- Joined
- Aug 27, 2004
- Messages
- 12,955
In my experience sharpening knives practically everyday for one person or another, or myself, I see an occassional wire edge that is persistant also.
Edged tools have two converging surfaces that join at the apex and that apex is the cutting edge. In the past for me anyway, when these two surfaces were uneven a burr or wire edge would form usually to the one side and then to the other, but to me it always seemed like one side was the better one. By "uneven" I mean when one side was more polished than the opposite side a burr could form on the edge. Stropping can align the burr but not always really remove it but just appear to.
In my own experiments with particularly stubborn burr edges I have found that the less polished side needs to catch up to the more polished one and that this helps a whole lot in keeping the wire edge from being so prominent as to stand out. I don't know how this happens sometimes. Perhaps one side saw more swipes on a medium sided sharpener and less on the fine before I got it to sharpen.
Anyway, both surfaces need to be smooth and as close to even as you can make them and to be truly 'sharp' they should be as polished as possible. The more highly polished and uniform they are the longer the edge will last for you also.
On some edges that have been particularly troublesome to me they appeared under magnification to have peaks and valleys in the edge and it was at these jagged peaks where the burr was forming. Polishing the edge eventually evens things up though but on some steels, especially hard ones that wear very slowly, it can take a little bit of work to get there.
Edged tools have two converging surfaces that join at the apex and that apex is the cutting edge. In the past for me anyway, when these two surfaces were uneven a burr or wire edge would form usually to the one side and then to the other, but to me it always seemed like one side was the better one. By "uneven" I mean when one side was more polished than the opposite side a burr could form on the edge. Stropping can align the burr but not always really remove it but just appear to.
In my own experiments with particularly stubborn burr edges I have found that the less polished side needs to catch up to the more polished one and that this helps a whole lot in keeping the wire edge from being so prominent as to stand out. I don't know how this happens sometimes. Perhaps one side saw more swipes on a medium sided sharpener and less on the fine before I got it to sharpen.
Anyway, both surfaces need to be smooth and as close to even as you can make them and to be truly 'sharp' they should be as polished as possible. The more highly polished and uniform they are the longer the edge will last for you also.
On some edges that have been particularly troublesome to me they appeared under magnification to have peaks and valleys in the edge and it was at these jagged peaks where the burr was forming. Polishing the edge eventually evens things up though but on some steels, especially hard ones that wear very slowly, it can take a little bit of work to get there.
