After the 1500/6u
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William, here’s a link to a post I contributed with some general theory related to grit progression with different medium. And another post on related subject mater.
And another link here on how the different medium fit together in my experience.
Here’s another post I started some time back on stropping with a lot of good information and responses.
I post links to my threads because they’re the easiest posts for me to hunt down.
William I hope these help you get the insight you’re looking for.
To try to answer your specific question, you can try 1500 grit diamond >>9µ DLF>>6µDLF>>3µDLF>>4µ strop>>2µStrop…My general rule is when I switch mediums is to step back up a grit step or two coarser than a direct side ways move. I believe this overlap and redundancy in similar grit size helps because the grit mediums are different and each contributes something different to the overall progression to achieve a finer polished appearance. Strops are, for me, always the last step.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)If I recall correctly. Clay said that he could go directly from 1000 grit to the 6-micron DLF. I find that the 1500 is a perfect fit in that progression.
I’ve been sharpening to either 6 micron or 3 micron and leaving it there. By the naked eye, it looks like a very nice polish. I have a pair of cow leather strops standing by with 3.5 and 2.5 micron paste, but don’t feel the need to use them except in a few cases – mostly where it just suits my fancy at the time.
Yesterday, I sharpened a D2 blade I had bought from Jantz a couple of years ago. It was harder than Japanese arithmetic and made me re-evaluate my D2 hardening practices. But anyway, the factory bevels were really out of whack. One was at something more than 24 dps, while the other was well under 20 dps. I had to do quite a bit of 200/400 work to even begin to re-center the apex at 20 dps, after which I went thru the normal progression to 3 micron film. Then I dropped 2 degrees for the 3.5/2.5 leather strops and found that they wouldn’t reach more than half-way up the 2.5mm-wide bevels. Apparently the width of the bevels dictates how much you need to reduce the stropping angles. For wider bevels, maybe you need to be closer to -1 degree.
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William if I follow you, you have finished with the strops but you’d like to go back to the DLF progression then strop again after that? This may help bring up your polish. I can’t see it doing any harm if your clamping position and angles are kept the same as before.
I had a similar problem when first getting started with Wicked Edge. I enjoyed the sharpening knives and learning more about the processes, and putting them into practice. More then I could use these sharpened knives. So I kept sharpening and resharpening the same sharp knives. They did get shinier and they were very sharp!
That’s when I started looking to buy good value knives to sharpen. Those touted for their good quality for a low or reasonable price. I also started asking friends and neighbors if they had knives I could sharpen for them. I started looking into different and harder steels to challenge my skill level and broaden my sharpening experience and knowledge. With the help of the Wicked Edge Forum and those before me like, Tom, tcmeyer, I had learned and seen good results with my technique so far, and had ideas how I could improve upon them, but I had no challenges. Nothing that really needed to sharpened that had any real damage to overcome, to see that I was really sharpening knives well and doing it right. I had got bit by the sharpening bug. I was falling into the “rabbit hole” the search for the illusive perfect shiny bevel.
Marc
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This is from the post, earlier. Maybe you overlooked it because I included too many links:
To try to answer your specific question, you can try 1500 grit diamond >>9µ DLF>>6µDLF>>3µDLF>>4µ strop>>2µStrop…My general rule is when I switch mediums is to step back up a grit step or two coarser then a direct side ways move. I believe this overlap and redundancy in similar grit size helps because the grit mediums, (i.e., the attached bases or substrates) are different and each contributes something different to the overall progression to achieve a finer polished appearance. Strops are, for me, always the last step.
Marc
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I now often use the 14 micron strops after the 0.6 micron ceramic with results that I personally find pleasing. The result is an increase in polish. It is counterintuitive, But strops finction very differently from how the stones and lapping films do. Don’t worry, you won’t cause harm to the edge by using the 4/2 micron strop set after the 3 micron film.
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