toothy/coarse v mirror/fine. which steels do best with which edges?

[hobbyist]

I'm curious what people's real world experience is on sharpening. For example, I find coarse grained finishes (300 to 600 on my KME) are great for K390.

Similarly I've had great experience with a mirror edge for M390 (20CV, etc). And they're pretty. But man does it take a while to get there. So I think I prefer steels that do well with really coarse edges just because of the ease of sharpening.

[RugerNurse]

I thought the carbides in K390 lend I better for coarse edges. I stopped at 600 grit on mine and it’s been nice.

[Fastidiotus]

I used to chase the "sharpest" I could make my knives and if it wasn't popping hairs I was disappointed. I've changed my mindset though. Now if it's a work knife I put a coarse edge on it regardless of steel. Usually just a DMT coarse stone and a light strop. If it shaves after that great, if it only plucks a few hairs but doesn't leave a bald spot on my arm now I'm equally happy. For what I'm doing everything so far has performed noticably longer with a coarse edge. With the abuse a work knife goes through it's way less time to touch an edge up. I wouldn't mirror polish my knife on a Wednesday night after work, but I definitely have 2 or 3 minutes any day to touch up a dirty edge to make the next day go smoother.

If it's an edc knife that I'm going to use but not abuse I'll still try to get as fine an edge as I can. I enjoy the learning, challenge, and the process to get a nice fine edge on different steels. It's nice to have a razor sharp knife for some tasks and I like having users and abusers scattered around the house. I keep the abusers out in the open though where the significant other will easily find them and won't go looking any further for something I've spent an hour sharpening.

[Bill1170]

Paging Vivi, 3-2-1….

[Vamais]

I sharpen everything at 260 grit, but there are a few steels (Rex45 and S35VN) that seemed to want a finer edge than that. Rex45 gets 360 and S35VN gets 600.

[RugerNurse]

I used to chase the "sharpest" I could make my knives and if it wasn't popping hairs I was disappointed. I've changed my mindset though. Now if it's a work knife I put a coarse edge on it regardless of steel. Usually just a DMT coarse stone and a light strop. If it shaves after that great, if it only plucks a few hairs but doesn't leave a bald spot on my arm now I'm equally happy.

You summed it up nicely. I’m still trying to get better at sharpening but if my everyday user cuts paper well or shaves some hair decently, it good enough for daily tasks.

[vivi]

I think all steels work fine with all grit refinements.

Putting a high polish edge on high hardness high carbide steels will take longer, but the trade off is they can last longer.

I've tried both toothy and polished edges on just about every steel Spyderco currently offers. Each type has their pros and cons. Never found a steel that would take one type of edge and not the other.

I used to chase the "sharpest" I could make my knives and if it wasn't popping hairs I was disappointed. I've changed my mindset though. Now if it's a work knife I put a coarse edge on it regardless of steel. Usually just a DMT coarse stone and a light strop. If it shaves after that great, if it only plucks a few hairs but doesn't leave a bald spot on my arm now I'm equally happy. For what I'm doing everything so far has performed noticably longer with a coarse edge. With the abuse a work knife goes through it's way less time to touch an edge up. I wouldn't mirror polish my knife on a Wednesday night after work, but I definitely have 2 or 3 minutes any day to touch up a dirty edge to make the next day go smoother.

You can still chase that sharpness dragon with coarse edges.

What I recommend you and everyone else trying is simple.

Get a shaving sharp edge off your highest grit stone.

Then do the same thing on your next highest grit stone.

Keep going until you get to your coarsest stone.

I used to think I needed at least a DMT Fine or white sharpmaker rods to get a clean shaving edge.

Then I tried a DMT Coarse, medium rods, diamond rods, DMT X Coarse, 400 grit diamond plate, 300 grit, 200 grit, 180, 140, 80, 80 grit belt sander belts........

In the end I decided obtaining shaving sharpness is more about the technique than the abrasive.

If anyone reading this can't get a clean shaving edge off the sharpmaker diamond / cbn rods, that should be your new goal.

[Mage7]

I think all steels work fine with all grit refinements.

Putting a high polish edge on high hardness high carbide steels will take longer, but the trade off is they can last longer.

I've tried both toothy and polished edges on just about every steel Spyderco currently offers. Each type has their pros and cons. Never found a steel that would take one type of edge and not the other.

