Sharpening Equipment + Sharpmaker Question

Originally posted by Cliff Stamp

Joe, don't you have some very fine Japanese waterstones, 4000 / 8000 grit?

-Cliff [/B]
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I have a waterstone, I can't remember if it's 6000 or 8000. I don't use it very much. Are you thinking that this waterstone will give a finer finish than a strop with a high-grit polishing paste? Now that you mention it, I haven't done a direct head-to-head of the waterstone to the strop.

I'll have to go figure out what 8000 in the Japanese grit system translates to in the system we use. I vaguely recall it being 2000ish, but I could be way off.

Joe
 
Joe

I softly push the fingernail (not the fingertip) on the side of the blade and glide along towards the cutting edge. If the edge is bent to this side I feel a scratching at the fingernail. Same test on the other side and if I do not feel this scratching I know the egde is bent.
Maybe the edges of your knives do not reach this condition.

I do the same to check the “wire” after I sharpened one side of a edge.

Horus
 
I have to say I use a 'grooved' steel as it was all that was available. Useing it gently, I have encountered no problems or edge damage. I use it in a stropping motion and find it an invaluable tool to re profile an edge before hitting a hone. Using this simple tool I can keep a good edge on a knife three or four times longer than before. The edge never returns to a 'perfect' edge, but remains very usable, far more than before the steeling. It certainly speeds up the re honeing as you have less to do. I will get a smooth steel, but have no problems with this one.

Cheers!
 
Joe :

Are you thinking that this waterstone will give a finer finish than a strop with a high-grit polishing paste?
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A CrO compound is about 10000 grit or about 0.5 Micron, so it is the finest finish possible. However a high grit quality waterstone can get down to about 1 micron. There are few steels with grain sizes of that size anyway so the gains from using the strop are probably not going to be significant.

The main problem with using high grit stones is that the finer the hone, the more skill necessary to produce the optimal finish it is capable of. However with a strop, since it will adapt to the edge shape you can use them with far less skill.

I have never used any of the really fine hones for the cutting reasons you describe, however I would be interested in any comparative work you did with them. You might want to try a couple of steels, one with a really coarse grain (D2) and one with a really fine one (52100).

I have never seen any difference in steels in regards to edge polish, however that is because I don't go above 1200 DMT finish. It would be interesting to see if you could detect a difference with a fine waterstone.

-Cliff
 
Joe
I use a leather strop fixed to wood and it works very well except with one knif that has a recrve blade. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Drew
 
Originally posted by DrewBob
Joe
I use a leather strop fixed to wood and it works very well except with one knif that has a recrve blade. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Drew
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Yes! I have a theory (!!!) when it comes to recurve blades. Due to the recurve itself, I find I end up using certain parts of the blade for certain jobs. So on the front belly part, I strop that -- and you can strop that part just fine in a regular strop. I tend to use the recurve part of the blade more for slicing. As a result, not only don't I strop that inner recurve part, but rough it back up. That is, after I finish off the burr on the fine stone, I put the coarse stone back in and rough it back up! The recurve part itself is awesome for slicing, and once I've roughed it up, the performance is unbelieveable. My Axis, with my hand-tuned edge (15-degree bevels, coarse-grit finish) will easily match the performance of a serrated endura in hard rope -- find any other plain-edge blade that will do that. I do strop the belly, and that's what I use for my push-cutting.

So, although I realize I didn't answer your question (how do you strop the recurve? I don't know, really). You might consider re-thinking how you sharpen your recurve, so the question won't bother you anymore :)

Joe
 
DrewBob,
I have loaded up the tube from the middle of a roll of paper towels with CrO stropping compound and used that before. I think the tube may have actually come from an Al foil roll or something because it was a bit stiffer than the ones in your average paper towel roll. Another thing you can do is make a round strop out of a wood dowel or broom handle with leather glued to the outside of it. I've seen people do this for gouges. Just load it up with strop compound and use it like a regular strop.

Paul
 
Cliff --

Yeah, the green chrome paste was what I was thinking about. I've never run into anything that polishes better than that.
 
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