Obsessive sharpening

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Jun 16, 2010
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793
Anyone else this way with the sharpmaker? I spent a couple hours with my factory edge new knives getting them to slice TP. Pretty happy that I didn't dull the tip that was a concern of mine, the only thing that bothered me was for some reason they seemed to catch on paper a little even though they shaved better.

Also anyone have firsthand experience in what the edge from fine vs ultrafine stones will do? I'm wondering if the ultra fine stones would slice newspaper cleaner or if I have some edge damaage.
 
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As mentioned before, you might have a small burr or wire edge; run the blade through a piece of wood and do a couple more passes with just the weight of the blade to avoid creating a new wire edge and then strop lightly, hope that helps
 
vary light pressure stropping with the green compound always works for me,after using the sharpmaker white rods.
 
What knife were you sharpening?

I just got UF triangle & used it on my Cara Cara & Resilience, dry shave well off stone (no stropping required). As some mentioned, very light touch. The ceramic is hard, too much pressure might result in burr.

Loupe is definitely recommended to see what's happening.
 
Anyone else this way with the sharpmaker? I spent a couple hours with my factory edge new knives getting them to slice TP. Pretty happy that I didn't dull the tip that was a concern of mine, the only thing that bothered me was for some reason they seemed to catch on paper a little even though they shaved better.

Also anyone have firsthand experience in what the edge from fine vs ultrafine stones will do? I'm wondering if the ultra fine stones would slice newspaper cleaner or if I have some edge damaage.

You can slice or pushcut newspaper, shave, even whittle hairs off of even the medium stones. The uf stones can make an edge a bit more refined than the fines but we are talking minimal differences that will only matter in parlor tricks, for example breaking a hanging hair vs. just whittling it. If you are having an issue slicing newsprint off the fine stones then you simply don't have a clean apex. Either you have not fully apexed, or there is some wire edge or there is a bit of burr. As others suggested, a 10-12x loupe can really help you understand what you've got going on.
 
I actually lost my loupe I need to find it. Well after getting really bored, and feeling potential OCD kick in, I reprofiled the knife to 30 degrees inclusive, which was quite the chore, but it is sharper than the factory edge, it shaves cleanly, push cuts printer paper,and will catch hair occasionally and for a user is a perfect edge. It still strangely will catch on printer paper and tear it, then make clean effortless slices other time. But its s30v and meant to be a user knife, so having the most polished perfect edge is kinda pointless in the long run, or so I'm telling myself. I'll go for hair whittling when I get something in vg-10 or zdp 189.

I'm not sure if Ill set a micro bevel again yet on my PM2, s30v should handle 30 degrees inclusive.
 
Try Walgreens or CVS, they have those credit card sized plastic magnification cards. They work really well and are either free or only a buck or two.
 
i think we must all have some kind of compulsive behavior disorder! even though i have the sharpmaker, you would think i would be happy with just this sharpener system! oh no,i'm always trying to improve my edge's adding yet another system,whats up with us any way!:confused:
 
Okay so quick update, I found my loupe, and examined the edge after using heavy fine strokes, and found it was basically flawless, considering I reprofiled it on the sharpmaker I'm pretty proud of how even and perfect it looked. So perhaps for the level of sharpness I wanted I just needed to be extremely gentle much lighter than the 3lbs called for, So I took both my microbeveled military and my rebeveled PM2, and did EXTREMELY light swipes. I'm talking 3 ounces instead of pounds, and lo and behold, after a while they both got from shaving sharp to stupid screaming sharp, at least for anything Ive experienced. It seems to me that to get a sharp shaving edge you can use anywhere from 1lb-10lbs, but to get that final sharpness pressure matters immensely. Its not so much the sharpness that improved as much as the uniformity, It no longer catches while slicing magazine paper, and that is immensely satisfying for some reason. I'm thinking the ultra fine stones to take the edge from hazy mirror to almost flawless are needed :p

Also both knives but especially the millie slice TP :cool:

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i think we must all have some kind of compulsive behavior disorder! even though i have the sharpmaker, you would think i would be happy with just this sharpener system! oh no,i'm always trying to improve my edge's adding yet another system,whats up with us any way!:confused:

It's called the darkside. It has a pretty powerful draw for use edge nuts. Welcome to the dark side! You are now a darksider. :D

Okay so quick update, I found my loupe, and examined the edge after using heavy fine strokes, and found it was basically flawless, considering I reprofiled it on the sharpmaker I'm pretty proud of how even and perfect it looked. So perhaps for the level of sharpness I wanted I just needed to be extremely gentle much lighter than the 3lbs called for, So I took both my microbeveled military and my rebeveled PM2, and did EXTREMELY light swipes. I'm talking 3 ounces instead of pounds, and lo and behold, after a while they both got from shaving sharp to stupid screaming sharp, at least for anything Ive experienced. It seems to me that to get a sharp shaving edge you can use anywhere from 1lb-10lbs, but to get that final sharpness pressure matters immensely. Its not so much the sharpness that improved as much as the uniformity, It no longer catches while slicing magazine paper, and that is immensely satisfying for some reason. I'm thinking the ultra fine stones to take the edge from hazy mirror to almost flawless are needed :p

Also both knives but especially the millie slice TP :cool:

Where are you getting these numbers?
 
It's called the darkside. It has a pretty powerful draw for use edge nuts. Welcome to the dark side! You are now a darksider. :D



Where are you getting these numbers?



I'm almost positive the sharpmaker DVD said to use around 3lbs of force, I might be mistaken.
 
I hardly use any force at all. Just weight of my hand to just letting the blade side down under its own weight.
 
My ultra-fine triangle stones are arriving this week, oh yeah!. :D



Its addicting, I have the PM2 rebeveled to 30 degrees inclusive, and with as fine of a polish as the fine stones will do, examined the edge with a jewelers loupe several times. Now I don't want to use it, until I can use the ultra fine stones on it, Not sure if itll get a microbevel. Thinking of leaving it at 30 degrees, and keeping the millie with the 40 degree microbevel.
 
Check out this YouTube video regarding Jeweller's Loupes, by FDJTool.
[video=youtube;KbC2JqWnkV8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbC2JqWnkV8[/video]
 
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