Problems getting a particular knife sharp

[lonelyronin]

I bought a new knife recently. A FoxKnives Livri in M390. I just can't get it as sharp as my other knives. First I tried the Spyderco Benchstones but wasn't really satisfied with the result. The next time I used Venev bonded diamond stones but still wasn't satisfied. Yesterday I sharpened again first with a coarse silicon carbide stone to set the bevel and then finished with Venev stones and leather strops. I raised a burr no problem, both on the silicon carbide and then on the Venev stones.
The knife still doesn't cut phone book paper as cleanly as I'm used to. When looking at the edge under a microscope I think I can see why. There's lots of really small micro chips.

I have a Spyderco Delica in M390 that doesn't have these problems. I sharpened the Delica with the Spyderco Benchstones no problem and it slices phone book paper cleanly and doesn't have any micro chips under the microscope.

Did FoxKnives mess up the heat treatment? Should I try to do a higher angle micro bevel?

 

[miso2]

Can you post a microscope picture of the edge?

 

[lonelyronin]

Can you post a microscope picture of the edge?

I'll try to take one once I get home. It's a cheap pocket loupe/microscope with up to 120x magnification.

 

[miso2]

I like coarse edges.
My edges are set with #150 Venev diamond and refined with DMT EEF.

You can see some nicks at the edge.
The edge bevel is about 1 mm wide, so these nicks are about 0.1 mm or 100 micron deep.
I can still cut paper cleanly.
In fact, the knife cuts tissue paper or toilet paper cleanly.

My point is that the micro chips may not be the issue, if they are small.

 

[lonelyronin]

Hmm this is kinda what my edge looks like. I'll try to post pictures later. I just can't explain the difference to my Delica M390.

 

[115Italian]

Try doing a micro-bevel with a finer stone. It would help clean up the edge without grinding away a lot more steel to reach the micro chips.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Might just be this knife's edge is ground a little too wide-angled and maybe thicker behind the edge, as compared to your Delica blade in M390. When I see difficulties like this, it almost always comes down to the edge being wider in angle and/or too thick behind the edge. Thinning the edge and sharpening to a lower angle fixes it, the vast majority of the time. It's very rare when the steel itself, or the heat treat, is bad enough to cause problems like this.

 

[studio398]

you might try edge trailing strokes only while sharpening. It may help reduce the micro chipping

 

[Bill3152]

Anytime I have issues with a knife or razor, I dull the edge on the side of a glass and start over.

 

[lonelyronin]

Ok, I fixed it. What I did was do some light edge leading strokes first on the fine Venev stone and after that on the Spyderco Ultrafine with a slightly higher angle than before. Especially after the ultrafine Spyderco the edge looked a lot cleaner. Did some stropping passes on leather with bark river compound and now it's where I want it to be. Maybe I didn't get rid of the microscopic burr the first time after all.

Here are some pictures:

Delica

Livri before

Livri after UF

I guess the light reflecting stuff on the edge is a microscopic burr?

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

That does look like a burr in the 2nd pic. Nice work in cleaning that up.

Looks good!

 

[Airborne 1]

@ lonelyronin
Edge looks better. Please remember this is a family site , cleanup you 1st post please.