I used to chase the "sharpest" I could make my knives and if it wasn't popping hairs I was disappointed. I've changed my mindset though. Now if it's a work knife I put a coarse edge on it regardless of steel. Usually just a DMT coarse stone and a light strop. If it shaves after that great, if it only plucks a few hairs but doesn't leave a bald spot on my arm now I'm equally happy. For what I'm doing everything so far has performed noticably longer with a coarse edge. With the abuse a work knife goes through it's way less time to touch an edge up. I wouldn't mirror polish my knife on a Wednesday night after work, but I definitely have 2 or 3 minutes any day to touch up a dirty edge to make the next day go smoother.

You can still chase that sharpness dragon with coarse edges.

What I recommend you and everyone else trying is simple.

Get a shaving sharp edge off your highest grit stone.

Then do the same thing on your next highest grit stone.

Keep going until you get to your coarsest stone.

I used to think I needed at least a DMT Fine or white sharpmaker rods to get a clean shaving edge.

Then I tried a DMT Coarse, medium rods, diamond rods, DMT X Coarse, 400 grit diamond plate, 300 grit, 200 grit, 180, 140, 80, 80 grit belt sander belts........

In the end I decided obtaining shaving sharpness is more about the technique than the abrasive.

If anyone reading this can't get a clean shaving edge off the sharpmaker diamond / cbn rods, that should be your new goal.

Yeah, I have gotten hair whittling edges on honed as coarse as 120 grit, but it's still more easily done the finer the abrasive. Well, "easily" or "quickly" depending on how you look at that. The margin of error for your pressure and angle control is so much more forgiving on higher grits. On lower grits, I spend more time undoing the refinement I just had with one erroneous stroke at too high and angle or pressure, so it's like every stroke has a much higher chance of taking you from hair whittling to barely shaving and you can spend a long time chasing that in trial and error.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who gets the same level of sharpness off of one grit, with the same amount of time. For example I am sure someone has practiced sharpening on super coarse hones to get a hair whittling edges off one as fast as I can do it off of a super fine one, but can they get one off a super coarse hones faster than they themselves could get one off a finer hone? I have to doubt it, just because I don't know why anyone would waste the time getting equally good at producing that kind of edge at any grit level, just because it's super impractical.

I agree that chasing every edge to, "As sharp as I can get it," is as much a waste of time as I can still get the edge sharper with more. In other words, my coarse edges don't end up hair whittling nearly as often as ones from a finer hone, because I refuse to spend anything longer than a half an hour watching TV and finishing an edge. I probably COULD get my knife hair whittling off of 325 grit just like it is off of 600, but if I gotta spend twice as long to do it then I won't.

Especially because hair shaving, hair whittling, all that non-sense disappears with practically any actual work. I have tried all of the highest wear resistant steels, high hardnesses, etc. but it doesn't matter. I hear tall tales from YouTube personalities chopping up 2x4's and going, "Look it still shaves!" and meanwhile he's not even testing the portion of the blade that he was cutting with. Or someone will claim they skinned and processed an entire elk and their knife is still shaving sharp, except by "shaving sharp" they mean it will tug some hairs off if they press hard enough. Otherwise in my own experience, I have found hair whittling and hair shaving edges to lose that amount of sharpness in such a small amount of time that keeping my edges so sharp actually made me more hesitant to use them because I didn't want them to be "ruined" the first time I actually used the knife.


Anyway, more to the point of the topic, I don't really know. I tend to stick with grit choice based on how I will use the knife, rather than how the steel reacts to one grit or the other. Personally I would find it very difficult to actually observe differences in grit with my use, because attributing performance differences to the grit might be done in error without controlling for other factors. Otherwise I wouldn't even be able to convince myself that one steel likes a different grit better than another in general use.

[twinboysdad]

VG 10 and brown rods are like bourbon and ice for me

[vivi]

I think all steels work fine with all grit refinements.

Putting a high polish edge on high hardness high carbide steels will take longer, but the trade off is they can last longer.

I've tried both toothy and polished edges on just about every steel Spyderco currently offers. Each type has their pros and cons. Never found a steel that would take one type of edge and not the other.

