A theory of how the WE diamond pastes work

[Mark76]

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[wickededge]

Wow, those edges are sweet! Count me in for an order… This may be what I’ve been looking for. I got an edge on a razor to pass the HHT, but it was holding the hair really close to the edge. Then when I went from the .25um paste (Norton) to the .125um spray I lost the HHT capability… was really weird.

I had a lot of that going on, pass/fail, pass/fail on the HHT with the various strops. The ones that did the best by far were the horse butt top and cow top.

Looking forward to getting some of that stuff! Probably too early to tell, but which would you prefer Clay, nanocloth or kangaroo leather? Which one is easier to mount to one of the normal strop paddles? (i.e. I will remove the leather from the ones I have and replace it).

Both mount the same – they’re coming from Ken already affixed to aluminum blanks, so you just peel back the cover on the tap, press on and you’re done. It’s too early to decide between the two, have to do LOTS more testing. 🙂

Awesome work bro… keep it up. Looking forward to seeing pics w/ your new microscope, lol!!! Did you see the thread a while back where someone had posted a link to another forum where a guy had a 1000x microscope that he could take pics with? You should just pull the trigger and get one… you know you will have one eventually anyway, haha!

Edit: its called a metallograph… here’s the thread, check out those edge pics! Unfortunately, they’re real expensive… $1700-$1800!!!

Yeah, just a mere $1700-$1800… not right away, but eventually.

-Clay

[Josh]

Wow, those edges are sweet! Count me in for an order… This may be what I’ve been looking for. I got an edge on a razor to pass the HHT, but it was holding the hair really close to the edge. Then when I went from the .25um paste (Norton) to the .125um spray I lost the HHT capability… was really weird.

I had a lot of that going on, pass/fail, pass/fail on the HHT with the various strops. The ones that did the best by far were the horse butt top and cow top.

Looking forward to getting some of that stuff! Probably too early to tell, but which would you prefer Clay, nanocloth or kangaroo leather? Which one is easier to mount to one of the normal strop paddles? (i.e. I will remove the leather from the ones I have and replace it).

Both mount the same – they’re coming from Ken already affixed to aluminum blanks, so you just peel back the cover on the tap, press on and you’re done. It’s too early to decide between the two, have to do LOTS more testing. 🙂

Awesome work bro… keep it up. Looking forward to seeing pics w/ your new microscope, lol!!! Did you see the thread a while back where someone had posted a link to another forum where a guy had a 1000x microscope that he could take pics with? You should just pull the trigger and get one… you know you will have one eventually anyway, haha!

Edit: its called a metallograph… here’s the thread, check out those edge pics! Unfortunately, they’re real expensive… $1700-$1800!!!

Yeah, just a mere $1700-$1800… not right away, but eventually.[/quote]

lol, yeah… pocket change for ppl like you w/ big money!! 😉

So did you try the HHT at each step w/ the kangaroo/nano cloth as well? Theoretically it should work better you would think… unless it is like you propose, that there is a happy medium where you have a bunch of micro serrations that are highly polished that will “grab” the hair and lop it off… the normal rule of thumb seems to be the higher the polish, the easier the HHT will be… may be a faulty assumption!

[Joyal Taylor]

What is HHT?

Horse Hair Top?

[Ken Schwartz]

Clay, I have to compliment you on doing some OUTSTANDING work demonstrating the capabilities of Nanocloth and Kangaroo.

I also want to make the point that using the WEPS platform to do this testing is a match made in heaven and a testament to what precise sharpening is all about!

Those micrographs are STUNNING and demonstrate beautifully what I’ve been saying about these compounds and strops and the importance as you get finer compounds of the effects of the substrate on masking the effects of the compound.

I hope you don’t mind if I quote your work and use these pictures elsewhere to further promote your work and the products on the WEPS platform.

