Community Sharpening Journal

[Ramonade]

I have used diamond sprays and pastes for 30+ years. I had a friend who was into engraving and he used diamond sprays on low speed powered ceramic disk to finish sharpen his gravers. We experimented with our knives on leather disks and wooden backed strops using the diamond sprays.

Sharpen to nice crisp apex on stones,,, when you feel the edge performance decline,,, a quick strop with diamonds will restore the apex very efficiently. I like 3 micron for restoring EDC and will use 1.0 - 0.5 micron for ultra fine finishes. Another common technique is to finish the apex at 300 or 600 grit and then a quick strop with 3 micron,,,, benefit is coarse edge for slippery/tough materials with partially refined finish for smoother draw cuts.
Do not believe the comments that a strop will not remove steel, if you continue stropping with 3 micron the edge will become very polished and ultra smooth. The black swarf on the strop is steel particles.

Regards,
FK

I did put the CTS-XHP of my Chaparral LW on fine ceramic for a few passes then on the 0.5 micron diaspray strop, already crazy sharp !
And it was pretty dull, not rolled but dulled all 1,5" near the tip.

I've gotten some paste but the application is kinda difficult, I did 2 tests and when on the grain and flesh sides. On the grain side it sticks a lot to the knife, even after letting it dry for a long time. On the flesh side, it seems less precise and not homogenous enough.

The DMT spray seems to be my best choice at the moment, until I learn to use the diamond pastes later on . Otherwise, I just used the green 3 micron compound I had, even with high performance steels. I never do more than 4 or 5 passes on each side, it's plenty enough !

[FK]

I also occasionally have paste sticking to the knife, this usually indicates the paste is too thick.
My solution is to use a paper towel and some light mineral oil,,, rub it into the leather strop to remove some of the diamond paste and the mineral oil will let the paste thin out and soak into the leather.
Agree the spray types are much easier to apply a thin coating.
My preference it to only use the smooth side of leather for strops, not the inside or flesh side which is coarse and will absorb too much diamond material.

Regards,
FK

[Ramonade]

I also occasionally have paste sticking to the knife, this usually indicates the paste is too thick.
My solution is to use a paper towel and some light mineral oil,,, rub it into the leather strop to remove some of the diamond paste and the mineral oil will let the paste thin out and soak into the leather.
Agree the spray types are much easier to apply a thin coating.
My preference it to only use the smooth side of leather for strops, not the inside or flesh side which is coarse and will absorb too much diamond material.

Regards,
FK

Thanks a lot, I have a lot of paste still and would like to not end up wasting it. I also use the smooth side, mostly to minimize the flex at the point of contact.
Here's a pic of what the pastes look like :

[Bloke]

Trickiest thing I’ve sharpened in a while was a miniature plane blade in A2 steel. It’s tiny so it was hard to hold.

It came blunt I reckon with way too coarse a finish as you may see from the top of the blade.

Anyhow, I started with 400grit SiC and went to 1000grit (in picture) by that time I reckoned it was sharp but I finished on a 2000grit Shapton Pro (could have worked it through to 8000grit) and stropped very lightly with 0.5μm diamond paste on balsa.

In the end it tree topped arm hair and cleanly push cut thin receipt paper. Now it planes end grain with ease and leaves that beautiful polished finish it should.

[TkoK83Spy]

Good to see you back Alex!! I hope all is well with you and yours!

[Bloke]

Good to see you back Alex!! I hope all is well with you and yours!

G’day Rick, thanks heaps mate. All’s good here for now at least.

Hope you, family and all our Spyder brothers and sisters are well and happy.

[Steeltoez83]

Did some sharpening the other day. Last edge on this H1 pac salt was an 800 grit king neo. Evaluating the apex of the steel not geometry i felt the edge lasted about the same as 8cr13 by my evaluation standards. So i used a 400 grit pride abrasive stone to set a new apex. And evaluate H1s performance at a fairly coarse edge to see if my theories are true. The rex45 manix was done on the king neo 800 stone. Took me 8 minutes to correct uneven bevels and set a edge that pushcuts newspaper. I used the sports section. Now i have bought another neo and when doing side by side comparisions the old one appears to have very little wear from the 100s of knives ive sharpened on it.

[vivi]

I' be interested to hear you results! currently running mine at 260 grit off diamond.

[Ramonade]

Did touch up my Ladybug K390 on fine ceramic today.
It rolled on me again, right in the middle of the curve.
I was cutting A4 paper right in the middle to makes some A5s. Did it on a cutting board but I had a a big stacks of sheets and didn't go through all of them.

I might have banged it against something ! But man what could that be, I guess I'll never know. I might have needed another steel cause I seem to keep having to tend to this one ^^.