I used to chase the "sharpest" I could make my knives and if it wasn't popping hairs I was disappointed. I've changed my mindset though. Now if it's a work knife I put a coarse edge on it regardless of steel. Usually just a DMT coarse stone and a light strop. If it shaves after that great, if it only plucks a few hairs but doesn't leave a bald spot on my arm now I'm equally happy. For what I'm doing everything so far has performed noticably longer with a coarse edge. With the abuse a work knife goes through it's way less time to touch an edge up. I wouldn't mirror polish my knife on a Wednesday night after work, but I definitely have 2 or 3 minutes any day to touch up a dirty edge to make the next day go smoother.

You can still chase that sharpness dragon with coarse edges.

What I recommend you and everyone else trying is simple.

Get a shaving sharp edge off your highest grit stone.

Then do the same thing on your next highest grit stone.

Keep going until you get to your coarsest stone.

I used to think I needed at least a DMT Fine or white sharpmaker rods to get a clean shaving edge.

Then I tried a DMT Coarse, medium rods, diamond rods, DMT X Coarse, 400 grit diamond plate, 300 grit, 200 grit, 180, 140, 80, 80 grit belt sander belts........

In the end I decided obtaining shaving sharpness is more about the technique than the abrasive.

If anyone reading this can't get a clean shaving edge off the sharpmaker diamond / cbn rods, that should be your new goal.

Yeah, I have gotten hair whittling edges on honed as coarse as 120 grit, but it's still more easily done the finer the abrasive. Well, "easily" or "quickly" depending on how you look at that. The margin of error for your pressure and angle control is so much more forgiving on higher grits. On lower grits, I spend more time undoing the refinement I just had with one erroneous stroke at too high and angle or pressure, so it's like every stroke has a much higher chance of taking you from hair whittling to barely shaving and you can spend a long time chasing that in trial and error.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who gets the same level of sharpness off of one grit, with the same amount of time. For example I am sure someone has practiced sharpening on super coarse hones to get a hair whittling edges off one as fast as I can do it off of a super fine one, but can they get one off a super coarse hones faster than they themselves could get one off a finer hone? I have to doubt it, just because I don't know why anyone would waste the time getting equally good at producing that kind of edge at any grit level, just because it's super impractical.

I agree that chasing every edge to, "As sharp as I can get it," is as much a waste of time as I can still get the edge sharper with more. In other words, my coarse edges don't end up hair whittling nearly as often as ones from a finer hone, because I refuse to spend anything longer than a half an hour watching TV and finishing an edge. I probably COULD get my knife hair whittling off of 325 grit just like it is off of 600, but if I gotta spend twice as long to do it then I won't.

Especially because hair shaving, hair whittling, all that non-sense disappears with practically any actual work. I have tried all of the highest wear resistant steels, high hardnesses, etc. but it doesn't matter. I hear tall tales from YouTube personalities chopping up 2x4's and going, "Look it still shaves!" and meanwhile he's not even testing the portion of the blade that he was cutting with. Or someone will claim they skinned and processed an entire elk and their knife is still shaving sharp, except by "shaving sharp" they mean it will tug some hairs off if they press hard enough. Otherwise in my own experience, I have found hair whittling and hair shaving edges to lose that amount of sharpness in such a small amount of time that keeping my edges so sharp actually made me more hesitant to use them because I didn't want them to be "ruined" the first time I actually used the knife.


Anyway, more to the point of the topic, I don't really know. I tend to stick with grit choice based on how I will use the knife, rather than how the steel reacts to one grit or the other. Personally I would find it very difficult to actually observe differences in grit with my use, because attributing performance differences to the grit might be done in error without controlling for other factors. Otherwise I wouldn't even be able to convince myself that one steel likes a different grit better than another in general use.

Others mileage will definitely vary, but I can get shaving sharpness very quick off diamond sharpmaker stones and 200-400 grit diamond plates.

while the margin for error is smaller in the sense you noted, you can also refresh an apex in two strokes. so getting a fresh, clean apex is very fast if your angle control is adequate.

I don't chase clean shaving edges on every cutting tool, but on many I do. I don't worry about it on a machete but I always do with a chef knife.

High hardness high carbide steels can hold shaving sharpness for a surprising length of time. I took my time with a K390 Police and got a nicely shaving edge off either a 200 or 300 grit diamond plate, and it still shaved after a month of EDC. Granted that's the extreme end of things, but it's a measuring stick for me of what is possible for my uses.

