Sharpening Confusion

John Watson

John Watson

Joined
Nov 29, 1998
Messages
774
Just got finished sharpening a few knives in preparation to take them on a family trip to Lake LBJ. I am confused. I sharpened a Delica, Endura both VG10 as well as a Cold Steel Broken Skull and two Bokers a #2 and #11. Of all of them I had the most trouble getting the Spydercos to easily but phone book paper. The Cold Steel and Bokers were no problem. I was really surprised that the Boker duo as thick as they are had no trouble cutting the phone book paper.

I found that toothy edges seem to cut better than finer edges. The three folders were sharpened on a Spyderco two sided sharpener and stropped on green loaded strop. I found that stropping the three on a plain piece of oak leather did a better job of polishing the edge.

Any Ideas? Is it just that I am having an issue with VG10? I made sure the VG10 blades got a wire edge and removed the burr afterwards.
 
John Watson said:
Just got finished sharpening a few knives in preparation to take them on a family trip to Lake LBJ. I am confused. I sharpened a Delica, Endura both VG10 as well as a Cold Steel Broken Skull and two Bokers a #2 and #11. Of all of them I had the most trouble getting the Spydercos to easily but phone book paper. The Cold Steel and Bokers were no problem. I was really surprised that the Boker duo as thick as they are had no trouble cutting the phone book paper.

I found that toothy edges seem to cut better than finer edges. The three folders were sharpened on a Spyderco two sided sharpener and stropped on green loaded strop. I found that stropping the three on a plain piece of oak leather did a better job of polishing the edge.

Any Ideas? Is it just that I am having an issue with VG10? I made sure the VG10 blades got a wire edge and removed the burr afterwards.
Click to expand...

Hi,
How are you removing the burr?
Did you use the VG10 kinves a lot before sharpening?
How many times have you sharpened them?
Do you cut off the apex before sharpening?

Even a sharp axe (thick) can cut phonebook paper, because paper is thin,
it doesn't much matter how thick the blade is, as long as its sharp
If you slice something thicker like cardboard,
then the axe will quickly jam/bind,
even if its hair whittling sharp
 
To remove the burr I cut through the end of a piece of wood after having increased the angle to a more acute one to get rid of the burr. The knives aren't dull when I got to sharpening them. These two are fairly new to the carry rotation. I know Cliff Stamp suggests cutting off the apex first but haven't gotten into the habit, so no I didn't.
 
John Watson said:
To remove the burr I cut through the end of a piece of wood after having increased the angle to a more acute one to get rid of the burr. The knives aren't dull when I got to sharpening them. These two are fairly new to the carry rotation. I know Cliff Stamp suggests cutting off the apex first but haven't gotten into the habit, so no I didn't.
Click to expand...
Hi,
How big is the burr?
How acute is a more acute? Is it at least double?
Or is it raise burr on 15 dps then 20 dps to cut it off?
Do you raise burr on medium, and cut it off on fine stone?
Or cut it off on medium?

I raise pretty big ones so sometimes I do like 10 deburring passes or more.

I would try this, eyeball a 40dps angle and deburr lightly (under 100 grams) on spyderco medium,
do 1-5 alternating strokes,
then microbevel on medium using 20dps 5 strokes max
then same on fine (20dps 5 strokes max)

if it doesn't help repeat this 40dps deburr then microbevel once or twice more
if it still doesn't help i'd raise burr again :)

There is a pretty good debugging list of steps here Sharpening Curriculum
 
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John Watson said:
To remove the burr I cut through the end of a piece of wood after having increased the angle to a more acute one to get rid of the burr. The knives aren't dull when I got to sharpening them. These two are fairly new to the carry rotation. I know Cliff Stamp suggests cutting off the apex first but haven't gotten into the habit, so no I didn't.
Click to expand...

Spyderco's VG-10 doesn't shed it's burrs very easily; especially by drawing the edge through wood, which doesn't faze them in my experience with it. They're very tough & 'bendy', just flipping back & forth with repeated attempts at breaking them off in wood or by other non-abrasive means. More often than not, burrs on Spyderco's VG-10 need to be gradually abraded away, either on the stones with a very light touch, or on a strop with appropriately aggressive compound (white rouge and other aluminum oxide compounds work very well on a denim strop, for VG-10).

I'm assuming you increased the angle to a more obtuse (wider) one? This, as opposed to more acute as stated, which would've been lower and only contacting the shoulders of the bevels and wouldn't touch the burrs present at the edge.


David
 
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In my experience VG-10 is a difficult steel to finish sharpening. While is easily abraded with modern abrasives has a tendency to hold onto burrs, and ceramics are not the best medium to avoid burr formation.
I have found that reducing burr size on the medium grit and gently abrading on the fine with very little force, holding the weight of the knife on one hand and the stone on the other and just skimming the surface is what works best for me, this way you reduce the need of stropping maximising the bite on the edge
 
sounds like a pressure issue.

reduce pressure on the stone with alternating passes to help reduce the burr and weaken it

then move to leather

do the same with very light pressure

that should do the trick

ir not then use the wood at the end.
 
I had similar issues when doing Spyderco Endura in VG10 and have benefited much from David (OWE) advice and others (HeavyHanded's and Bluntcut's), especially the elevated angle and the strop using white (Alum Ox) on denim (I use Autosol on endgrain paperboard). It has to be abraded away, the key is very light pressure as DBH mentioned, only enough to let the abrasive cutting it off.
 
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Thanks for the replies. I will try some of the suggestions when I have to sharpen these knives again. Hope to put them to use cleaning some fish on vacation with the grandsons next week.
 
I guess it is all in getting the angle set properly and then going from heavier grit to finer grit and then to stropping at the proper angle and pressure. I broke down and used the Lansky to profile the blade to 20deg per side first, then worked down the grits to extra fine and then on to stropping. After plain leather went to a green strop and then on to plain telephone book paper. No problem shaving hair off my arm and able to push cut the phone book paper. Should be no problem to keep it up with some stropping now.

Thanks for the suggestions that kept me from getting frustrated.
 
Glad you made it work. For me, the frustration handling VG10 turned out to be a training session that increased understanding about burr removal. I could do other knives better because of it. Hopefully you found it as well. ;)
 
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The burr might be a problem,I ran into it on few Spydercos with vg10.Maybe you should first thin the blade out little on belt sander or a stone,then get microbevel with sharpmaker.
 
John Watson said:
To remove the burr I cut through the end of a piece of wood after having increased the angle to a more acute one to get rid of the burr. The knives aren't dull when I got to sharpening them. These two are fairly new to the carry rotation. I know Cliff Stamp suggests cutting off the apex first but haven't gotten into the habit, so no I didn't.
Click to expand...

Quoting Cliff Stamp is likely to tick off members that have been around and know what jerk he was, like me....
He was banned for great reason. If he knew half what he thought he did he would rich.
Regards, Russ
 
Chris "Anagarika";16555769 said:
Glad you made it work. For me, the frustration handling VG10 turned out to be a training session that increased understanding about burr removal. I could do other knives better because of it. Hopefully you found it as well. ;)
Click to expand...

I remember the very thread. For a low alloy steel it can be tricky.


Russ
 
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