Where do you stop.

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Jul 27, 2017
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What grit do you normally stop at in regards to kitchen duty and edc. I am thinking that a 5000 grit JIS Stone would be plenty for both platforms in normal applications. How far am I off? Thanks.
 
I generally find about a 22µ (JIS 700) to be sufficient for most tasks, culinary or utility. 5k is pretty highly polished, and won't have much slicing aggression, though it'll push-cut with ease.
 
You know me . . . if it isn't shiny it's just a saw. 8,000 Shapton or Norton water stones usually does it for me.
Why ?
I like to look down and see that mirror glinting back at me. I like to put the edge on a tomato and it sinks into the skin.
 
For me it depends. My kitchen knives I usually sharpen to a 1k finish sometimes 2k. My edc... I rarely need a toothy edge. I pretty much push cut everything so I polish it up. Usually stop around 8k but will strop it with compound after the 8k stone
 
Depends on the knife and its intended use in and around the kitchen. On a coarse edge binge right now, so a slurried 1K (JIS) is all I have been taking six and up to. Five and under still see 6K.
 
I usually stop at 600 or 1200 grit diamond stone and strop with green compound after finish for slice cut. I try to clone factory edges.
I own a Zwillinger and Kitchen aid chefs knife and by the texture of scratches I believe it’s something around 1000 grit.
I also have some others kitchen aid knifes that look to be more coarse than 1000.

Kitchen aid original bevel at 30x magnifier.
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Kitchen aid chefs original bevel at 30x magnifier.
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I try to remove the burr on the stone. Yes. Sometimes I can tell it's taking too long and take it to the strop. For as few passes as possible. This
does refine it and takes away some bite. Thus, reducing edge life. DM
 
Utility knives in the kitchen are about 4-600 grit, small paring knives closer to 200. 8" chef's knife about a 6k - lots of chopping and dicing.

For EDU it all depends on what you do most often. I tend toward about a 2-4k.
 
Paring knives & other utility knives: usually somewhere in ~320-1200 range; usually any one of C/F/EF diamond, just because it's so easy & quick.

I'm liking a very thin, polished, shallow convex for larger chopping knives (santoku, etc). Most of the polish comes from stropping on denim (hard-backed) with aluminum oxide compound, such as white rouge, which cleans up coarse/fine scratch patterns and brings up a high polish very fast, on simple low-alloy stainless blades. The finish ends up somewhere around 2K or a little higher, at least. I maintain those edges on a smooth (polished) kitchen steel, after each use, which keeps them cuttling like a laser for a good while.


David
 
Paring knives & other utility knives: usually somewhere in ~320-1200 range; usually any one of C/F/EF diamond, just because it's so easy & quick.

I'm liking a very thin, polished, shallow convex for larger chopping knives (santoku, etc). Most of the polish comes from stropping on denim (hard-backed) with aluminum oxide compound, such as white rouge, which cleans up coarse/fine scratch patterns and brings up a high polish very fast, on simple low-alloy stainless blades. The finish ends up somewhere around 2K or a little higher, at least. I maintain those edges on a smooth (polished) kitchen steel, after each use, which keeps them cuttling like a laser for a good while.


David

David, what's your current stropping setup with the denim? What kind of denim material are you using and what's the hard backing material?
 
If they get dull enough to need a good sharpening for my kitchen knives usually stop at either at 500 or 600 ... and then just a few light passes on a bare horsehide strop to clean up the burr.

But try to just maintain them with a ceramic hone and not let them get dull ... seems to work well.
 
David, what's your current stropping setup with the denim? What kind of denim material are you using and what's the hard backing material?

Verrry simple. The denim is literally from old jeans I 'unceremoniously retired' years ago. The hard backing is just a wood paint-stirring stick I picked up at Home Depot. It's a longer one, about 24", made for 5-gallon paint buckets. I have another one I made to essentially the same ends, but using a piece of 1-1/2" poplar, 1/4" thick and about the same length (24" inches overall, with about ~18" of stropping surface). Also got that poplar wood at Home Depot, BTW. The denim on both strops is attached using contact cement, or spray adhesive like DAP Weldwood Multipurpose, 3M 77, etc.

One strop is loaded with some Ryobi white rouge stick compound (aluminum oxide; they label it at 2-5 microns), and the other is loaded with some Sears #2 buffing compound (Craftsman brand for 'Regular Cleaning' of hard metals), also in stick/crayon form. Hard-backed denim really scrubs a lot of compound off the 'crayons' and holds it in a very dense coverage on the strop, which makes for very aggressive polishing. The Sears compound, a grey aluminum oxide, is maybe just a little more aggressive & not quite as fine as the white rouge; it leaves a little more tooth. But both strops, using these compounds, will erase coarser scratches very fast on low-alloy kitchen stainless, bringing up a quick polish and leaving the edges razor-crisp. I usually use just one or the other; but sometimes, I'll use them in sequence, with the white rouge strop following the Sears' compound strop.


David
 
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