Waterstone potential

hard to compare the scratch patterns from a diamond plates and those from a waterstone. even at the same micron size the results are visually very different. you can't say that one is more polished than the other, it's just ..... guess what ... different. :D at least to the naked eye.

the only thing that could be compared is speed of grinding and sharpness obtained not visual refinement. but even that can be pretty subjective.

Obsessed with Edges said:
Opinel too. It's pretty good stuff! :thumbup:
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i've yet to buy a stainless opinel or a buck in 12c27, but it's a fairly common steel in mid range traditional french and european cutlery, typically HT'd to 56 hrc average. and in this hardness range i can tell you that it sucks big big time. at least in my opinion. it's soft enough to be a pain in the .... to get a clean, wire free edge and you can forget sub 20°(per side) edge you just won't get rid of that wire edge, no matter coarse, polished stropped, slicing in hardwood, feather light pressure while sharpening ... no way.
 
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pwet said:
i've yet to buy a stainless opinel or a buck in 12c27, but it's a fairly common steel in mid range traditional french and european cutlery, typically HT'd to 56 hrc average. and in this hardness range i can tell you that it sucks big big time. at least in my opinion. it's soft enough to be a pain in the .... to get a clean, wire free edge and you can forget sub 20°(per side) edge you just won't get rid of that wire edge, no matter coarse, polished stropped, slicing in hardwood, feather light pressure while sharpening ... no way.
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You might give the Opinel a try. I didn't know what to think of this steel either, but Sandvik states it can be treated up to about 59RC (the 12C27M, specifically; and the standard 12C27 is able to go 60+). At least with the Opinel, it really opened my eyes, on a very thin grind too. Been using & carrying it every day, it holds up nicely. Reminds me of either VG-10 or ATS-34 in terms of the fine edge it takes, and easier to sharpen than either of them. I haven't noticed any significant wire edge issues. I think at higher RC, the ductility that makes the wire edges more of a problem is diminished. I'm sure Buck's heat treat recipe (by Paul Bos) has taken advantage of it too.
 
A 1k waterstone is closer to 15+ microns, like 400 grit wet dry, a mix between a coarse and fine diamond, and with the speed of a 600 mesh fine diamond hone.

A DMT EF 1200 mesh 9 micron hone has a scratch pattern like a 3-4k waterstone and similar level of sharpness. Edge roughness is in more around 1k waterstone though.

A 1k waterstone should clean shave arm hair and slice paper without catching. This is only edge trailing though, if I go edge leading I end up with a edge that won't even grab a hair or slice paper but oddly enough looks fine.

I'll see if I can get some pics off my 1k, I have yet to view that edge type up close so it will be interesting.
 
Obsessed with Edges said:
HH is referring to waterstones at 1200 grit, which is relatively coarse under that completely different standard. DMT's '1200' won't match up with another standard's '1200'. Maybe not even a close match, either by grit type, size or cutting performance. I think a comparable waterstone, in terms of refinement/polishing performance, would be at a rated grit number quite higher.
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I was pointing out the difference. Thanks for clarifying.
 
knifenut1013 said:
A 1k waterstone is closer to 15+ microns, like 400 grit wet dry, a mix between a coarse and fine diamond, and with the speed of a 600 mesh fine diamond hone.

A DMT EF 1200 mesh 9 micron hone has a scratch pattern like a 3-4k waterstone and similar level of sharpness. Edge roughness is in more around 1k waterstone though.

A 1k waterstone should clean shave arm hair and slice paper without catching. This is only edge trailing though, if I go edge leading I end up with a edge that won't even grab a hair or slice paper but oddly enough looks fine.

I'll see if I can get some pics off my 1k, I have yet to view that edge type up close so it will be interesting.
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That's what I'm talking about. Pretty sure if I could figure out how to "strop" on a nice slurry off the stone the edge would look a whole lot nicer and cut better too. Alas I cannot seem to get comfortable edge trailing on a hard stone despite using a back and forth technique normally. When I try to isolate the edge trailing component and use it exclusively I cannot feel the bevel like I can when edgetrailing on sandpaper or a strop (I also can no longer get comfortable using edgeleading exclusively unless its just for a few passes to remove a particularly difficult burr). Another thing, while its probably impossible for the average Joe to raise a burr on Norton's waterstones either way, I was able to raise a burr attempting an edge trailing stroke on my King waterstones (despite their reputation, they're considerably "harder" than the Nortons). I'm not sure that's a good thing.

It'll be interesting to see what the 1k edge looks like from one of the nicer waterstones. You could always mail me the set and I'd be happy to photo a progression on one of my knives. ;)
 
Would love too but they get used a lot :)

Watch the Murray Carter vids, you will notice a little sweep to the tip before he makes the edge trailing pass. I was unsure of why he did this at first but discovered it was to find the bevel, I found it helped a lot to lock in the bevel and get a more complete grind to the tip.
 
What steel was used for the waterstone pics?
 
I've seen him do that but never thought about it too much. Will have to give it a try next time. It'll be interesting to see what effect it has on the debris build-up. One thing for sure, that residue can't be held on very well if it comes off with so little stropping. Compare to the before and after pics I posted earlier in the thread from the diamond stone that rec'd a similar treatment. The clean waterstone grind pattern had to be there under the mess, the strop didn't produce it - implies that it (the swarf) gets smeared off and deposited back on in an ongoing process. Probably smooths out some of the rougher trough features etc. Might be why Mr Carter likes to draw down into some cardboard a few times when coming off the stone, possibly to "clean" more of the refuse. The more I look at how he does things, stuff that at first appeared kind of slap-dash now appear to be elegantly simple solutions to straightforward problems.
 
knifenut1013 said:
What steel was used for the waterstone pics?
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That was a carbon Mora classic - 10 dollar knife. I wanted to stick with carbon steel because I first noticed the visual peculiarities on a 1095 CroVan. Didn't want to keep grinding away on my BK11 so I switched for the pictures and followup test.
 
I recently picked up a Finnish waterstone from Ragnar over at Ragweed Forge, and I have found when it comes to touching up or resharpening one of my scandi blades, this stone plus a couple of swipes from a leather strop brings it back in no time.

Cheers,
Serge
 
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