[Mage7]

High hardness high carbide steels can hold shaving sharpness for a surprising length of time. I took my time with a K390 Police and got a nicely shaving edge off either a 200 or 300 grit diamond plate, and it still shaved after a month of EDC. Granted that's the extreme end of things, but it's a measuring stick for me of what is possible for my uses.

Yeah, I guess it makes me wonder what the EDC use is, and what your threshold and limit for "shaving" are. Because when I say something shaves, I mean that it will more or less wipe hairs off your arm like a squeegee, without scraping your skin follicles off with it. A lot of other times, someone says it "shaves" and I can see them literally pressing into their arm, and it's cutting the hairs off sure, but along with a good portion of skin. So there's that discrepancy to deal with, but then I won't bore you with talking about how everyone's EDC is different.

In some ways I think that's why I question the usefulness of it as a benchmark even more. Especially because while it sounds like I'm bashing those edges that will cut hair off your arm with a little pressure, that's still plenty sharp enough for 99% of tasks. It's not like I need it to squeegee off my arm hair, but I guess I get most frustrated with the wide gaps and berths in edge sharpness people are actually describing when they think they're describing similar levels, because I think it kind of puts the wrong idea in peoples' head. Especially because we all know that if you take the best thing for hair-cutting tests, a straight razor, it's not going to last more than a minute cutting up boxes, and we all know you can't shave with a box-cutter either. But meanwhile, people still expect their deer-skinning knife to start and stop "hair shaving sharp" and then start doubting their skills, tools, or materials when they were actually just expecting something unrealistic.

I guess a good example would be the Rex45 I have taken a liking too. I don't do much with it day in and day out, usually just opening up food packages, maybe some mail, so it mostly just cuts paper and plastic. Even with relatively mild materials, it doesn't hold "hair whittling" for more than a few cuts, and that lead me down a rabbit hole of looking under high magnification for non-existent burrs to explain it, when in reality I was just relying on faulty information to develop unrealistic expectations. Then, I also take another step back and realize that while it doesn't hold that "hair whittling" level, it will still "shave" (even by my over-achieving defintion) well for a long time too. Meanwhile, both levels are so far above and beyond whatever practical level of sharpness I actually need, I have to stop and wonder why I'm chasing all that.

I think another difference too is that no one ever talks about time in relation to all this stuff either. It takes me maybe 5 minutes to grind in a fresh, new bevel on a coarse hone, but then probably 30-60 minutes to actually finish and deburr the edge to those "hair whittling" levels. There's a lot of people out there who are a lot better and faster than me, so it leaves people speaking in different perspectives. For me, I have to wonder why anyone who can sharpen a blade to some hair-manipulating level of sharpness in less than 5 minutes would even bother to have an EDC in some of those really wear-resistant steels. I mean, unless you're doing a big job that would leave you re-sharpening too many times, I would definitely just stick with simpler steels if I was a faster sharpener.


Which, now that I think about it... I do remember some pretty solid proof that 440C is better when sharpening on something toothy. Something about the carbides in it getting aligned with the serrations? Except I think now days, that little performance improvement that was seen with it, is way overshadowed by the carbide characteristics of modern alloys

[ejames13]

I think all steels work fine with all grit refinements.

Putting a high polish edge on high hardness high carbide steels will take longer, but the trade off is they can last longer.

I've tried both toothy and polished edges on just about every steel Spyderco currently offers. Each type has their pros and cons. Never found a steel that would take one type of edge and not the other.

I used to chase the "sharpest" I could make my knives and if it wasn't popping hairs I was disappointed. I've changed my mindset though. Now if it's a work knife I put a coarse edge on it regardless of steel. Usually just a DMT coarse stone and a light strop. If it shaves after that great, if it only plucks a few hairs but doesn't leave a bald spot on my arm now I'm equally happy. For what I'm doing everything so far has performed noticably longer with a coarse edge. With the abuse a work knife goes through it's way less time to touch an edge up. I wouldn't mirror polish my knife on a Wednesday night after work, but I definitely have 2 or 3 minutes any day to touch up a dirty edge to make the next day go smoother.

You can still chase that sharpness dragon with coarse edges.

What I recommend you and everyone else trying is simple.

Get a shaving sharp edge off your highest grit stone.

Then do the same thing on your next highest grit stone.

Keep going until you get to your coarsest stone.

