I sharpen with a single bevel (not a fan of a double) using spyderco pro files. It gets very sharp with no edge burr but feels dull until you shave or cut something is this normal and are the sharpmaker files longer than the pro files.
I suggest you have two problems:
1) Reliably cutting off a wire edge usually requires 3 to 5 degrees additional taper per side of the edge.
2) The spyderco Pro files are very fine slow-cutting grit, producing a final finish quality similar to CrO-stropping. Without compound bevels, they will tend to produce a polished wire-edge.
I appreciate that you are not a fan of compound-angle edges, but a 5 degree-per-side microbevel is usually a reliable method to remove a wire edge. A lot of folks, who have no specific intent to produce a micro-beveled edge, wind up with a micro-bevels after burr/wire-edge removal.
Most of my folders are compound edges with 10 degree main bevels and 15 degree microbevels. For touch-ups on the micro-bevels, I often use the white side of the Spyderco DoubleStuff stone - producing a finely polished edge biased toward push-cutting, with final edge finish quality similar to yours.
Suggested progression:
- Coarse-grit stone or sandpaper for main bevel profiling.
- Intermediate-grit stone for removal of grind-marks/scratches.
- Just a few passes at +3 to +5 degree per side with intermediate stone to cut all wire-edge.
- Use your Spyderco white files to finish the micro-bevels you've created.
One of the nice benfits of micro-beveled edges are ease-of-touchup, since you're grinding much smaller bevels than a single-beveled edge.
Hope this helps!
