Help! New user with angle issues . . .
- This topic has 29 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 03/10/2018 at 7:17 am by
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It seems that my sharpening (of my own knives) has become routine and I hadn’t given much thought to it, but I’ve been sharpening all my knives to a near-mirror (a few scratches are no big deal) finish. Where I think it’s appropriate, I add a 20 dps microbevel with my 1000 grit diamond stones. Most knives get a straight 20 dps bevel, but where I want a little higher degree of sharpness, I’ll go a little more acute, maybe as low as 17 dps. I found that my two ZDP-189 knives tend to chip at angles below 19 dps. When I tried putting a microbevel on them, I didn’t really see an improvement in chip resistance.
Question (1): whats the proper strokes for stropping? Of course I forgot to drop down a degree or two first. But slowly stroking in an upwards direction I was still catching the area toward the tip a few times when the strops went forward. I only stropped abut 10 passes each side with the 5mu and the 3.5mu.
I also found it handy to take a pic of the alignment guide and angle selector setting after getting the knife set up rather than spend time recording each grid position back and forth and up and down. I’ll start a notebook now from these pics with a line for each knife, so I can put it back in the exact same clamping position for future touch ups. Great idea this alignment guide, rather than just using that metal ruler which I’ve watched being used in vids. I had to roll the tip slightly down while keeping the bottom of the knife slightly raised off the back post of the depth key, but still against the front post of the depth key. This allowed me to have the 1000 grit stone remove all the marker towards the tip as I was checking to make sure I had the angle correct.
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Taking the picture of the AAG is definitely a good practice as long as you can save the image file in an organized recoverable manner. I am now creating an Excel spread sheet using my new and previous sharpening log because it will allow me to incorporate the photos.
The specifics notes you mentioned: “I had to roll the tip slightly down while keeping the bottom of the knife slightly raised off the back post of the depth key, but still against the front post of the depth key. “ is very helpful and necessary to record in your sharpening log also. I log and make all these notes at the beginning, just after I’ve found the best clamping position. I found that if I waited till the end I would sometimes in my haste to unclamp a knife and do a sharpness test forget to notate the clamping settings. If I have to make any small adjustments to overcome sharpening issues while sharpening, I add these to my sharpening log. Taking your time and thinking about how and why you clamp a particular size and shape knife the way you did will help you to begin to intuitively know in the future how to handle the different knives you attempt to sharpen.
After sharpening many knives over the years I have begun to pick different areas to look at more closely in my sharpening routine. This has allowed me to refine my technique steps in a more efficient manner. Recently I did this with the “stropping step”. I had been using 1-1/2º less than my sharpening angle. I discovered through paying closer attention, with the USB Microscope,” to this aspect alone of my sharpening routine, that 2º less angle when using cow leather strops gave me results more to my liking.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)Taking the picture of the AAG is definitely a good practice as long as you can save the image file in an organized recoverable manner. I am now creating an Excel spread sheet using my new and previous sharpening log because it will allow me to incorporate the photos. The specifics notes you mentioned: “I had to roll the tip slightly down while keeping the bottom of the knife slightly raised off the back post of the depth key, but still against the front post of the depth key. “ is very helpful and necessary to record in your sharpening log also. I log and make all these notes at the beginning, just after I’ve found the best clamping position. I found that if I waited till the end I would sometimes in my haste to unclamp a knife and do a sharpness test forget to notate the clamping settings. If I have to make any small adjustments to overcome sharpening issues while sharpening, I add these to my sharpening log. Taking your time and thinking about how and why you clamp a particular size and shape knife the way you did will help you to begin to intuitively know in the future how to handle the different knives you attempt to sharpen. After sharpening many knives over the years I have begun to pick different areas to look at more closely in my sharpening routine. This has allowed me to refine my technique steps in a more efficient manner. Recently I did this with the “stropping step”. I had been using 1-1/2º less than my sharpening angle. I discovered through paying closer attention, with the USB Microscope,” to this aspect alone of my sharpening routine, that 2º less angle when using cow leather strops gave me results more to my liking.
For that low profile thin Wusthof, I’ll have to use the LPA. Strange this adapter doesn’t have holes for the depth gauge. Because without those holes it renders the alignment gauge useless for this particular knife.
I dont mind having to re-profile again at some point to maybe 18-20 degrees on these Wusthofs as each time I do the same knife over it breaks my stones in a little further. I just figured there is a reason Wusthof cuts their edges at 14 degrees and I wanted the knife to work as they designed it too.
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Expedia,
Don’t know if you have an iPhone. If you do i use an app called Tap Forms, it is a customizable database that you can use for recording a sharpening session. There might be apps for Android also. Here is what mine looks like from a previous thread
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Hey Expedia! What do you call that little “emoji” at the end of your post? Looks like he’s got W.C. Fields’ nose. 🙂
WCF was famous for alcohol and his quips: example: He’d flip the ashes off of his cigar and say out of the side of his mouth: “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.” And now you know I’m really old.
Edit: Incorrect attribution. Statement was made by comedian Fred Allen.
WC wanted his gravestone to read something like this: “All Things Considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia”
Other samples:
“Anyone who hates kids and cats can’t be all bad.”
“I don’t drink water. Fish f**k in it.”
“Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There’s nothing like having a midget for a butler.”
“I once spent a year in Philadelphia. I think it was a Sunday.”
“When you want to hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house, get a dog. There’s cheaper than kids and you get twice as many feet.”
“Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.”
Floyd: Will that app work on my Android smart phone?
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Thanks. Great app. I’ll download it. Ummm, who doesn’t have an iphone??? The Wicked edge is the iPhone or BMW of the sharpening world :o)
Expidia, I guess just Tom and I don’t have iPhones! There are similar apps for android. “Google Docs” have an app like that
This stropping video made by Bob from Oldawan is a good representation of my technique. I do drop my stropping angle 2º per side. I have found it does give me the refined sharp edge and polish I’m looking for with out rounding the apex. I do work the blade edge in small sections utilizing a short mostly perpendicular stroke to make sure it is “edge trailing”; up and off. Yes the tip can be challenging but less so if you work that area individually and not try to strop the full blade length up and away. Like both you and Bob said in the video, it does tend to become a down and in stroke as you follow the curve towards the tip.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)1 user thanked author for this post.
sksharp, Sorry, did not mean to imply that German steel was inferior. I have Messermeister and love em. I chose to sharpen mine at 18 deg, micro at 20 . Blade seems to hold up much better for me now. Except when wife tries using chefs knife as a pizza cutter on stone Ugh! There went a lot of sharpening for naught.
No apology necessary my friend. I have no affinity for German steel in particular. I just run into a lot of opinion that tends to believe that harder is always better and that just isn’t true for most knives. It’s always a trade off with hard(edge retention) and tough(won’t chip or break).
I will say you are probably correct that an 18 deg. edge is going to hold up better for most people if they can’t or don’t maintain their own or if they use their knives like your wife, and my wife do! LOL
A QUALITY cutting board will make edge retention better for anyone!
TC, I believe the quote goes: “any man who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad”. My dad used to use it. LOL But it’s not actually a WC Fields quote!
Actually, that list of quotes was from a web page of WC Fields’ quotes.
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/w_c_fields
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