Super polished edges

Hey fellas just finished up these last two knives, let me know what you think. The Brous blade plunge line right by the ricasso was so wonky...I had to take off a lot of steel just to make the edges apex each other near the choil.
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I think they look great, but then again I might be a bit biased since they're my knives.:D I'll know for sure when I have them in hand and get to see them in person, but I have little doubt that they will be nothing short of amazing.:thumbsup:
 
halden.doerge said:
Nice work! Brous knives are notoriously terrible with their plunge grinds and sharpening choils.
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Yep. I had a hell of a time doing my Mini Division and Division...in the same exact area of the blade. The Division cost me a pint...ok, an ounce...ok, a few drops...of blood, sweat and tears. <--See what I did there? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_Sweat_&_Tears
PS. Beautiful work, Aqua.
 
halden.doerge said:
Nice work! Brous knives are notoriously terrible with their plunge grinds and sharpening choils.
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Yeah man I’ve never seen anything like it. The cut was almost like a “wave shape” if that makes any sense? It wasn’t just a a straight angle
 
chopsaki said:
That looks really gooood. What did you use and what was your progression?
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Sorry for the late reply. I reprofiled it with 120 grit on an Edge pro. I really should have gotten diamond stones first, I think that would have made all of this much easier. 120 grit took a long time, not impossible though with just regular stones. After that I went to 400 grit using an opposing motion (try to mix up each stone so the sanding lines get removed) then 600 then tested the sharpness. I found that I had reprofiled it just sliiiiighly shy of the edge so I had to go back to 120 grit again, then 400 again, then 600. After that I used 1000 grit then 3000 grit tape on a glass base. After the 3k tape I used a 3.5 micron diamond paste and a 1 micron diamond paste on a leather strop (ends up about 15k grit).

It was a lot of work but this knife is WICKED sharp now. I don't think I've ever made a knife edge quite this fine before. I've used it for a few weeks cutting mostly cardboard at work and it's still shaving sharp. I've re-stropped it once and it only took about 5 minutes to get it back to perfectly sharp again.
 
Lythyum said:
Sorry for the late reply. I reprofiled it with 120 grit on an Edge pro. I really should have gotten diamond stones first, I think that would have made all of this much easier. 120 grit took a long time, not impossible though with just regular stones. After that I went to 400 grit using an opposing motion (try to mix up each stone so the sanding lines get removed) then 600 then tested the sharpness. I found that I had reprofiled it just sliiiiighly shy of the edge so I had to go back to 120 grit again, then 400 again, then 600. After that I used 1000 grit then 3000 grit tape on a glass base. After the 3k tape I used a 3.5 micron diamond paste and a 1 micron diamond paste on a leather strop (ends up about 15k grit).

It was a lot of work but this knife is WICKED sharp now. I don't think I've ever made a knife edge quite this fine before. I've used it for a few weeks cutting mostly cardboard at work and it's still shaving sharp. I've re-stropped it once and it only took about 5 minutes to get it back to perfectly sharp again.
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Wow that is quite the process. I have had a couple edges that took me a while but I do admire your patience sir. Yes diamonds are the way to go as far as stock removal is concerned. Only thing about those time consuming edges is I’m always super hesitant to use them a lot. Like damn I took hours of my life on His thing, better not screw it up too bad.
 
Just got the KME friday, tried it on a Kershaw leek, then dove into a Hinderer that previously was sharpened (recently bought used), not a very good previous sharpen, so I had my work cut out for me. I know I still have a bit to learn, how long to you work once you've hit a mirror to remove the fine scratch's that are on the mirror? (only used japanese water stones before, second time using a guided system, first time failed miserably with the WE and stayed away from guided systems for a long time) You can see the scratch's from the previous owner and some scratch's towards the bevel.

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I really like this little knife. PDW Invictus. Might have to pick an auto up.

EDIT: Its actually a TAD Dauntless.... I posted that pic here and on IG and got not a single correction. Says something about how similar the two look.
 