I could more obviously see that getting a ‘pure effect’ or compound only effect was critical at the higher grit levels like eighth and tenth micron snd finer, but your quarter micron pics strongly suggest that the nanocloth and ‘roo may have additional benefits at even lower grits, possibly well below 1 micron. So I’m anxiously looking forward to the additional work on the coarser compounds I sent you with the additional nanocloth samples.

Using a surface that is smooth beyond the limits of light microscopy as a starting point for demonstrating other abrasive preps like the 10k Chocera is also a SUPERB way to demonstrate the scratch pattern of that stone without the confusion of residual coarser scratches. Again NICELY Done!!

Now when we go beyond eighth micron down to 0.025 microns we are talking about a particle the size of a small virus, so I suspect that the resultant scratch pattern will also be beyond the limits of ANY light microscope. Yet we may well see some differentiating characteristics in the way the light gets reflected from these surfaces using your current equipment. Something like the effect that you see using an ultrafine graticule as a prism (just wildly speculating here about what to look for) like you see doing spectroscopy. Perhaps a high resolution mirror effect visible at full magnification. Can’t wait to see the results!

Very exciting work, Clay!

—
Ken

[Leo James Mitchell]

+1!!! My mouth is hanging agape with awe at what the ‘Roo and Nano cloth did Clay! Startling microphotographs! I got to get me some of that Roo and Nano-cloth!

Leo

[Josh]

What is HHT?

Horse Hair Top?

Hanging Hair Test… its commonly used among straight razor users as a “gauge” on how responsive an edge is to push cutting.

[Phil Pasteur]

What is HHT?

Horse Hair Top?

Holymolar,
This is an interesting read on the HHT:
http://www.coticule.be/hanging-hair-test.html

Phil

[wickededge]

Nice link Phil, thanks for posting!

What is HHT?

Horse Hair Top?

Holymolar,
This is an interesting read on the HHT:
http://www.coticule.be/hanging-hair-test.html

Phil[/quote]

-Clay

[Mark76]

After all this, I find myself wanting to do a massive cutting comparison of identical blades with different finishes! What I’d really like to do is develop a matrix that helps us to pinpoint exactly which finish is best suited for a given application both from a performance standpoint and from a durability standpoint. Another big factor is ease of maintenance. I think a lot of the fun of the Wicked Edge platform at this level is the ease with which one can experiment and contemplate the exact best geometry and finish to apply to a given knife. Lots to explore… 🙂

This is what I like so much about the Wicked Edge AND the community surrounding it. The WEPS is a great tool for precision sharpening, allowing for exact, fast and reproducible edge setting and maintenance. But what really does it for me is the active group of people interested in getting an edge as sharp as possible (or the best edge for a particular job), sharing their experiences, posting photographs, giving their opinions and sometimes doing experiments. It’s FUN!

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Josh]

Clay, any word on when you will have the nanocloth and kangaroo leather listed on the site?

[wickededge]

Clay, any word on when you will have the nanocloth and kangaroo leather listed on the site?

I’ll be connecting with Ken tomorrow and hopefully we can list them in the next few days.

-Clay

[wickededge]

I’ve finally captured a photo I’ve been chasing for a while. Here at 2000x we can get a nice clear view of what burnishing looks like. In the photo below, you can see how the metal on the ridges of the scratches has been moved over to fill in some of the valleys. This was done with the strops:

Attachments:

• Burnishing.jpg

-Clay

[cbwx34]

Pretty cool… looks like it might be happening even more near the top of the photo.

[Phil Pasteur]

Clay,
You know that I have been at least a bit skeptical about burnishing with leather on steel…
OK, so take this from that perspective. That piece of something in the micrograph looks like it is something stuck on the blade… and at 2500X it is extremely small. For burnishing to have a major effect at the edge, would you not have to see much more of a general “smearing” or flowing of metal. It does look like there is some other evidence, but most certainly very, very minute amounts of material bridging scratches…

You may be right, but from this one photo, I am not quite convinced… that burnishing is what we are seeing.

I do try to have an open mind on these things… so convince me

🙂

Phil

[Author]

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