[Steeltoez83]

On the bess tester i got 185 grams with a 400 edge finish. That scale measures push cutting ability and its a start point for when the knife goes back into rotation. Which will be the 3rd edge so a more pure test bed for what H1 can really do. The rex manix pushcuts newspaper and thats good enough for me.

[cabfrank]

I want one of those testers. Why? No one knows, unless it's to further show my sharpening skill deficit.

[Steeltoez83]

I use mine every 4th edge or so. For me it validates the starting point of the edge. For some its competition to get results under 50 grams. For me 125-225 grams is a showcase a clean apex that carries over to real world use.

[olywa]

All this 200 grit talk makes me want to give it a try on an old Esee 3 in 1095. I've got 200 and 400 grit Worksharp plates I've never used but I may try to break 'em in a bit before I lay that Esee 3 down on them. Now were's that old hatchet?

[Wandering_About]

Got the scales and sheath for my MagnaCut Mule today, so I put the scales on and thinned the edge to something more in line with what I usually do. Might end up beefing up the microbevel on this one more, but my experience with a couple customs is that MagnaCut can do quite well with thin edges. Also: Triple B Handmade diamond stones are really great. I still use an Atoma 140 for the heavy work, it just eats steel.

[Bloke]

Got the scales and sheath for my MagnaCut Mule today, so I put the scales on and thinned the edge to something more in line with what I usually do. Might end up beefing up the microbevel on this one more, but my experience with a couple customs is that MagnaCut can do quite well with thin edges. Also: Triple B Handmade diamond stones are really great. I still use an Atoma 140 for the heavy work, it just eats steel.

Very nice thin edge. Did you use it without a micobevel at all?

[Wandering_About]

Very nice thin edge. Did you use it without a micobevel at all?

I did not. I did an edge this thin or a bit thinner on a custom in MagnaCut and found it held up better with a microbevel, although the only real problem I saw on that edge was batonning through some very hard, knotted oak. Had some very tiny edge deformation, just enough to feel/see. I find going this thin with no microbevel is a bit of a fool's errand on any steel though, unless the knife will be used quite carefully. My microbevel is not very steep, just a few degrees steeper than the main edge bevel. Will adjust the microbevel if I find a need for it.

When I reprofile a knife, I go quite thin, and the edge ends up somewhat convexed, so the very edge is not quite as thin as it may look at first. The main goal here is to knock back the shoulders of the final edge, rather than put a super thin angle on the edge itself. My final microbevel is still pretty thin, but can be adjusted as needed if there are any issues. In the end, it results in a knife that cuts very well and is still pretty durable. Been using this for many years on many different steels and it works very well for me. I regularly adjust all the angles based on steel, grind, intended knife usage, and sometimes just for experimentation.

Initial thickness behind the edge on my Mule was .025-.027" and is right around .029-.030" now, although with such shallow angle on the edge bevels the "behind the edge" measurement loses some of its significance.

[Bloke]

Cool!

[Bolster]

I can't find this song anywhere in this thread! Did I miss it? If not, it needs to be here:

Corb Lund - Always Keep an Edge On Your Knife Lyrics

Always keep an edge on your knife, son, always keep an edge on your knife
Cuz a good sharp edge is a man's best hedge against the vague uncertainties of life
Yes, a good sharp edge is a man’s best hedge against the uncertain vagaries of life
But I never could sharpen no knife, like the one who give the advice;
And I never could sharpen no blade, quite the way he say-ed.

Yodel-ay…

[Steeltoez83]

https://streamlala.com/a7weq

I saw on another thread maxamet being a top contender for worst steels in terms of sharpening. Well i decided to record all 7 minutes it took to achieve push cutting sharpness on newspaper. I used an 800 grit king neo stone after dulling the edge 28 times across the stone. I dunno if the vid will playback correctly in the link thing. But ive never had an issue with maxamet.

[Ramonade]

https://streamlala.com/a7weq

I saw on another thread maxamet being a top contender for worst steels in terms of sharpening. Well i decided to record all 7 minutes it took to achieve push cutting sharpness on newspaper. I used an 800 grit king neo stone after dulling the edge 28 times across the stone. I dunno if the vid will playback correctly in the link thing. But ive never had an issue with maxamet.

Nice ! I didn't respond much to your previous posts because I already engaged in a discussion with others members but thanks for contributing to this thread. It's one of my favorites in this forum

I personally had more trouble with S110V, because even with light pressure it was still too much. I now manage pressure on the stone way better so it's ok.

Maxamet behaves a little better for me during sharpening. I always use light pressure but was afraid it would chip way more than S110V during the sharpening. Didn't have any problem, it did like once the first time and now I'm pretty ok on my Para 3 Maxamet.

I have yet to sharpen my N5 LW in Maxamet, it'll cut some months of cardboard before needing anything If I'm not stupid with it