Best stone to start with after a KME edge?
- This topic is empty.
-
What I meant by that statement was that every knife will require some adjustment the first time you sharpen it on your WE. The arc of the KME is almost certainly a tighter radius than that of the WE. Unless the blade is totally straight and has no belly then you will end up doing some re-profiling on the knife the first time you sharpen it on the WE. It may not be a visually perceivable change. If the blade is totally straight, then you should be able to match the bevels perfectly and no re-profiling will take place unless you change the angles intentionally.
As far as your incoming Sabenza 21 goes (awesome knife!), I would probably start at the 400 grit unless you don’t like the angle that it is sharpened at.
Diamond is harder than any steel, so as long as you use light pressure and let the abrasives do the work I don’t think the S-35VN will be a problem.
If you’ve checked out Marc’s thread on super steels you will see that some of the modern ultra high hardness blade steels can behave strangely when sharpening. People have reported that they will get half way through their progression and then the apex just starts to crumble inexplicably. This seems to vary depending on the heat treatment. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone complaining about S-35VN in the same way.
That’s all good to know. I’ll have to ask my office buddy what he experienced when he had issues tying to sharpen his Para 2 steel. That does sound about right though because he has a pretty good experience with the WE sharpening system.
Just checked the Chris Reeve sight for the OEM angle. They recommend 18-20 degrees. Ill have to mount the knife and access what the KME edge was done to see how much reprofiling will be needed.
I think 18 degrees should be no problem for that knife. I know for a fact that many people put 15 degrees per side with a 17 degree micro-bevel on Sabenza 21 knives with good results.
It didn’t look too good before. The person who put the KME edge on there must have been pretty sloppy. What was the progression that you used?
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that it will slice and also cut better with a micro-bevel. Can you elaborate?
1 user thanked author for this post.
I’ve been ending with two swipes of a 600 grit stone giving the edge a toothy bite, yet it does not show readily on the mirror edge which is razor sharp for slicing. The two 600 grit swipes give it better cutting ability yet still with a showy edge overall. Here is Clay’s vid from a few years ago. He used a 200 grit back then. Don’t know if he’s using the same grit still. 200 was a little coarse for me.
Progression was 400>600>800>1000>1500>6mu dlp>3mu>1mu>roo strops with .5 and .25 diamond spray. Took me maybe 45 minutes. I find scrubbing up to raise the burr then followed by the next grit mostly scrubbing sideways quickly erases the scratch marks. And I vary the height of the stone, so as not to wear the stone in one area. I do the standard WE stone motion but I find I can use the same pressure easier across the length of the blade with the horizontal strokes. As soon as I do too much of the standard stroke I see added scratches through the loupe where I vary the pressure through not enough practice. All my learned techniques were from what I learned here from great forum contributors such as yourself and I thank you again for that. Saved me many hours on the learning curve.
Check out my 3rd CRK that I purchased an hour ago attached. I was looking for the 21 with te blue or gold hex pattern but when I saw this beechwood inlays I was smitten! This is the next patient to go onto the WE operating table whe it arrives in a few days. Doing my folder collection myself was the reason I got into the system. To send a knife back to Chris Reeve (CRK) it takes a 4-8 week turnaround for an edge and what they call their spa treatment. Benchmades have a rediculous turnaround time too. And who wants a “factory edge” anyway.
1 user thanked author for this post.
What you’ve observed has been previously documented by MarcH. See his thread from last year.
1 user thanked author for this post.
Thanks Organic, I’ve read that thread twice before as I was learning technigue and now one more time. I am using the Nanolap DLF’s. I’m not even trying to achieve edges as clear as Marc finally got them. I’m more just trying to rule out if the Nanolap DLF’s are too aggressive for me. Maybe I should try ceramics and skip the DLF’s?
I did do what Clay had mentioned which was moving the DLF’s horizontally, but I know that only serves to desharpen the fine edge that the diamond stones have established for me and because the edge is so sharp at that point horizontal strokes tend to catch the DLF films and cut them.
I’m figiuring its almost no point to going back to the 1500 to start over if its the films that are imparting scratches all over again. The reason I posted this question is to isolate which is giving me my issues .1 my technique. .2 the DLF’s .3 the strops . . . though the naked eye the scratches are extremely fine. But through a loupe they look so much deeper looking and I kinda doubted DLF’s could impart scratches this deep. But I’m still too new at this.
1 user thanked author for this post.
Expidia, it may be time for you to buy and utilize a better lighted optical magnifying device. Possibly that would help you to see just when and where the scratches are being left.
It’s also very easy to leave or impart light scratches with any thing you do working down at that fine a polish. Just cleaning or wiping the bevel may leave scratches. Contact by your finger tips, gloved fingers or your magnifying aid can leave scratches. The very fine DLF can be cross contaminated. Dust laying on the glass platens can be trapped under the applied DLF making scratches with the high spot.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)3 users thanked author for this post.
I don’t go after truly mirrored edges very often. While I like the look, I figure that it will no longer be scratch free after I use it for a few days, so why bother? That said, the best looking mirrored edge I have ever obtained was with this progression: diamonds from 400 up to 1500, then 1.4 / 0.6 micron ceramics, 14 / 10 diamond paste on cow leather, 4 / 2 diamond emulsion on cow leather, and 1 / 0.5 on cow leather. I can’t see any scratches on the bevel and it was at the HHT3 level of sharpness. Edit: This took about two hours to do. I estimate that I did around 100 strokes per side on each grit with the stones and then about 50 for each side for every grit of strop.
4 users thanked author for this post.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.