean.

So, to answer the op's question. You do need properly spaced grit progressions past your coarse stone to get the most from your sharpening time. I think the best spacing is a 50% reduction in grit size per step. You can go more but the bigger steps will require more control of how it is used. This is my finding after more than 20 years of developing polishing tools for granite, quartz, and knives. I think your coarsest stone should be between 160 and 80 microns, where depends on the bond.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Diemaker said:
If you want to get real technical one of the first things to think about when sharpening is that the abrasive fractures the steel when scratching it. The rule of thumb I have heard is the fracture is as deep as the scratch. So if you only use a coarse stone to sharpen with you will have a degraded edge when you are done due to the deeper fractures. When properly going through the grits you need to remove twice as much material as your deepest scratch to remove the fractures caused by your last stone. I have heard this from two people. The first was an engineer I made parts for who spent 6 months studying polishing optics for one of the last Apollo programs. A softer stainless steel part he needed me to make needed a section to be polished, so he educated me a little on how to do it and what was involved so I would do it right. The other is a section on Science of Sharp, where he talks about this and says the same thing about how deep the fractures are. I can't help but think the substrate, steel or such, and the abrasive should matter but have heard or read nothing that supports this idea.

Since the details are everything I use resin bond diamond stones on a guided sharpener, like my edges as refined and polished as I can get them, and use a good microscope to inspect with as well as a BESS tester. In my experience, with harder steel, I find stones will tear the apex off when sharpening, leaving a blunt broken surface in place of the apex. The finer the stone the smaller the blunt, broken surface is. Much of what sharpening is about is minimizing this so you are left with as fine of an apex as possible when you are done. To me this is what a toothy or working edge is, it is not scratches right down to a refined apex leaving a saw tooth type edge. I know Science of sharp does not show this in his photos but he has posted one here to support my findings. Since the apex was never refined to begin with it will degrade slower, hence last longer. I think a lot depends on how hard the steel is, softer and tougher will be easier to get a refined apex with coarser stones. But I don't have much interest in knives with softer steel since they don't hold an edge long enough to make sharpening worthwhile, IMO.

When sharpening I like to start with a stone coarse enough to quickly set the bevel, if it is too fine then it will take longer and I don't think it does as good of a job as the coarser stone. If you feel the coarser stone leaves scratches that are so deep they take a long time to remove then your next finer stone is too fine. With my sharpening and steels I find the apex does not start to refine until I am done with the 20 micron stone, the 40 still leaves much to be desired. This is if I just sharpen with each stone knowing I will be moving to finer grits. If you don't have the finer grits then continue with your last stone using lighter and lighter strokes to produce finer scratches. I can get nearly the same edge with an 80 micron stone as I can with a normally used 20, but it doesn't save time and the edge is not quite as refined, but a good stropping sure evens them up. Anyway, onward. The next stone is the 10 micron which normally does what is expected leaving a more refined apex and a little sharper according to the BESS tester. Past this I find things can get quirky in my stones. While the 5 micron will leave a more polished bevel there are times the BESS tester says the edge is not as sharp as what the previous stone left. I see this in all stone progressions that go ultra fine, just because they are available does NOT mean they work. At what grit this change happens depends on the stones and the knife you are sharpening. You need to know where this transition is, so you know when to stop using stones and transition to strops to continue.

I think strops and what you put on them are about as varied as stones. You have to be very careful with the abrasive and medium mix. Diamond on leather will start to convex your apex in just a few passes, and can radically change the angle that you shave with just a few more passes. I personally think bare leather is best for most of the steels used, and a soft white Alox is all that you want if you want a little more bite to your strop. This is just for deburring, if you want to polish then leather is not it. It is too soft, starts off dirty, only gets worse as you use it, and is impossible to really clean.

So, to answer the op's question. You do need properly spaced grit progressions past your coarse stone to get the most from your sharpening time. I think the best spacing is a 50% reduction in grit size per step. You can go more but the bigger steps will require more control of how it is used. This is my finding after more than 20 years of developing polishing tools for granite, quartz, and knives. I think your coarsest stone should be between 160 and 80 microns, where depends on the bond.

