Rolled edge and sharpening

I

ibrow

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Jan 21, 2017
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So I have a Socom Elite in M390 with a few slight rolls from lightly hitting the edge against glass jars while cutting food. What’s the best way to go about fixing this? I was thinking about using a strop. Would Pikal work as the compound? It’s a type of metal polish. Or should I just sharpen it away on the KME? Thank you.
 
If it's rolled from impact on glass, a strop probably won't correct that. A rolled edge from impact on anything hard will likely be much stiffer & tougher than a typical burr would be. Even with a very aggressive compound, the amount of work needed to fully fix the rolled edge would likely round it off on a strop; more so, if the strop is anything relatively soft or forgiving, like leather.

It's probably best to reset the edge on a stone. Won't hurt to at least try a few passes on the strop, if you want to. But if you don't see much improvement in the first minute or so of stropping, then that's the cue to go back to a stone, to fix it.

It's also possible the rolled steel at the edge has been weakened by the impact. This is another reason it'd usually be best to scrub away the rolled (weakened) steel on a stone and reset the edge anyway.
 
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A good honing steel should fix that in a blink.

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Depending on the roll, I'd run the edge across the stone and remove bad material. Then re apex and sharpen it to the desired finish. Or send it to microtech for sharpening since they don't warranty people sharpening there own knives.
 
HeavyHanded said:
This^, and then use a small $4 paring knife to do food prep if that is at all practical - kitchen knives take a lot of abuse.
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LOL! My wife certainly qualifies in that area. The cheap little Victorinox parer she uses daily spends a lot of time getting its edge repaired...rolled, blunted or otherwise man female-handled. Therapy for me, most days, as I find it relaxing.

I'm trying to decide if I like the edge better off a worn, fine diamond hone...or a 1000 grit water stone. Both work well but the diamond is much more aggressive and "sticky".
 
ibrow said:
So I have a Socom Elite in M390 with a few slight rolls from lightly hitting the edge against glass jars while cutting food. What’s the best way to go about fixing this? I was thinking about using a strop. Would Pikal work as the compound? It’s a type of metal polish. Or should I just sharpen it away on the KME? Thank you.
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If that edge is rolled over sharply it can actually rake your leather strop. Strop is not the tool for this job until you refine the edge.

Basically you have two choices depending on how anal you are about a perfect edge;

1: use a ceramic or some non diamond stone and only do edge trailing strokes until the rolls are fairly straightened.

2: reset the edge altogether, which is really the right thing to do if rolls are too bad for option 1 to remedy.
 
Blues said:
LOL! My wife certainly qualifies in that area. The cheap little Victorinox parer she uses daily spends a lot of time getting its edge repaired...rolled, blunted or otherwise man female-handled. Therapy for me, most days, as I find it relaxing.

I'm trying to decide if I like the edge better off a worn, fine diamond hone...or a 1000 grit water stone. Both work well but the diamond is much more aggressive and "sticky".
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I have two edge types in the kitchen, a Norton fine Crystalon finished with a hard strop which is still pretty coarse, or reset the edge on an approx 200 grit stone and microbevel on the Suehiro G8. The second is also how I do a lot of kitchen knives for $ as it makes a real catchy edge but is thin enough to chop well.

If its my Chef's knife I'll spend a few more time with the G8 to really get it chopping easy, I have a 6" Victorinox for offhand slicing food prep.
 
Steel Junkee, yes a good smooth steel will fix a rolled edge quickly. I would back hone it 2-3 passes per side. This is the manner meat cutters do it as meat cutters are always rushed for time. But this is merely a band-aid because the rolled area is weakened and this is where the edge is most likely to roll again. The other gents are giving you advice toward a longer term fix. AS Lapdog says, 'you can damage your strop because of a rolled edge. Avoid that. Yes, I would back hone on a stone to straighten up the edge. Then use a edge leading stroke to
clean the edge up. If you know how, this is a quick method to decently fix the problem. DM
 
Thanks for the replies, this didn't happen at home in the kitchen. Also I'm in Europe so I can't send knives to Microtech all the time. The rolls are very small, takes some effort to see at the very apex. It still has the factory edge so I'll just sharpen it on the KME.
 
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