Sharpening Progressions
- This topic has 14 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 01/08/2019 at 3:30 pm by
.
-
I sharpen my cheap kitchen knives with 100 , 200, 400, 600, and 800 diamonds and then strop with 4 / 2 micron progression on leather. The edge is a bit toothy. My EDC knives usually get a very similar treatment.
For my better knifes I have been giving them a full progression of diamond stones up to 1500, 1.4, 0.6 micron ceramics and 14, 10, 4, 2, 1, 0.5 micron progression on leather strops. This leaves a very refined edge especially good for push cutting applications. I’ll sometimes skip the ceramics and go from the 1500 grit diamond to a progression of lapping films (6, 3, 1.5 micron) before the strops. The end result is similar, but the polish is probably better.
I’ve never tried the large grit jumps that many sharpeners use. For example, I often see people do something like 500 grit, 2000 grit, 6000 grit with water stones for their kitchen knives.
3 users thanked author for this post.
I believe some people want to try use every grit and every medium they own trying to figure out how to put them in an order of logical decreasing coarseness based on a grit table. Different mediums have different characteristics and they all don’t work well together. (Sometimes you have to choose one or the other. This is where experience comes in.) I do use a sequence of decreasing coarseness or increasing grit number, and generally I don’t skip a grit in the same medium sequence, as Lenny said
Based on my experiences:
Diamond stones > Strops
Diamonds > Ceramics > Strops
Diamonds > Lapping Films > Strops
Whetstones > Strops
I have found, for me, ceramics and lapping films don’t work well together in any sequence…one or the other; ceramics or lapping films.
Diamond lapping films are IMO nothing more then very fine grit diamond stones. They can improve and refine sharpness and also improve polish by nature of their fine grit.
Ceramics can improve and refine sharpness and can also improve polish. It depends on how you look at it and see the results.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)4 users thanked author for this post.
I’ve had the micro-fine ceramics for about 9 months or so. I really like them as a long wearing alternative to the more rapidly consumable diamond lapping films. The films produce a shiny mirrored finish (with defined scratches visible in some lighting) with minimal effort because the diamonds cut very efficiently. The ceramics don’t work as quickly and impart hazy looking reflective bevels, but the edge is crisp and aggressive feeling nonetheless.
I think that having good technique and attention to detail is needed but while looking at many of my diamond stones they are clearly not flat. Not hugely concave or convex, but noticeably not flat. I don’t see this issue with my lapping film blanks.
Knife sharpeners have been finely sharpening knives with all kinds of mediums, by free hand, for ever. Back to a rock. After using the Wicked Edge with it’s fixed angle precision, I think we over emphasize the need for perfectly smooth and flat sharpening mediums and sometimes blame these imperfections for our results. We are not using damaged, broken and distinctly misshaped stones. When we identify these bad surfaces we avoid them and replace them. Every medium is off somewhere and somewhat, and every one is off a little differently from the next one. These little differences form stone to stone, and grit to grit, balance out. Our sharpening efforts are a process. The results are the sum of good methods and technique and proper attention to detail. If the noticeably not flat stones, these beginning coarser grits, didn’t work well the diamond lapping films wouldn’t be able to bring out these “V” shaped flat shiny bevels you want. The end starts at the beginning!
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)Diamond lapping films on glass are the closest thing to a perfectly flat sharpening medium that I’m aware of. That is not to say that the WE diamond plates don’t work well and aren’t close to flat as well. People generally use very fine grit films that don’t remove a lot of material, so you won’t get nicely V-ground bevels with the films unless the bevels are already close to perfectly V-ground before you switch to the films.
I suppose you could use coarse films as well and do the entire sharpening with film on glass, but that would get expensive (Jende Industries sells films as coarse as 80 grit).
2 users thanked author for this post.
If you want a closeup view at the bevels that the different stones mediums produce, check out this old thread. It was a good one and has some very cool microscope images from Clay.
This linked thread in Organics quote is a very long thread, (10 pages in all), and thorough discussion including high powered microscopic examinations and photographs, done by Clay, of different mediums and grits and their resulting scratch patterns. This should help enlighten you so you can hopefully find it easier to make your own informed decisions which medium and which order to use them in, to achieve your ideal sharpening/polishing progression.
I am posting this here from another current thread because it is just as pertinent to this topic as the other. It is well worth saving as a “favorite” to revisit it and reread it at your leisure. It was a tremendous, time consuming, effort and contribution made by Clay, the owner and creator of Wicked Edge.
Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)1 user thanked author for this post.
Yeah, I think that the plates are pretty flat and produce something close enough to a v bevel to let the films take care of the rest. Of course, a bevel doesnt have to be V cut in the first place to be sharp.
1 user thanked author for this post.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.