Stock stone/strop progression (Lots of Pics!!)
- This topic has 104 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 04/09/2012 at 6:00 am by
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Thanks Clay,
I, too, was trying to use the scope while the knife was still in the WE vise – which just isn’t practical. Taking the knife out of the WE vise and placing it on the base of the scope stand is the only way that I can think of to do this.Here are before and after photos using my smaller scope stand to mark the position of the knife blade on paper, etc. I tried it several times and it worked.
When returning the knife to the scope stand after sharpening, if I wasn’t exactly on the same spot on the blade, I was < 1 mm off. So it was easy enough to slightly move the blade to find the spot – as long as I had a landmark on the blade (such as a deep cut or something) to look for.
Drawing the blade outline with a lead pencil onto a post-it note stuck to the base of the scope stand
After removing the blade and showing the lead pencil outline of the bladeThis threat has become the host of many topics, but I would like to return to the initial question posed by Josh and the pictures posted by Tom. Tom’s pictures clearly showed that, although the WE diamond stropping pastes on leather strops did result in a very nice edge, the stropping pastes were much less abrasive than stones with diamond particles of comparable (micron) sizes; the stropping pastes produced only tiny scratches that were much smaller in size than the stones do.
I set out to see whether I could reproduce the results by Tom. I also wanted to test the hypothesis that the compounds on leather were not so abrasive because the diamond particles got hidden in the “valleys” of the leather (since leather is quite textured). To do so, I also stropped with the diamond pastes on balsa: diamond particles of 14 micron (or 3.5 micron, for that matter) cannot hide in the spaces between the filaments of the balsa.
I sharpened a knife up to 1000 grit with stones (and later 1600 grit) and then did 500 stropping strokes with 14 micron paste and 10 micron paste, both on leather and on balse. I took photographs at 50, 100, 250 and 500 stropping strokes. And I got sometimes very polished edges…
In fact, I did every experiment twice (with consistent results), since a new microscope stand came in with which I could make much better pictures when I was nearly done with the stropping.
You can find the complete story on my blog[/url].
But for those in for quick conclusions:
- I was able to reproduce Tom’s results. The 14 micron and 10 micron diamond pastes produce scratches that are much smaller than one would expect on the basis of the grit comparison chart.
- This is not due to the diamond particles hiding in the leather. We see exactly the same tiny scratches when using these compounds on balsa.
So the mystery remains. How come these pastes are so little abrasive compared to the equivalent stones?
I would like to throw in a second mystery. As the above picture shows, the pastes are effective. How can pastes with so little abrasive power be so effectie?
Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge
This threat has become the host of many topics, but I would like to return to the initial question posed by Josh and the pictures posted by Tom. Tom’s pictures clearly showed that, although the WE diamond stropping pastes on leather strops did result in a very nice edge, the stropping pastes were much less abrasive than stones with diamond particles of comparable (micron) sizes; the stropping pastes produced only tiny scratches that were much smaller in size than the stones do.
I set out to see whether I could reproduce the results by Tom. I also wanted to test the hypothesis that the compounds on leather were not so abrasive because the diamond particles got hidden in the “valleys” of the leather (since leather is quite textured). To do so, I also stropped with the diamond pastes on balsa: diamond particles of 14 micron (or 3.5 micron, for that matter) cannot hide in the spaces between the filaments of the balsa.
I sharpened a knife up to 1000 grit with stones (and later 1600 grit) and then did 500 stropping strokes with 14 micron paste and 10 micron paste, both on leather and on balse. I took photographs at 50, 100, 250 and 500 stropping strokes. And I got sometimes very polished edges…
In fact, I did every experiment twice (with consistent results), since a new microscope stand came in with which I could make much better pictures when I was nearly done with the stropping.
You can find the complete story on my blog[/url].
But for those in for quick conclusions:
- I was able to reproduce Tom’s results. The 14 micron and 10 micron diamond pastes produce scratches that are much smaller than one would expect on the basis of the grit comparison chart.
- This is not due to the diamond particles hiding in the leather. We see exactly the same tiny scratches when using these compounds on balsa.
So the mystery remains. How come these pastes are so little abrasive compared to the equivalent stones?
I would like to throw in a second mystery. As the above picture shows, the pastes are effective. How can pastes with so little abrasive power be so effectie?
I can’t see your pictures, but love the write up. A next study step would be to go from the 1000 grit to plain leather w/ no compound to examine the burnishing effect. That way you could tell how much of what you’re seeing is the abrasive and how much is the substrate. My theory is that the burnishing effect of the leather is significant and is greatly improved by the added ‘stiction’ that the paste provides. Ideally, it would great to test an abrasive free paste on the leather. That sounds like a very fun experiment. I think the reason the diamonds are making such little scratches is two-fold – 1) The diamonds press equally into the leather as they do to the metal so you’re not getting a full value scratch 2) The numbers of diamonds on the strop may be significantly less than those on the stones.
-Clay
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