Now I'm confused. Burr or no burr on CTS-204P?

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farmboy

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Aug 31, 1999
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I've tried to read in detail here, but man......

Have you ever read so deep into something that you just get buried and lost in the details?

I decided to press on with my ZT 0456 CTS-204P bladed pocket knife. Natural stones won't cut it, and I get that now. So I'm on to diamonds, and I have a set of diamond rods for my Sharpmaker. I also have a 30x loupe on the way.

So do I want a burr or not? I've read the I do, I've read that I don't. I've read that I get a burr and drag it through some wood, to strop on leather or jeans, and even to sharpen at a higher angle to get rid of the burr, only on a diamond bench stone.

I'm struggling on what to do on this one, and I'm about to ship it back to Kershaw and have them do it.

Can anyone give me the down and dirty? I'm a mechanically inclined guy, and I can't believe that it's really that complex. Or is it???
 
farmboy said:
I've tried to read in detail here, but man......

Have you ever read so deep into something that you just get buried and lost in the details?

I decided to press on with my ZT 0456 CTS-204P bladed pocket knife. Natural stones won't cut it, and I get that now. So I'm on to diamonds, and I have a set of diamond rods for my Sharpmaker. I also have a 30x loupe on the way.

So do I want a burr or not? I've read the I do, I've read that I don't. I've read that I get a burr and drag it through some wood, to strop on leather or jeans, and even to sharpen at a higher angle to get rid of the burr, only on a diamond bench stone.

I'm struggling on what to do on this one, and I'm about to ship it back to Kershaw and have them do it.

Can anyone give me the down and dirty? I'm a mechanically inclined guy, and I can't believe that it's really that complex. Or is it???
Click to expand...

Ehh.. don't over think it, people will argue their idiosyncrasies till the end of time.

Just make the burr, small, not massive.
Reduce the burr at the same angle with alternating passes with extremely light pressure then move to a strop or finer stone.

You can't pull the burr off with just wood or cork alone. Ya gotta weaken it first on the stone with what I said above.

You can microbevel, yes but you reduce the cutting performance with a thicker cutting Geometry.


But yeah, don't over think it just troubleshoot it as you go.

Just do it.
 
Depending on the steel and it's hardness, you may or may not see a burr anyway. Some steels won't hold much of a burr on the edge after it may form, due to the steel's tendency to be less ductile in the first place. In other words, if the beginning of a burr does form, it may just crumble away from the edge before becoming large enough to see it at all. ZDP-189 at very high hardness (low-mid 60s HRC) is one that behaves like this, for example.

The description of CTS-204P steel on the zknives site specifically mentions a lack of noticeable burr forming during sharpening.

(quoted from site: http://www.zknives.com/knives/steels/Carpenter/cts-204p.shtml ) :
"...And one more thing worth noticing, there's no stubborn burr forming during sharpening, therefore, there's no risk to form a wire edge either."
Click to expand...

So, if you don't ever notice much of a burr, I'd focus instead on other checks for a fully-apexed edge, such as cutting tests in fine paper, or very close & well-lit examination of the edge under magnification. If you do see the burr, so much the better. But, it may not be worth overthinking it and obsessively looking for it, if the steel isn't going to generate it in the first place. If it does form at all and you see it, it should therefore be pretty easy or almost effortless to remove it in this case, if the steel's description above is accurate.
 
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I just received my super cheap 30-60x loupe from amazon today, and it revealed a razor thin edge of the blade that has been untouched by my sharpening efforts so far, so back to the bench I go.

You know, several years ago, I was at a gun show that had an upscale knife vendor selling his Sebenza's as well as some custom blades. I asked him what the best tool was to use for sharpening a good blade. His response?

"Patience."

He said most guys give up way too early. "You need to stop worrying that you'll grind it to a needle.", he explained. He said to just make sure that I spent as much time on one side as the other, and I'd get there.

Occasionally, good advice needs to be remembered.
 
farmboy said:
I just received my super cheap 30-60x loupe from amazon today, and it revealed a razor thin edge of the blade that has been untouched by my sharpening efforts so far, so back to the bench I go.

You know, several years ago, I was at a gun show that had an upscale knife vendor selling his Sebenza's as well as some custom blades. I asked him what the best tool was to use for sharpening a good blade. His response?

"Patience."

He said most guys give up way too early. "You need to stop worrying that you'll grind it to a needle.", he explained. He said to just make sure that I spent as much time on one side as the other, and I'd get there.

Occasionally, good advice needs to be remembered.
Click to expand...

Best sharpening advice, ever. :thumbsup:

When I became seriously interested in learning sharpening, I began by using a guided setup with very small hones (Lansky). It would get the job done; but big rebevelling jobs took a long time, sometimes very long, up to ~6 hours or so with some blades. The best lesson in using it, for me, was learning to be patient enough to stick with it until the job was done.

I finally realized, in all the years prior that I'd attempted to sharpen my knives, I never went quite far enough. I literally didn't know what a burr was, because I'd never seen it. At some point in using the Lansky, I didn't even recognize what'd happened when I did form a big, obvious burr for the first time. A sliver of steel peeled off the edge when I rubbed it with a fingertip. I thought I'd found some sort defect in the steel, until the 'light bulb' in my head clicked on a few seconds later, after realizing the edge was sharper than I'd ever seen before.


David
 
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