Sharpening Question On My Vg10 Blades

[Cliff Stamp]

Stropping will degrade the edge versus a quality abrasive of the same grit, this is simply due to stropping compounds being inconsistent in nature (size and binding). Note that during selection of natural waterstones that any grit irregularities significantly degraded the quality and thus price of the stone due to such sharpening issues.

Now of course if you want a polished edge and you only have a fine diamond or medium ceramic stone then a strop loaded with 0.5 micron paste will improve the polish and produce a sharper push cutting edge. But if you compared that edge to one honed with a 0.5 micron hone then you would find the loaded strop edge inferior in sharpness and edge retention.

-Cliff

[vivi]

Do you know what grit the Spyderco Ultra Fine benchstone is?

[nathan310]

how do i get a nice smooth shaving sharp edge on my VG10 blades,specially on my Caly3 plain edge,which gets sharp,but toothy on the edge.
I want to get a smooth shavingsharp edge on them.
i use a diamondstone,which feels quite smooth on the surface,and Lansky ceramicrods,which are real smooth,but i still tend to get a tooth edge on the Caly3,even with light pressure whilst sharpening.
i know the Spyderco sharpmaker is probably the perfect answer,but il have to wait a while before i get mine/cantwait.
any experience on the subject?

I use dmt stones and start with the blue(coarse) on one side until I feel a bur.( It doesn't matter if it's 10 0r 100 strokes you have to get a bur)

Once I feel the bur with my finger I know I brought out a new edge that can be honed crazy sharp.

Then I flip it over and repeat until I feel a bur going the other way.

Next I i go to the red(fine) stone do one side once then flip it to the next repeating and flipping over a good amount of times.

Next I go to the green (extra fine) stone and repeat the what I did with the red.

Finaly once it can cut hair and is pretty sharp I take it to the leather strop covered with green diamond compound and strop it at least 10 times.

The strop will get all the teeth of the blade going the same direction and can even take scratches and dents off that may have occurred during sharpening.

And to maintain that very smooth polished sharp edge I strop it once a day if I have the time and have used it.

I hope that helps.

[Bolster]

Just consider, if you take one long pass down a 12" stone, it is just the same as taking three passes per side on a 4" stone. I found that if you do really short passes so that each section of the blade only saw maybe an inch or so of stone per stroke, I could still get a really crisp edge even on those steels.

-Cliff

Good explanation, thanks, I'll try that.

[J D Wijbenga]

Interesting discussion. I wil llook up this Brent Beach.

Thanks!

JD

[vivi]

Interesting discussion. I wil llook up this Brent Beach.

Thanks!

JD

His photos under magnification are very interesting.

[DainBramage]

4) Micro-bevel with alternating passes and very little parallel travel

I've been trying to minimize the parallel travel, and I usually end up with a scratch pattern that is angled somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees from the edge. I've noticed that the scratch pattern has been essentially perpendicular to the edge on some of my knives when they first came out of the box. Is that more likely the scratch pattern from a belt sander? What scratch pattern angle (90 = perpendicular to the edge, 0 = parallel to the edge) do you guys tend to shoot for when freehanding?

Stropping will degrade the edge versus a quality abrasive of the same grit, this is simply due to stropping compounds being inconsistent in nature (size and binding). Note that during selection of natural waterstones that any grit irregularities significantly degraded the quality and thus price of the stone due to such sharpening issues.

Now of course if you want a polished edge and you only have a fine diamond or medium ceramic stone then a strop loaded with 0.5 micron paste will improve the polish and produce a sharper push cutting edge. But if you compared that edge to one honed with a 0.5 micron hone then you would find the loaded strop edge inferior in sharpness and edge retention.

I've recently started using a piece of paper charged with stropping compound stuck to a piece of glass... it's great, because the only thing that should now be introducing any unwanted convexity is my inconsistent technique!! :rolleyes: Would you say the same thing with this type of setup?

[Cliff Stamp]

Is that more likely the scratch pattern from a belt sander? What scratch pattern angle (90 = perpendicular to the edge, 0 = parallel to the edge) do you guys tend to shoot for when freehanding?

Yes, a belt sander is about 90. When sharpening, the angle of the scratch pattern will influence the cutting aggression on a slice, if the teeth are angled towards you they will cut very aggressive when pulling towards you but not on a push away from you. If they are at 90 they cut with no directional bias.

Would you say the same thing with this type of setup?

Imagine if Spyderco came out with a new stone which was a combination medium, fine and ultra-fine all on the same surface with just random bits of each grit. How would you use that stone effectively to sharpen? Stropping compounds are essentially like that though the grits they use are finer. I would instead suggest an UF benchstone, Spyderco makes a couple of excellent models.

-Cliff

[DainBramage]

I would instead suggest an UF benchstone, Spyderco makes a couple of excellent models.

So, are you suggesting "stropping" on a stone?

[Cliff Stamp]

Stropping, or edge trailing sharpening tends to maximize burr formation, see Verhoven for high magnification pictures for details. When I want a high polish I use the UF Spyderco benchstone, or some natural waterstones (depend on the type of steel in the knife). If you don't have such a stone you can make one from hardwood or a piece of cut and tempered glass by just fixing fine sandpaper to it, this is the "scary sharp" system first noted on rec.woodworking over a dozen years ago.

-Cliff

[Zozo*HC*]

Basically, once the edge has been sharpened on the shaping stone, then the finer stones should only require 1-4 passes per side to finish the honing. If you are ever using more strokes than that, you are not actually sharpening anyway, you are either shaping or you are deforming. I also found that the micro-bevel stokes should be minimal in travel.



-Cliff

OMG, Thanks Cliff, that was the info i always needed, i usually did too much passes on the Fine rods , and now i tried out this method on my para, only 3-3 on the fine rod per side with minmal travel and force: and its worked!!! :eek: Wicked sharp :cool: if i have my Uf rods maybe i can reach the level of factory sharpness :D Really appreciate for sharing your experience :cool: Thanks For all

[Zenith]

Use some leather to polish the edge. I use my grandfathers old leather knife polishing slab that he made for himself that I got from him. Works great on all my plain edges for that shaving sharp edge.