I used to think I needed at least a DMT Fine or white sharpmaker rods to get a clean shaving edge.

Then I tried a DMT Coarse, medium rods, diamond rods, DMT X Coarse, 400 grit diamond plate, 300 grit, 200 grit, 180, 140, 80, 80 grit belt sander belts........

In the end I decided obtaining shaving sharpness is more about the technique than the abrasive.

If anyone reading this can't get a clean shaving edge off the sharpmaker diamond / cbn rods, that should be your new goal.

Yeah, I have gotten hair whittling edges on honed as coarse as 120 grit, but it's still more easily done the finer the abrasive. Well, "easily" or "quickly" depending on how you look at that. The margin of error for your pressure and angle control is so much more forgiving on higher grits. On lower grits, I spend more time undoing the refinement I just had with one erroneous stroke at too high and angle or pressure, so it's like every stroke has a much higher chance of taking you from hair whittling to barely shaving and you can spend a long time chasing that in trial and error.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who gets the same level of sharpness off of one grit, with the same amount of time. For example I am sure someone has practiced sharpening on super coarse hones to get a hair whittling edges off one as fast as I can do it off of a super fine one, but can they get one off a super coarse hones faster than they themselves could get one off a finer hone? I have to doubt it, just because I don't know why anyone would waste the time getting equally good at producing that kind of edge at any grit level, just because it's super impractical.

I agree that chasing every edge to, "As sharp as I can get it," is as much a waste of time as I can still get the edge sharper with more. In other words, my coarse edges don't end up hair whittling nearly as often as ones from a finer hone, because I refuse to spend anything longer than a half an hour watching TV and finishing an edge. I probably COULD get my knife hair whittling off of 325 grit just like it is off of 600, but if I gotta spend twice as long to do it then I won't.

Especially because hair shaving, hair whittling, all that non-sense disappears with practically any actual work. I have tried all of the highest wear resistant steels, high hardnesses, etc. but it doesn't matter. I hear tall tales from YouTube personalities chopping up 2x4's and going, "Look it still shaves!" and meanwhile he's not even testing the portion of the blade that he was cutting with. Or someone will claim they skinned and processed an entire elk and their knife is still shaving sharp, except by "shaving sharp" they mean it will tug some hairs off if they press hard enough. Otherwise in my own experience, I have found hair whittling and hair shaving edges to lose that amount of sharpness in such a small amount of time that keeping my edges so sharp actually made me more hesitant to use them because I didn't want them to be "ruined" the first time I actually used the knife.


Anyway, more to the point of the topic, I don't really know. I tend to stick with grit choice based on how I will use the knife, rather than how the steel reacts to one grit or the other. Personally I would find it very difficult to actually observe differences in grit with my use, because attributing performance differences to the grit might be done in error without controlling for other factors. Otherwise I wouldn't even be able to convince myself that one steel likes a different grit better than another in general use.

Others mileage will definitely vary, but I can get shaving sharpness very quick off diamond sharpmaker stones and 200-400 grit diamond plates.

while the margin for error is smaller in the sense you noted, you can also refresh an apex in two strokes. so getting a fresh, clean apex is very fast if your angle control is adequate.

I don't chase clean shaving edges on every cutting tool, but on many I do. I don't worry about it on a machete but I always do with a chef knife.

High hardness high carbide steels can hold shaving sharpness for a surprising length of time. I took my time with a K390 Police and got a nicely shaving edge off either a 200 or 300 grit diamond plate, and it still shaved after a month of EDC. Granted that's the extreme end of things, but it's a measuring stick for me of what is possible for my uses.

Very nice. What types of things were you cutting during that month? Was it shaving the whole length of the blade?

[JD Spydo]

Cruwear is quickly becoming my all time favorite blade steel. And I like it just as well in SE as I do in PE. Before that VG-10 was one of the few with that distinction. But Cruwear is great no matter what edge you use it with. It's about to overtake M390 which had been my fav for a few years in PE.

I even like it better than 440V in SE. There is a profound difference in many blade steels being used for SE. My favs are mostly a completely different list all together.

[RugerNurse]

I was happy that my K390 still sliced paper extremely cleaning after breaking down a bunch of boxes after Christmas Day. I had a coarse edge on it.

[Spyderfreek]

My experience with k390 is that much like m4, it will take any edge you want to put on it and cut well. I usually do a semi mirror edge at 2 micron but I've gone as high as 0.1 micron and it's still sticky.