Just my 2 cents.
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Good stuff…
How does micron relate to grit?
The Book “Knife Deburring” does a great job of illustrating how the act of grinding steel deforms, cracks, chips and plasticizes it. I had no idea…

I found the pressure applied when stropping is critical. I was on a journey to sharpen a knife to 50 on the BESS. Eventually, I found that only by a very light touch when stropping could I achieve 50. So I would agree, many use too much pressure when stropping the bevel and rounding the apex.
I don’t think the leather or compound is the culprit, I believe it to be technique. IMHO
 
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bdaabat said:
More noob sharpening questions: How many steps?

I've seen a lot of content where people show their results after going through a series of different grit processes...going from more coarse to less coarse, and so on through several steps.

I've also seen content from folks using two steps (coarse and fine) showing great results. Heck, I've gotten pretty acceptable results using the Sharpal 162N as a total noob!

I've watched videos of people using sharpening wheels to get great results with a two step process (which feels more like a one step process...the second step feels more like polishing/stropping).

From what little I can understand, the entire point (ha!) of the sharpening process is to first create the desired angle of grind, then raise a burr, then use some method of removing the burr.

So....does one really need to (say) go through several different stones in the Edge Pro progression or several different bands for the Work Sharp KO in order to get really good results if you already have a reasonably good working knife?

I understand it depends on what you're starting with...a totally boogered blade vs. something in OK, just used condition. Am assuming most of my sharpening is going to be for knives that are in reasonably OK shape.

Am I just wasting time using the multiple stone progression or the multiple band progression?

BTW: I'm feeling a bit frustrated at not having some sort of objective/consistent way to measure the sharpness of the knives post sharpening. There's a part of me that feels that no matter what I've done, they COULD be sharper. While that is very likely to be true, it's also likely that there's a temptation to always be looking for way to get things sharper still, no matter how sharp things get.

Thanks!
Bruce
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Measuring sharpness depends on the task. The edge on my hunting knives used to clean wild hogs is a very different edge than a kitchen chef knife used to shred lettuce or slice raw fish.

Over time, working with different edge finishes you will be able to sense when the edge is finished appropriately for the task.

fwiw - an Atoma 140 will produce a hair shaving edge, which is quite sharp, but a “toothy” edge that will last a long time cutting animal hides. The edge on my straight razor will cut the tip off of a single arm hair by just touching the edge to the hair tip. Both are equally sharp for the task for which the edge will be used, yet world’s apart in how fine and polished the edge is.

So focus on producing an good, useful edge appropriate for the intended use.

I quit chasing highly polished edges for anything other than chef knives or my razor after testing different edges for my EDC and hunting knives by testing cutting 3/4” manila rope. The DMT 320 or Atoma 400 followed by a light strop is the edge for those.
 
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In my current carry knife, an older Cold Steel Voyager in CTS BD1, I use 3 steps: coarse/fine Norton Economy Stone and a Hobby Lobby leather strop with compound. I also use a DMT Aligner guide with all three set at about 18 degrees per side. The fine Economy side leaves some aggression and I’m careful to not over strop the edge.
 
Diemaker said:
If you want to get real technical one of the first things to think about when sharpening is that the abrasive fractures the steel when scratching it.
Click to expand...

YES! This is very evident when using coarse diamond plates on hard steel. It really beats up the edge. If you're not careful, you'll have to remove a lot more material with finer stones to clean it up. Of course this also happens with finer stones and with diamond matrix stones, but it's not as dramatic.
 
bdaabat said:
does one really need to (say) go through several different stones in the Edge Pro progression or several different bands for the Work Sharp KO in order to get really good results if you already have a reasonably good working knife?
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Yeah, you kinda do. If you're maintaining the same angle, then you need to remove enough material to completely grind away the roundness at the apex. You can futz around with a fine stone and eventually get there, but what would be the point of such a laborious exercise? Just start with a coarse enough stone, restore the apex, and then progress through finer stones until you get to where you want to be. Save time, better results, less frustration.
 
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