Stropping and a burr

L

learnme

Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
116
Hi Forum, I recently re-profiled a friends knife. started out with P120 sand paper all they way up to P1500 then finishing off on the ceramic side of my DC4. Ive been on the ceramic for a long time and I am more than confident that it is time to hit the strop. My issue now is that all it takes is two good passes on each side for me to bring back the burr. isn't stropping supposed to remove the burr? im suck now because i can really feel the burr and it just flip flops from side to side as i strop. i use as light a touch as i can and have the edge as figure 1 on the stropping sticky on this subsection of the forum. I am reluctant to raise the spine to get a higher angle because it just seems like that will dull the edge. Strop is loaded with hand america green cro ox. thats the .5 micron. I also tried lightly running the edge over a piece of cardboard. how do i get the edge burr free?
 
i wouldn't go so far as to call it a micro burr because it is quite easy to detect. after more light stropping, it is down to 1 pass on the strop and i can actually flip it back and forth now with my thumb as a run it across to check for the burr.
 
what steel is that ? some soft steels take longer to get a crisp burr free edge than it takes to sharpen an S90V prybar.

i think you got a burr initialy and never got rid of it, or tried to reduce it, during you progression so now you've got this big floppy thing hanging here... now that it moves from side to side at every pass on the strop a gentle slice on hardwood or two should take care of it. then strop again a couple of times to make sure there's nothing left.
 
Try cutting into some hard wood. That usually helps remove a stubborn burr or wire edge.

^^ Beat me to it.
 
Erdbeereis said:
+1 to what pwet and Orion's Belt said. You can also do the same with a cork.

Erdbeereis
Click to expand...

+2 to the above. I've also noticed this often works with stiff leather or a stack of paper (like a phone book). My first 'go to' would be the hardwood, though. :thumbup:

In the future, you can minimize the burr early on, by going very LIGHT on pressure, especially on ceramics. Most of the remaining burr was likely formed there, if pressure was too heavy.
 
OK, i have sliced through some hard wood and the burr was gone, went back on the strop for some light passes as recommended and the burr came back! any ideas?
 
What are you using for magnification, and did you use an edge-trailing motion for the sandpaper phase of the job?

The (a) burr wouldn't form from just a few passes on a strop unless you're using a very coarse grit - like 120 or 80, so its still there before you strop, stropping is making it more visible. IME doing large reprofiling jobs using an edge-trailing motion on sandpaper is not a good idea. Like all edge-trailing methods, it is very difficult to remove the burr (or adequately reduce it) at the lower grit values, say anything under 800 to 1000. By the time you get to 1500 or 2000 you might have a genuine wire edge that does not signal its presence like a burr - there is no visible line between the apex and the fin of wasted metal readily visible at less than 10-20 x, but it will hold a poor edge and fold very easily under use.

Either way it sounds like you have dud metal on the apex that is going to need removal. You may have to drop back down a bit to clear it off - not all the way to the 120 grit, but the 400-600 range. If you're not already doing it, some edge-leading strokes might be very helpful for reducing the burr/keeping it small as you go.

Again, in my experience a burr will not come off entirely with just a pull through some wood, though some or most of it will tear off if its severely weakened - if it has been flipped many times prior to the pull through. If its very small and very weak (and it should be at this point) the strop will remove whats left of the burr.
 
i used a combination of edge trailing and edge leading. back and forth motion. light touch all the way. guess i just gotta drop down to 600 and stick with edge leading. thanx
 
we still don't know what knife you're struggling with. it's completey possible that your problem comes from there.
 
Maybe. I'm not familiar with the DC4, but if its anything like a Spyderco Fine, then I'd be very surprised if it could remove any punky metal - its more of a polishing stone at that level, but all depends on how much needs to be worked away. You could certainly try.

Some edge trailing is perfectly fine - I generally use a back and forth, but when it comes down to final burr removal its virtually impossible to reduce it with an edge trailing motion unless you're using a powered belt/wheel or a loose abrasive like a strop. For my EDU edges and for a base edge with further refinement planned, I come off an 800 grit waterstone and strop with 220 grit SiC on the rough side of some leather. This removes all trace of a burr and makes sure I'm not carrying any more dud metal as I climb up to the higher grit values (and if its a user knife I'll stop right there). From that point on I make sure the burr does not get any larger than absolutely necessary to tell me I've ground cleanly to the apex. Its a personal preference and plenty of folks get good results anyway, but I generally remove the burr at every grit step just to make sure I have no issues waiting for me later.
 
HeavyHanded said:
Maybe. I'm not familiar with the DC4, but if its anything like a Spyderco Fine, then I'd be very surprised if it could remove any punky metal - its more of a polishing stone at that level, but all depends on how much needs to be worked away. You could certainly try.

Some edge trailing is perfectly fine - I generally use a back and forth, but when it comes down to final burr removal its virtually impossible to reduce it with an edge trailing motion unless you're using a powered belt/wheel or a loose abrasive like a strop. For my EDU edges and for a base edge with further refinement planned, I come off an 800 grit waterstone and strop with 220 grit SiC on the rough side of some leather. This removes all trace of a burr and makes sure I'm not carrying any more dud metal as I climb up to the higher grit values (and if its a user knife I'll stop right there). From that point on I make sure the burr does not get any larger than absolutely necessary to tell me I've ground cleanly to the apex. Its a personal preference and plenty of folks get good results anyway, but I generally remove the burr at every grit step just to make sure I have no issues waiting for me later.
Click to expand...
This is good advise. DM
 
HeavyHanded said:
Maybe. I'm not familiar with the DC4, but if its anything like a Spyderco Fine, then I'd be very surprised if it could remove any punky metal - its more of a polishing stone at that level, but all depends on how much needs to be worked away. You could certainly try.

Some edge trailing is perfectly fine - I generally use a back and forth, but when it comes down to final burr removal its virtually impossible to reduce it with an edge trailing motion unless you're using a powered belt/wheel or a loose abrasive like a strop. For my EDU edges and for a base edge with further refinement planned, I come off an 800 grit waterstone and strop with 220 grit SiC on the rough side of some leather. This removes all trace of a burr and makes sure I'm not carrying any more dud metal as I climb up to the higher grit values (and if its a user knife I'll stop right there). From that point on I make sure the burr does not get any larger than absolutely necessary to tell me I've ground cleanly to the apex. Its a personal preference and plenty of folks get good results anyway, but I generally remove the burr at every grit step just to make sure I have no issues waiting for me later.
Click to expand...

The DC4 is sort of an odd duck. At least mine is, as it's very aggressive on the ceramic side. It's the most aggressive ceramic hone I've seen, which is one reason I like it. I generally keep mine reserved for quick touch-ups on knives for which I'd like some more 'bite' on the edge. It does that very quickly, just 2 or 3 light passes. Nowhere near similar to my Spyderco hones, in either the medium or fine. That's why I wouldn't be surprised if much of the burr was created on that hone. All the more so, if anything more than very light pressure is used.

In the OP's case here, I think it'd be worthwhile to skip the ceramic on the DC4, and finish with some light edge-leading passes on the 1500 grit paper, before stropping. I often do this on knives that I've convexed using sandpaper, by putting the paper on hard backing (I used the back side of my oak strop block). For me, it accomplished two things, in cleaning up any burrs present, and it also puts a little more bite in the edge.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top