Am I doing something wrong?

[David Sissitka]

I am working on a Strider PT. I just got done with the 600 grit stones and it took 120 passes to develop a burr on one side, 120 passes to develop a burr on the other side, and 40 passes to remove it. Am I doing something wrong?

I moved this post from the stropping section to this one, just so it is more accurately covers the subject matter.

Cheers
Leo

[wickededge]

Hi David,

Thanks for writing in? It might help if you describe your process in more detail:

What angle did you choose?
How did that vary from the angle already on the blade?
Did you use a marker to help you find the angle?
Which stones did you start with?

-Clay

[David Sissitka]

The first thing I did was reprofile the blade from 22.5º to 20º using the 100 grit stones. I did not use a marker. I just kept going until burrs had developed on both sides. Then I used the 200, 400, and 600 grit stones.

[David Sissitka]

I just got done with the 800 and 1,000 grit stones. At what point should it pass the paper test?

[wickededge]

At 1000 grit and 20°, you should shave very easily and should be shredding paper without effort. Since you’ve verified through the formation of burrs on both sides that the bevels meet, the only remaining issue is edge refinement. Depending on how new your system is, the stones may not be broken in yet and will be giving a toothier edge while they break in. If you have strops, they’ll immediately refine the edge so that it slashes paper easily. Otherwise, do a couple more knives and then come back to the first one and go again with the 800/1000 grit stones. Alternately, you could just spend a little more time with those stones on that knife and let them break in while perfecting the edge.

-Clay

[Author]

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