What should I add, or do different?

[BJJKnifeGuy]

Hello, my current process for sharpening consists of using a DMT fine, course, and medium diamond stone and stropping with a green compound. It gets my knives to the point where it will "pop" arm hairs off. But how do I get that next level of sharpness? I would like to achieve that hair whittling sharpness I see on the forums.

 

[Jason B.]

A EF DMT plate with some stropping afterwards will easily produce hair splitting sharpness, actually that was my first method that gave me hair splitting results. The only difference is I used 1micron diamond compound on my strop, it's a big step up from the average bar compound.

Adding a finer stone would be the first step followed by a higher quality compound. I would also recommend a firm substrate such as balsa wood or a poplar board sanded smooth.

 

[BJJKnifeGuy]

Couple questions to that, do I need to get a new strop to use the 1micron compound? First time hearing about the wood, is it another step after the compound? Appreciate the help, I will definitely get the extra fine stone.

 

[Honed_Edge]

Jason knows SO much about sharpening it's crazy! I take what he says as truth because I know his information is based on experience.

I would like to add to his comment. I was an edge polisher for years. I have the 4 stone DMT set (XC, C, F, EF), sandpaper of all grits and a strop. It was my goal to get to ever higher grits refining the edge. A polished edge will split hairs very easily. I got a 940-1 with s90v several months ago. This changed my sharpening methods. I now only use the course stone and white stropman compound. I only strop enough to remove the burr. The edge left is way toothier than what I ever used to make. I LOVE TOOTHY EDGES SO MUCH!!!! They still cut phone book easily, shave cleanly, split hairs and whatever else. Toothy edge have way more bite and slice certain materials much better than polished. If you read around here many people have went from super mirror polish to toothy and liked it.

What I'm rambling on about is this... If you are looking for that next step sharpening maybe lower and not higher grit is the way to go. After the 940-1 went toothy, I took some 154cm, s30v and 8cr13 and they all loved the toothy edge. I still love my polished vg10 though! You have the tools and time, experiment with this. Do things you normally wouldn't do and get new results you never knew were possible.

 

[n7titan]

...A polished edge will split hairs very easily....The edge left is way toothier than what I ever used to make. I LOVE TOOTHY EDGES SO MUCH!!!! They still cut phone book easily, shave cleanly, split hairs and whatever else. Toothy edge have way more bite and slice certain materials much better than polished. If you read around here many people have went from super mirror polish to toothy and liked it...

+1 to that, I tried mirror polish for a while myself.
It was able to shave no problem with light pressure; actually it was really smooth. The edge itself felt more like glass than a normal knife edge, it had almost no bite on skin. << this was probably due to my low skill in sharpening.

Since then I've moved from a 1micron polishing paper to 30micron and it digs into wood much better. The extra bite is quite significant.