Oi! David (OWE).

[Omega Leather Works]

Thanks for the heads up on Bar Keepers Friend. I'd been wanting to pick some up to clean my ceramics, and I finally did the other day. I mixed the powder with water to get a paste and it worked great.

Then... Last night I went to bed with a 1095 neck knife on (stupid) and when I got up, saw that there was some very light rust going on on the steel that was exposed outside of the sheath. Another mix and a quick application with a q-tip and it's back to new.

Now I need to remember who it was that recommended using mud from the stone (that I just used) on a piece of paper wrapped around the stone to strop. It worked a treat!

Was that Stitch? Or Chris... Maybe Blunt? Jason? Argh... Can't remember!

Now I need to figure out what to do to keep this from rusting again. It's wrapped in resin soaked cord.

Well hell, here's a pic.

In its sheath.

Huge shout out to Andrew and Markell too! If it weren't for those two, I wouldn't have this "problem" to begin with!

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

You're very welcome. Always nice to hear when my so-called 'advice' actually works for somebody else too, and not just for me.

The "stone-mud-on-paper-wrapped-around-a-stone technique" suggestion sounds like it might've come from 'HeavyHanded'. :thumbup:


David

 

[stitchawl]

T'wasn"t me. Not a problem that I need to deal with. I use Marine Tuf-Cloth on my knives. They never rust.


Stitchawl

 

[Omega Leather Works]

You're very welcome. Always nice to hear when my so-called 'advice' actually works for somebody else too, and not just for me.

The "stone-mud-on-paper-wrapped-around-a-stone technique" suggestion sounds like it might've come from 'HeavyHanded'. :thumbup:


David

You know... I think you are right. I tried it on a halfway decent santoku and my wife couldn't be happier. Happy wife... that's a good thing!

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

I recalled it was HH ... Jason has variety of stones and strops that can do away with this method.

It's good to have different advice from different experts, as there're too many variables in sharpening and what steps needed would depends on steel, geometry, and point of use

 

[Omega Leather Works]

I recalled it was HH ... Jason has variety of stones and strops that can do away with this method.

It's good to have different advice from different experts, as there're too many variables in sharpening and what steps needed would depends on steel, geometry, and point of use

Agreed. Seems I'm doing a lot of that lately with you.

The santoku is a halfway decent knife, but it's done in Chinese alphabet soup steel. Seemed to respond well to the SiC stone and strop. I'll likely try it some more with my carbon blades, but the high wear resistant steels will get my normal procedure.

 

[HeavyHanded]

I recalled it was HH ... Jason has variety of stones and strops that can do away with this method.

It was me. I've been pitching that method for a long time now as a hasty means of finishing off an edge when working with waterstones. Works surprisingly well, and really comes in handy for coaxing a decent edge from softer steels. Great for touch-ups and finish work. Stems from my recommendation to use compound on paper, and experiments to see how much of a reduction in real "grit value" one gets when they apply a given abrasive to an even modestly compressible surface. Can also be done with the meager amount of mud from a silicon carbide stone too.
Glad it came in handy.

HH

 

[Chris "Anagarika"]

HH,

Thanks for the sharing of this method and the underlying principle behind it. Useful for softer steel indeed (sometime I used it on kitchen knives)

 

[HeavyHanded]

HH,

Thanks for the sharing of this method and the underlying principle behind it. Useful for softer steel indeed (sometime I used it on kitchen knives)

Truth be told, it works great on pretty much all carbon steel even at higher RC, and on plain stainless. It works well as a polish on scandi grinds too, if the rest of the work was done on a waterstone - leaves a nice satin finish. For V bevels it helps to let the paper dry out and wrap it around a dry stone. The paper gains max thickness (conformability) when wet with water, a little less when used with oil, and when used dry it compresses and stays that way. This plays into the "washboard" idea that I came up with, sort of a MDF/compressed paper on steroids. Wrapping the paper around a coarse stone helps this effect as well. If matched with a proper abrasive for the steel it becomes more of a "paper hone" than a strop. Did some pruning a few weeks ago of a maple tree in my backyard, processed all the stuff down for curbside removal using a Marbles machete. Was whacking through green limbs 2" thick in some instances, maybe a couple hundred hit overall on the edge. Could still shave some arm hair (was wishing I'd photo-documented this). Put it on some paper wrapped around a stone with Flexcut Gold for compound and it was back to clean-shaving arm hair and crosscutting newspaper with barely a whisper.
Aside from backhoning on a waterstone or jointer stone, this is by far my favorite method to tune up an edge. Actually used the washboard to completely recondition some carbon steel French cutlery that was throwing light back along the entire length - not quite butterknife dull, but close. Some black compound reestablished a new apex and polished the back bevel to an attractive satin, changed the paper out and finished it off with some fine alumox compound. Wasn't sure if this method could do that much work even on softer steel, but it did, and pretty fast. I did a smaller knife in the same set but left it at the black compound. It made a real nice toothy utility edge. There are was of creating/preserving tooth in a stropping operation, but takes extra consideration.

I am happy to share this aspect of my noodling as I find it extremely useful and relatively simple.
HH