Perfect mirror edge quest.

[Kennykid]

So.

I bought a Wicked Edge to get into sharpening, particularly to be able to put a mirror edge on my knives. I have stones from 100-1000 and 0.5/1.0 leather strops.

Today I decided to try on a Sage 1 I picked up on the forums that had the tip rounded off from the last owner. I've already butchered a Boker Nano because I didn't have a digital angle finder, but I just got one and decided to go 20° (or as close to exactly 20° as I could get).

After my endeavor I ended with this:

I would call that mirror - ish. After a few hours of careful stone swipes, I put probably 10 minutes in on 1.0 and another 15 minutes on 0.5 strops.

I can still see lines in the edge, particularly nearer the tang where I find it difficult to find consistently at any reasonable pace.

My question is, do I have the necessary equipment to get a perfect mirror edge? If not, what else do I need? Also, does stropping (stroping?) bottom out after enough passes or is it the more the merrier?

Thank you in advance!

 

[BluntCut MetalWorks]

Look like this knife edge geometry (bevel) needs attention


Once the bevel is set and mirroring can begin. Scratch reduction progresses grit from current grit to a finer grit, which ideally 1/2 or 1/3 smaller than the current grit. So starting from 100 -> 200-300 -> 400/600-900 -> so on. For first few attempts with mirror polishing, I recommend to grind each grit at a different angle, this way when the surface no longer show previous grit scratches, time to move to a next higher grit.

e.g. grind 100grit at 90* (lines straight down), 200grit 135*, 400grit at 45*, 1000grit 90*, 4K (6um) at 135*, 8K(3um) at 45*, 1um, 0.5um, 0.25um. With some experiences & good eyes, you can skip these angle clunkies.

From the example progression, your kit should includes a 6um & 3um abrasives (stones or strops).

edit: generally when stropping, it's good idea to lower a few degree to compensate soft-backing (non-film-on-glass types). Also good that shoulder get more polishing action, which to blend (soften) the line better. And also minimize edge rounding/convexing from long tedious impatience stropping.

 

[Razorsharp-Travis]

youre gonna weaken the edge with all that stropping, try getting stones going up to the microfine, and some MICROMESH or paper and diamondpaste taped to a set of stones

THis is freehand on sandpaper to a super worn 1200 grit N( I literally sanded the sandpaper smoother), then diamond paste on MDF wood , its not too hard. If you can sharpen a sharp coarse edge, you can do a mirror. You just need a fine grit progression

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[Jason B.]

A weak edge from stropping?

 

[Razorsharp-Travis]

A weak edge from stropping?

Think about it, its only an idea I hear about but it seems very plausible. If you dont have a perfect apex, you have a burr, you remove that you're moving the burr stressing the steel beneath. If you resharpen with a strip all the weak stressed metal is pulled into apex again. Possibly explaining virtuovices chippy edges . People say they perfect the apex then strop.on leather, if you perfected the apex then you dont need to strop. I'm not saying its all fact, just a plausible theory

Im not saying strops suck, I use them, I just find less is more.

 

[pbonanza]

I get a mirror polish on micromesh sheets on glass with a sprinkling of water up to 12000 grit. It's a tad cheaper than the wicked edge system, too.

 

[Kennykid]

That Southard, that's the edge I want. With my first attempt, I just set it to the desired degree, and went for it. The bevel was absurdly off. So I picked up a digital angle finder, and had anywhere from 19.6 to 20.2 degrees on each side, attaching the Guage to the unused side of the stone while resting on the blade. It's as close as I could reasonably get to 20° and far from what the Wicked Edge indicated as 20°. Pretty frustrating to spend $400+ and have it be practically unusable without a $20 gauge from Amazon. What else can I do to get it more perfect? I'll pick up more stones and try to find the 3m tape things to utilize if that's what your referencing. I need to read all the stickies in this section before I get back on my rig.

 

[HeavyHanded]

Think about it, its only an idea I hear about but it seems very plausible. If you dont have a perfect apex, you have a burr, you remove that you're moving the burr stressing the steel beneath. If you resharpen with a strip all the weak stressed metal is pulled into apex again. Possibly explaining virtuovices chippy edges . People say they perfect the apex then strop.on leather, if you perfected the apex then you dont need to strop. I'm not saying its all fact, just a plausible theory

Im not saying strops suck, I use them, I just find less is more.

I no longer have any sort of clear protocol re what constitutes 'stropping' after learning to do edge trailing on JWS, lapping with loose abrasive on hardwood, stropping on paper wrapped around my combination stone, stropping on leather etc. I do not believe stropping can cause a weak edge any more than any other finishing method. It might reveal a previously existing defect (one of the best reasons to do a finish stropping), but it's better to find those while still at a bench.
I do not believe a strop can move supported metal in the way a steeling might, or at least certainly not in any way that sandpaper or lapping film wouldn't, or even diamond on MDF. The longer one strops with an abrasive, I find the possibility of weak edge actually decreases, but the possibility of rounding the apex or broadening the inclusive angle goes way up.
Just my very humble opinion, but the majority of structural problems attributed to stropping are actually the revelation of existing conditions.
HH

 

[Luis G.]

Think about it, its only an idea I hear about but it seems very plausible. If you dont have a perfect apex, you have a burr, you remove that you're moving the burr stressing the steel beneath. If you resharpen with a strip all the weak stressed metal is pulled into apex again. Possibly explaining virtuovices chippy edges . People say they perfect the apex then strop.on leather, if you perfected the apex then you dont need to strop. I'm not saying its all fact, just a plausible theory

Im not saying strops suck, I use them, I just find less is more.