Maxamet and Rex 121 do well with a semi fine edge, either a 1200 or 600 grit finish, stropped on 2 micron diamonds.

Honestly most steels do well with a 1200 grit edge that's semi mirror finished with a 2 micron strop, everything from 8cr13mov to Maxamet. To coarse and you lose push cutting ability, too fine and you sacrifice edge retention and aggression. Some steels will absolutely glass over if you push them too fine, Maxamet being one of those.

[vivi]

High hardness high carbide steels can hold shaving sharpness for a surprising length of time. I took my time with a K390 Police and got a nicely shaving edge off either a 200 or 300 grit diamond plate, and it still shaved after a month of EDC. Granted that's the extreme end of things, but it's a measuring stick for me of what is possible for my uses.

Yeah, I guess it makes me wonder what the EDC use is, and what your threshold and limit for "shaving" are. Because when I say something shaves, I mean that it will more or less wipe hairs off your arm like a squeegee, without scraping your skin follicles off with it. A lot of other times, someone says it "shaves" and I can see them literally pressing into their arm, and it's cutting the hairs off sure, but along with a good portion of skin. So there's that discrepancy to deal with, but then I won't bore you with talking about how everyone's EDC is different.

In some ways I think that's why I question the usefulness of it as a benchmark even more. Especially because while it sounds like I'm bashing those edges that will cut hair off your arm with a little pressure, that's still plenty sharp enough for 99% of tasks. It's not like I need it to squeegee off my arm hair, but I guess I get most frustrated with the wide gaps and berths in edge sharpness people are actually describing when they think they're describing similar levels, because I think it kind of puts the wrong idea in peoples' head. Especially because we all know that if you take the best thing for hair-cutting tests, a straight razor, it's not going to last more than a minute cutting up boxes, and we all know you can't shave with a box-cutter either. But meanwhile, people still expect their deer-skinning knife to start and stop "hair shaving sharp" and then start doubting their skills, tools, or materials when they were actually just expecting something unrealistic.

I guess a good example would be the Rex45 I have taken a liking too. I don't do much with it day in and day out, usually just opening up food packages, maybe some mail, so it mostly just cuts paper and plastic. Even with relatively mild materials, it doesn't hold "hair whittling" for more than a few cuts, and that lead me down a rabbit hole of looking under high magnification for non-existent burrs to explain it, when in reality I was just relying on faulty information to develop unrealistic expectations. Then, I also take another step back and realize that while it doesn't hold that "hair whittling" level, it will still "shave" (even by my over-achieving defintion) well for a long time too. Meanwhile, both levels are so far above and beyond whatever practical level of sharpness I actually need, I have to stop and wonder why I'm chasing all that.

I think another difference too is that no one ever talks about time in relation to all this stuff either. It takes me maybe 5 minutes to grind in a fresh, new bevel on a coarse hone, but then probably 30-60 minutes to actually finish and deburr the edge to those "hair whittling" levels. There's a lot of people out there who are a lot better and faster than me, so it leaves people speaking in different perspectives. For me, I have to wonder why anyone who can sharpen a blade to some hair-manipulating level of sharpness in less than 5 minutes would even bother to have an EDC in some of those really wear-resistant steels. I mean, unless you're doing a big job that would leave you re-sharpening too many times, I would definitely just stick with simpler steels if I was a faster sharpener.


Which, now that I think about it... I do remember some pretty solid proof that 440C is better when sharpening on something toothy. Something about the carbides in it getting aligned with the serrations? Except I think now days, that little performance improvement that was seen with it, is way overshadowed by the carbide characteristics of modern alloys

There is absolutely a wide variance in what consistutes shaving sharp. When I say I can manage to get an edge to shave off X stone, I'm also talking about removing arm hairs with little fuss and not digging into the skin. Cleanly shaving means it'll grab hairs and cut them easily in one pass, with minimal skin pressure. Hair popping sharp,it'll cleanly sever hairs above the skin. Hair whittling, self explanatory.

One of the reasons why I don't mine low edge retention steels is I am one of those people that can obtain hair whittling sharpness in a few minutes. Microbevels are key for this.

I think the idea of sharpening a knife for half an hour is absurd outside of a professional capacity where I'm being payed for a high polish with no mistakes.

