I am getting better with my new camera and will hopefully have some pic's up soon. I did discover some things about different stones and there effect's on steel though. I never gave it much thought before, I was using only diamond stones and strop paste to sharpen my mule and I now think that was causing some of the problem. I was looking at the edge of the mule after finishing with a DMT 8000 mesh bench stone 3 and 1 micron diamond paste, looking edge down at 130x magnification I discovered that the edge had not completely come together. It looked kinda cool the edge was sharp enough to whittle hair but had a flat top looking kinda like this \_/.
I later finished my millie with spyderco's UF benchstone 3 and 1 micron diamond paste. The result was a much better edge that had come much closer together, my only answer as of now would be that the diamond stone had a larger partical size and to much cut. The larger partical size of the diamond stone was not allowing the edge to come as close together as with the UF ceramic and the agressive cutting nature of the diamond stone was leaving to much of a toothy edge. The tooth on the edge was then being polished off in the stropping process leaving a flat edge where the two bevels once came together. I have sence left both blades unused and untouched, the millie finished with the ceramic is doing much better than the mule.
I concluded that the edge of the mule having a flat top left more area for corosion to occur and possiably why it was happening so fast. All a guess at this point but its the best I could come up with.