Chances are you are applying too much pressure if you getting chips from leather stropping or are twisting the edge.

I've seen virtuovoice sharpen... I don't think I would ever follow his steps. Terrible sharpening practices imho.

 

[Komitadjie]

Well, I'd think if you COULD weaken an edge by stropping, I'd have seen it by now. I sharpen on the EP, WEPS, and to a lesser extent freehand, but most of my sharpening is done on a Kalamazoo SM1 belt grinder. I'd say I probably run 10-20X the number of surface feet worth of compound-loaded leather over an edge than ANY hand-operated sharpening system per sharpening, and I really can't find any difference in durability between the belt edges and the ones from the EP/WEPS that I can't attribute to convex/V-bevel.

As far as I can tell, if I'm careful and don't apply too much pressure, there is no upper limit to the amount of time I can spend stropping, although there IS a point of diminishing returns.

 

[Razorsharp-Travis]

Well, I'd think if you COULD weaken an edge by stropping, I'd have seen it by now. I sharpen on the EP, WEPS, and to a lesser extent freehand, but most of my sharpening is done on a Kalamazoo SM1 belt grinder. I'd say I probably run 10-20X the number of surface feet worth of compound-loaded leather over an edge than ANY hand-operated sharpening system per sharpening, and I really can't find any difference in durability between the belt edges and the ones from the EP/WEPS that I can't attribute to convex/V-bevel.

As far as I can tell, if I'm careful and don't apply too much pressure, there is no upper limit to the amount of time I can spend stropping, although there IS a point of diminishing returns.

I've maintained edges on strops but they dont seem to hold up as well as an edge from solid abrasives.

 

[Skimo]

All abrasives are solid, stropping isn't bad for a blade anymore than high grits are bad... application is everything especially at low angles and high grit.

 

[Komitadjie]

Without microscopic inspection, that'd be a REALLY hard one to diagnose, Travis. Could be almost anything, my first suspicion would be a bit too much pressure while stropping is rolling the leather over and blunting the edge on you.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Either the over stropping idea is over stated or my thin leather over hard wood combo, and/or technique, prevents the problems associated with the practice. I can strop all day long and not see any negative impact. I'm not just hitting the shoulder either. I can see with my loupe that the scratch pattern follows what I do with the strop, right to the apex.

What I do is edge lead to set my angle (just to where it starts to indicate that it will bite the nap) then edge trail at or just shy of that angle. My edge always gets sharper off the stone, to a point obviously. There's no point in stropping any longer once I've got a uniform scratch pattern from the compound.

 

[Razorsharp-Travis]

Without microscopic inspection, that'd be a REALLY hard one to diagnose, Travis. Could be almost anything, my first suspicion would be a bit too much pressure while stropping is rolling the leather over and blunting the edge on you.

Trust me, im a better sharpener than you think. But idk its hard to explain this theory, cliffstamp can explain it better but hes banned here. I mean im still trying to grasp the theory im.mainly just sharing it here. I still strop, I just strop on solid backings now, and use the strop to a minimal amount

 

[Jason B.]

It's a pretty far out theory, don't know if I would devote to much thought into it.

 

[Komitadjie]

Trust me, im a better sharpener than you think. But idk its hard to explain this theory, cliffstamp can explain it better but hes banned here. I mean im still trying to grasp the theory im.mainly just sharing it here. I still strop, I just strop on solid backings now, and use the strop to a minimal amount

Oh, no doubt you're decent with your abrasives, man. Just saying that without a close examination, it's hard to tell failure mode. I use a 30X inspection scope at work to check failed edges on my knives, usually. Helps me adjust my methods and angles for my EDCs. Use a 7x loupe while sharpening, the kind that clip to my glasses.

I'm just offering my personal experience here, that running a LOT of leather along that edge doesn't produce a noticeable change in durability for me. YMMV!

 

[cbwx34]

That Southard, that's the edge I want. With my first attempt, I just set it to the desired degree, and went for it. The bevel was absurdly off. So I picked up a digital angle finder, and had anywhere from 19.6 to 20.2 degrees on each side, attaching the Guage to the unused side of the stone while resting on the blade. It's as close as I could reasonably get to 20° and far from what the Wicked Edge indicated as 20°. Pretty frustrating to spend $400+ and have it be practically unusable without a $20 gauge from Amazon. What else can I do to get it more perfect? I'll pick up more stones and try to find the 3m tape things to utilize if that's what your referencing. I need to read all the stickies in this section before I get back on my rig.

I'm not sure if this got answered.... but if you measured 19.6 deg. on one side, and 20.2 on the other, the bevels shouldn't have been "absurdly off". Something else is going on... either the knife was off to begin with, it wasn't clamped properly, or something, or I'm reading your post wrong. You don't need the gauge, btw... there's other ways to set/check settings... the "Sharpie" method is probably the most common.

Like others have said, you need more "steps" to get a polished bevel. Using the 1.0/.5m strops after the 1000g stones will clean up the edge and make it sharper, but it won't remove the grind marks from the 1K stones. As others have indicated, there's lots of alternatives: ceramics, sandpaper, 3M abrasives, etc. all will help. If going for a mirror, the more steps the better.