Reprofiling a knife I won't even spend half an hour. Lets take SRK's for example.

I recently took a brand new SRK out of my storage area to put in a bug out bag in my trunk.

I knew from experience the factory edge would be thicker than I prefer, so I reprofiled it.

I spent about 3-4 minutes thinning out the edge on my belt sander.

Then I used a alightly more obtuse angle and sharpened the apex on a fine spyderco benchstone until it was hair popping sharp. That took about 90 seconds.

Why polish all that steel behind the edge and waste my time?

There was another Mike that used to post here that let me borrow his CPMD2 Military sprint back in the 2000's. He sharpened that way. Very coarse bevel with a high polish edge.

It made so much sense to me. Polishing the steel behind the apex has next to no influence on cutting ability. So why bother if I'm not being payed to shine up a show piece?

So the SRK got taken down to around 12dps and brought to hair popping sharpness. Full removal of the factoey edge and everything. Less than ten minutes. Much improved performance cutting wood. Got a coarse diamond credit card sharpener in the backpack so if I need a coarser edge I can apply one in seconds.

I use microbevels on pretty much everything I sharpen. I can't think of a reason not to. They let me sharpen exponentially faster and let me run thinner angles.

Most spyderco pocket knives are perfectly stable for me with 8-10dps edges and a 15dps microbevel. I could never go back to a straight 15dps edge and be happy with it, and that's high performance territory in most peoples minds.

[vivi]

.

Honestly most steels do well with a 1200 grit edge that's semi mirror finished with a 2 micron strop, everything from 8cr13mov to Maxamet. To coarse and you lose push cutting ability, too fine and you sacrifice edge retention and aggression. Some steels will absolutely glass over if you push them too fine, Maxamet being one of those.

The way I like to sharpen quickly and balance push cutting with slicing aggression is:

- Set a bevel on a coarse diamond plate.

- Once I'm done with step #1, I use the same stone with extremely light alternating strokes until it scrape shaves at least.

- From there I jump straight to my finishing grit and use a more obtuse angle. I do only one stroke per side with minimal pressure, then check two things. How easily the full edge shaves, and how gritty / toothy the apex feels if I run my nail down the edge.

Sometimes I do a second stroke per side but one is usually enough. This gives me a relatively toothy edge that shaves with ease. So push cutting and slicing are balanced better than straight off the coarse plate, but slicing aggression and edge holding are improved compared to a fully polished apex.

Looks cool under magnification too.

[vivi]

I think all steels work fine with all grit refinements.

Putting a high polish edge on high hardness high carbide steels will take longer, but the trade off is they can last longer.

I've tried both toothy and polished edges on just about every steel Spyderco currently offers. Each type has their pros and cons. Never found a steel that would take one type of edge and not the other.



You can still chase that sharpness dragon with coarse edges.

What I recommend you and everyone else trying is simple.

Get a shaving sharp edge off your highest grit stone.

Then do the same thing on your next highest grit stone.

Keep going until you get to your coarsest stone.

I used to think I needed at least a DMT Fine or white sharpmaker rods to get a clean shaving edge.

Then I tried a DMT Coarse, medium rods, diamond rods, DMT X Coarse, 400 grit diamond plate, 300 grit, 200 grit, 180, 140, 80, 80 grit belt sander belts........

In the end I decided obtaining shaving sharpness is more about the technique than the abrasive.

If anyone reading this can't get a clean shaving edge off the sharpmaker diamond / cbn rods, that should be your new goal.

Yeah, I have gotten hair whittling edges on honed as coarse as 120 grit, but it's still more easily done the finer the abrasive. Well, "easily" or "quickly" depending on how you look at that. The margin of error for your pressure and angle control is so much more forgiving on higher grits. On lower grits, I spend more time undoing the refinement I just had with one erroneous stroke at too high and angle or pressure, so it's like every stroke has a much higher chance of taking you from hair whittling to barely shaving and you can spend a long time chasing that in trial and error.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who gets the same level of sharpness off of one grit, with the same amount of time. For example I am sure someone has practiced sharpening on super coarse hones to get a hair whittling edges off one as fast as I can do it off of a super fine one, but can they get one off a super coarse hones faster than they themselves could get one off a finer hone? I have to doubt it, just because I don't know why anyone would waste the time getting equally good at producing that kind of edge at any grit level, just because it's super impractical.

