Hey, HeavyHanded.
Your write-up on sharpening here (not the OP, the 8th comment):
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...advice-for-newbie-knife-sharpeners-(freehand) is one of the best treatises I ever read on sharpening. I know my vid is long, but take a look when you get a free moment and feel free to critique or give feedback if you want to as your opinion is valuable to me.
Yeah, my sharpening vids are way too long (knifenut brought this up, too), so for my next project (and hopefully all future sharpening vids), I plan to keep it under 20.
First off, thanks for doing the video, and the good words re my older write-up. You're coming along well, appear to be developing good control. I am not entirely comfortable critiquing - I cannot tell from a video how much pressure you're using or what kind of touch you have on the apex, but here are some observations...
Your technique looks very sound with the same comments I made last video -consider segmenting the blade more (how would you tackle a large chef's knife or a 16" machete with a sweeping technique?- give it a try and see what parts of your tech hold up and what parts need tweeking). Inspect frequently - once you've ground a burr and flipped it, keep close tabs on what's happening. Don't rely on a formula. If you're off a bit on the angle control for one side, you could wind up hitting the other side multiple times in a row - not good for finish work.
With these whetstones you might want to use more oil, or agitate the film with a fingertip a bit more as you go. Not so important to saturate it as it is to have a film/puddle on the stone to work with. If I see a black streak forming on the stone I'll stop and work it around so it doesn't get underfoot. All swarf should be suspended in oil or otherwise out of the way. Also, backhoning on a hard stone is a very challenging application - very little to gain and all too easy to whip up a new burr. This is another area where waterstones and hard vitreous stones require different technique.
Stropping with a compound as fine as CrO coming off an India stone you might want to limit yourself to just a few passes/side for best results - that way you'll still have plenty of tooth but with just a touch of polish. Trying to do too much strop work at that grit stage seems to reduce cutting efficiency. If you're going to do a bunch of stropping try to do it on a harder backing like MDF or use hardwood and mix the compound with a tiny drop of oil to make a thin paste - either will limit any tendency to round the apex - works more like a polishing stone instead of a strop. Or just strop on some newspaper (double check for burrs after doing so) as this seems to be a good way of finishing edges without smoothing them out too much.
Another thought - my India stone shed some when it was new - I lapped it with a tile rubbing stone almost from the get-go. The sound on my work PC is dreadful, but the fine side of the India sounded a bit raw compared to what I'd expect. By many accounts those get a bit more refined from use, and that makes perfect sense for a stone of that composition.
All in all very good. I will suggest you might want to do a few more items on that stone - it should be capable of crosscutting newspaper pretty reliably (if somewhat noisily) with no stropping, or stropping with just the reclaimed swarf from the stone mopped up with newspaper - stropping with compound should create an edge that can easily do so very quietly and maybe even shave your face. I'm indebted to Ankerson for a post where he pushcut TP off a silicon carbide stone and that became my benchmark. Took a while to achieve that standard but I'm glad he gave me a mark to shoot for I otherwise wouldn't have thought possible. You can learn an awful lot from the combination stones re use of oils, soapy water, pressure, burr removal etc that might improve your overall technique on any media. You're doing great, keep it up and thanks for sharing.
