Sarpening Question

[Willieboy]

I use a Sharpmaker to sharpen my knives and I have notice a problem with the result. Consistently, one side of the blade seems sharper than the other. In other words, when holding the knive and looking at the spine, the the left edge is always sharper than the left. If I rub my thumb across the edge from the right side, it seems to be only half as sharp as if I brush the edge from left side of the blade. I am right-handed if that matters. Any ideas?

 

[Ben Dover]

Are you "slicing" STRAIGHT DOWN on both sides? I have the same problem with the Sharpmaker when my mind wanders, and I don't pay close attention to what I'm doing.

If that's not the problem, you're going to need advice from someone more knowledgeable than me!

 

[bh49]

There is a good chance that you did remove a burr (or wire edge).
After I started to use Jeff Clark's method it helped me a lot
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3152114&postcount=14

 

[tim8557]

My guess is that you've created a burr and need to make sure that you "strop" it off. Take your fingernail and rub it on the blade going from spine to the edge. If you've created a burr, which is good, you'll feel your nail catch on it.

You also may wish to post this in the "Toolshed" though one of the Mods will probably move it there for you.

 

[Cougar Allen]

 

[kel_aa]

Left-handed/right handed should not be a problem. Are you starting the sequence on the left side and ending on the right side? For instance, if you do 20 passes total and start pass 1 on the left side, then pass 20 would be on the right side.

I think what you are getting is a burr, and it's ends up on one side because of the particularities of your sequence. If you now do a pass on the other side, the burr would reverse.

As for removing the burr, I guess it is fairly common to do that by doing a couple of very light passes at increased angles. But I am having trouble doing that on my VG-10 Caly Jr at the moment. I'll piggy-back a question of my own off your thread:

So I work on the relief grind of the VG-10 to something like 10 degrees, and am sharpening at 15 per side. I thought I get a clean edge, and was pushing cutting newsprint at 1/2 inch perpendicular fold. I was getting excited, but as I cut some bulk newsprint, a wire-edge showed. I try to deburr it, but it requires massive angles, and after being satifisfied with burr removal, the result is a fairly unsharp edge. So I work it at 15 degrees again, but as soon as it gets sharp the burr comes back. Removing the burr at huge angles again leave a relatively unsharp edge, only slightly better than before. Any ideas? Is the suggestion that I should cut into the stone to take off the edge and start over fresh? The S30V Military is proving itself easier to work with at the moment.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Once you start folding an edge back and forth it starts weakening all the metal around it. Generally it is difficult to remove this, I tend to cut it back off on the primary and start over. If larger angles are giving you problems, you might want to try very short partial strokes on the hone. Ideally you do this on a very wide stone so you make maybe a cm or so of travel and then flip and repeat.

The burr will be cut off pretty much immediately with horizontal travel on the stone and thus you want to alternate really quickly to minimize its formation because anything longer than the travel which cuts it off just tends to create it again on the other side. You may also need to adjust the force, it can be difficult to hone two very different steels at the same time because ideally you want to use just the minimal amount of force to abrade the steel.

-Cliff

 

[kel_aa]

Here's an update on my situation. I rubberbanded a diamond lap to the Sharpmaker with a rod stuck underneath the base. I forgot if it was wedged in the middle or the end, but I was thinking it should have been around 10 degrees. For kicks I used some marker, and to my amazement the right side was didn't match the left. I was getting scratch marks before that I thought extended to the edge, but the marker revealed that it really didn't, and the bevels weres at different angles before to approximately the same height. Anyways, I worked on them so they had the same angle (except an area near the tip on the obtuse side) and then sharpen them at 20 degrees, still getting some burring issues, but not as bad as before.

I give the VG10 Caly Jr and a sharpened S30V Military to a friend to try them out for a while. I thought the Military was fairly sharp, ahead of the Caly Jr. But in any case their grinds and edges should be highly functional regardless. After some days I ask for a assessment, and they (my friend and their architect brother) remarked it wasn't as sharp as their 530 Benchmade in 440C, which they had for a year and I exclusively sharpened for them using 15 per side factory bevel and 20 micro.

I thought the S30V should have been comparable. But it may have something to do with nostaliga as due to certain circumstances they no longer had possession of the 530 as of the beginning of the summer. In any case the 440C was a pleasure to sharpen. It didn't feel like Aus8/440A (non-Benchmade) being more more wear resistant, but it was very crisp.

But on the other hand, they are outside the knife world and hence outside much of the hype, biases, and other subjective influences, so their assessment is in some ways more pure.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

But on the other hand, they are outside the knife world and hence outside much of the hype, biases, and other subjective influences, so their assessment is in some ways more pure.

Indeed, that is one of the problem with knowledge, it comes hand in hand with bias. There are ways around it, but it is sure nice when you don't have to deal with it. That is one of the reason I like unmarked blades.

-Cliff