I agree that chasing every edge to, "As sharp as I can get it," is as much a waste of time as I can still get the edge sharper with more. In other words, my coarse edges don't end up hair whittling nearly as often as ones from a finer hone, because I refuse to spend anything longer than a half an hour watching TV and finishing an edge. I probably COULD get my knife hair whittling off of 325 grit just like it is off of 600, but if I gotta spend twice as long to do it then I won't.

Especially because hair shaving, hair whittling, all that non-sense disappears with practically any actual work. I have tried all of the highest wear resistant steels, high hardnesses, etc. but it doesn't matter. I hear tall tales from YouTube personalities chopping up 2x4's and going, "Look it still shaves!" and meanwhile he's not even testing the portion of the blade that he was cutting with. Or someone will claim they skinned and processed an entire elk and their knife is still shaving sharp, except by "shaving sharp" they mean it will tug some hairs off if they press hard enough. Otherwise in my own experience, I have found hair whittling and hair shaving edges to lose that amount of sharpness in such a small amount of time that keeping my edges so sharp actually made me more hesitant to use them because I didn't want them to be "ruined" the first time I actually used the knife.


Anyway, more to the point of the topic, I don't really know. I tend to stick with grit choice based on how I will use the knife, rather than how the steel reacts to one grit or the other. Personally I would find it very difficult to actually observe differences in grit with my use, because attributing performance differences to the grit might be done in error without controlling for other factors. Otherwise I wouldn't even be able to convince myself that one steel likes a different grit better than another in general use.

Others mileage will definitely vary, but I can get shaving sharpness very quick off diamond sharpmaker stones and 200-400 grit diamond plates.

while the margin for error is smaller in the sense you noted, you can also refresh an apex in two strokes. so getting a fresh, clean apex is very fast if your angle control is adequate.

I don't chase clean shaving edges on every cutting tool, but on many I do. I don't worry about it on a machete but I always do with a chef knife.

High hardness high carbide steels can hold shaving sharpness for a surprising length of time. I took my time with a K390 Police and got a nicely shaving edge off either a 200 or 300 grit diamond plate, and it still shaved after a month of EDC. Granted that's the extreme end of things, but it's a measuring stick for me of what is possible for my uses.

Very nice. What types of things were you cutting during that month? Was it shaving the whole length of the blade?

Nothing crazy, just regular day to day stuff. Didn't go out of my way to test the edge retention but never shied away from breaking down large cardboard boxes. It cut wood, food, rope, cardboard, clamshell packaging etc. Full edge still shaved.

Never been more impressed with any other steels capacity for general EDC edge retention.

[RugerNurse]

I use microbevels on pretty much everything I sharpen. I can't think of a reason not to. They let me sharpen exponentially faster and let me run thinner angles.

Most spyderco pocket knives are perfectly stable for me with 8-10dps edges and a 15dps microbevel. I could never go back to a straight 15dps edge and be happy with it, and that's high performance territory in most peoples minds.

How does burr formation work with setting the initial bevel and then the micro one? Do you avoid it?

[vivi]

I use microbevels on pretty much everything I sharpen. I can't think of a reason not to. They let me sharpen exponentially faster and let me run thinner angles.

Most spyderco pocket knives are perfectly stable for me with 8-10dps edges and a 15dps microbevel. I could never go back to a straight 15dps edge and be happy with it, and that's high performance territory in most peoples minds.

How does burr formation work with setting the initial bevel and then the micro one? Do you avoid it?

I only intentionally raise burrs when initially setting a new bevel on my belt sander or coarsest diamond plate. Otherwise I do try to avoid it.

Raising a burr only to have to remove it is wasted time. That technique makes good training wheels, but after a certain point I feel people should learn to sharpen a knife without relying on burrs for feedback.

When I touch up a knife where I've already set my own thinner than factory bevel, I definitely avoid burrs.

Say the Military 2 I EDC isn't cutting so great and I decide to touch it up tonight. I'd do very light alternating strokes on the stone with the grit that matches how I plan to use the knife. In this case a DMT Coarse. Good general purpose edge that leans a little toothy.

The extra light strokes and alternating passes are done to avoid raising a burr. Using that coarse of a stone at a slightly more obtuse angle than the full edge bevel is set at, I can touch up the knife in 2-4 strokes per side, or about 30 seconds.