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Roikyou said:
Just got the KME friday, tried it on a Kershaw leek, then dove into a Hinderer that previously was sharpened (recently bought used), not a very good previous sharpen, so I had my work cut out for me. I know I still have a bit to learn, how long to you work once you've hit a mirror to remove the fine scratch's that are on the mirror? (only used japanese water stones before, second time using a guided system, first time failed miserably with the WE and stayed away from guided systems for a long time) You can see the scratch's from the previous owner and some scratch's towards the bevel.

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Nice work! Welcome to the obsession with chasing the mirror. I use a Wicked Edge, so I can't really speak to the KME, however I have a few thoughts for whatever they're worth.

First, your stones will be the most aggressive as far as leaving a scratch pattern when they are new. Give them time to break in and you should see less of the residual scratches in the polished finish over time. I know being told "just wait" is the most annoying sort of tip to be given, but its true. After about 10-15 sharpenings you should see a very clear difference in how aggressively the stones are leaving a scratch pattern.

Secondly, make sure to spend enough time at every grit to remove the scratches from the previous grit. This is a tricky part takes patience, and good lighting helps as well. It's easy to miss deeper scratches left by lower grits which then come through really noticeably when the polish starts to come up. What I try to do is spend more time (or strokes if you count strokes) every time I go up in grit, once I have the edge bevel established where I want it. That and working hard to do the lightest pressure when you are on the lower more aggressive grits can really help out with making sure you're removing the prior scratch pattern after each progression.

Finally, it's very, very difficult to get a literal "mirror" finish, no matter what you do. By that I mean polishing the edge to the point where there are literally no microscratches visible under any lighting conditions. From what I understand, getting it to that level really depends on the steel and usually requires you moving beyond stones through various levels of ultrafine sandpaper, and then stropping with different grit levels of diamond polishing compounds. It's a lot of work, and I typically don't do it. Letting the stones break in, doing some good stropping beyond the ultrafine finishing stones you use (whatever those are for the KME, I use a 0.6 micron ceramic on the Wicked Edge), and working hard at maintaining consistent light pressure throughout the sharpening process will get you a brilliant mirror edge that you can only find microscratches in when looking for them, or in certain lights.

Hope that helps!
 
It does, like I said, I dove right in, didn't give them time. I'm using the KME gold diamond set (50, 100, 140, 300, 600, 1500), then lapping films from 9 micron, 6, 3, 1, .5 and the .1. Then moving to .1 micron kangaroo strop. First crack at it, I thought it turned out pretty decent. Thanks again.
 
Roikyou said:
It does, like I said, I dove right in, didn't give them time. I'm using the KME gold diamond set (50, 100, 140, 300, 600, 1500), then lapping films from 9 micron, 6, 3, 1, .5 and the .1. Then moving to .1 micron kangaroo strop. First crack at it, I thought it turned out pretty decent. Thanks again.
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Yeah, it definitely came out great! I did the same thing when I started on the Wicked Edge. I told myself I'd start out on just cheap knives to get the hang of it, but I was doing CRK and Hinderer that same day, lol. It's an awesome experience to start putting that next level edge on your knives. Keep em coming!
 
Hey guys, I hope you don’t mind if I ask a quick question in regards to grit progression.
Long story short I ordered a Pro Pack1 from WE, as you guys probably know this comes with everything up to 5/3.5 micron strops. I did some of my own research and found out that the 1200/1600 ceramics are a must. Now my question to you knowledgeable gents is if I can can go from 3.5 micron to 1.5 and then .5 to finish my edges off? I just feel like WE grit progression is much too “constrained” and is just a sales tactic?

Once again sorry for off topic post.
 
Aquaholicc said:
Hey guys, I hope you don’t mind if I ask a quick question in regards to grit progression.
Long story short I ordered a Pro Pack1 from WE, as you guys probably know this comes with everything up to 5/3.5 micron strops. I did some of my own research and found out that the 1200/1600 ceramics are a must. Now my question to you knowledgeable gents is if I can can go from 3.5 micron to 1.5 and then .5 to finish my edges off? I just feel like WE grit progression is much too “constrained” and is just a sales tactic?

Once again sorry for off topic post.
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Yeah, you totally can. I routinely skip the 3.5 and 1.5 micron Strops and go straight from ceramics to 1 and then 0.5 micron on balsa wood.
 
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