Strops or stones ?

[wickededge]

I tend to bounce around a bit and try a little of everything and often wind up saying “this is my new favorite!” and go with whatever that is for a while. Then someone will come along and ask a question and get me thinking and I’ll try something else out and think “this is my new favorite!” What it’s taught me is that there are a lot of ways to get to a very nice edge and a lot of ways to get to a very nice polish. Currently, my “new favorite!” are the lapping films. I like the aluminum oxide ones you can get for cheap but I really love the diamonds with PSA backing. The diamonds are wonderfully efficient and last a surprisingly long time. They are expensive though…

-Clay

[wickededge]

Mark76 wrote:

Interesting, Clay. I may have to reconsider my opinion on the micro fine ceramics. My “problem” in this is that I still have the old 1200/1600 stones. These are pretty hard. I’ve never experienced the softness (and dust?) some ppl report on the current 1200/ 1600 stones: I have no experience with these latter stones.

I don’t remember when we changed the formulation with the 1200/1600, but it’s been a few years now. Your comment makes a good question. I’ll have to dig up an old pair from before the change and test them against the new ones.

-Clay

[Alan]

Hey Josh, you’ve probably answered this before. but after the 1000’s, what film progression and what films do you use to finish with a mirror or near mirror edge, without using strops?  Thanks bro.

Alan

[wickededge]

Thanks for doing your experimentation Curtis, makes me curious and want to investigate more. I guess I’ve sharpened just about everything that’s out there these days, maybe with a couple of exceptions. Steels like M390 don’t seem too different though I didn’t work on them with an eye as to whether they’re harder to polish. I’d like to study it. Can you recommend a couple of knives that I might test it out on that won’t break the bank?

-Clay

[wickededge]

Curtis,
The more I’m thinking about it, the more I’m wondering if the hardness of the MF Ceramics could be creating the higher polish. I was only looking for scratch sizes, not luster. It makes sense that a harder material would burnish better and I do think I was seeing some of that with the MF Coarse stones. The surface appeared smeared and I think that would make it shine more. I wonder how I can test that. I also wonder how we can measure luster or brightness. Any ideas anyone?

-Clay

[tcmeyer]

I was less than enthused by the variable results I got with the ceramics.  It bothered me that I couldn’t clearly find a grit progression that made sense to me.   Then I tried to flatten them on a granite plate with automotive sandpaper and buggered them up good.  But I had already decided that film abrasive on glass was going to be my long-term solution.  Especially diamond film.  There was no question about grit progression.   And when a film was damaged or contaminated, you could just change it out for a couple of $.  I was also focused on precise angles and film on glass showed me when I was off angle by a bit (>0.1 dps). Strops will give you a beautiful polish, but you don’t really know if they’ve rounded the edges.  All was good until I realized that my glass platens were scratching some of my blades (the glass was home-made and poor prep on my part), so I’ve switched to a soft metal platen (brass or aluminum).

If you are really careful to avoid contamination, the films last longer than you might think.  I had been using the Superasers to clear the crud from the grit matrix, but I suspect this was bringing contaminating grit into play, so I’ve taken clay’s suggestion of using alcohol.  So far, very happy.

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Alan

[dulledge]

WE has diamond film in sizes from 6 to 0.1 micron. If to avoid ceramics, then what to use in progression between 1000 grit diamond stone and diamond film size 6? Is it OK to use diamond film size 6 right after diamond stone 1000 grit?

[Alan]

The 1000 diamond is 7 microns, according to the grit comparison chart on this website, located under “resources”.  So I would think you could go right to 6 or perhaps even 3 micron diamond film from there.  Just my thoughts, as I’ve yet to try any films.

Alan

[Mark76]

wickededge wrote:

Curtis, The more I’m thinking about it, the more I’m wondering if the hardness of the MF Ceramics could be creating the higher polish. I was only looking for scratch sizes, not luster. It makes sense that a harder material would burnish better and I do think I was seeing some of that with the MF Coarse stones. The surface appeared smeared and I think that would make it shine more. I wonder how I can test that. I also wonder how we can measure luster or brightness. Any ideas anyone?

I’m not sure, Clay. The burnishing I experienced was mainly from the WE diamond pastes. I’ve never experienced it from stones (which mainly abrade). But I’d definitely be interested in an experiment. Distinguishing abrasion from burnishing is quite hard, but perhaps with you equipment it’s possible.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Mark76]

dulledge wrote:

WE has diamond film in sizes from 6 to 0.1 micron. If to avoid ceramics, then what to use in progression between 1000 grit diamond stone and diamond film size 6? Is it OK to use diamond film size 6 right after diamond stone 1000 grit?

Yes. I still use the ceramic stones in between and then switch to the 3 micron film, but I’m considering to skip the ceramics and directly go to the 6 micron film.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

1 user thanked author for this post.

dulledge

[tcmeyer]

FWIW, I have 4 pairs of stones using film.  My normal progression  is 400, 600, 800, 1000, 15 mu, 9 mu, 6 mu, 3 mu, 1.5 mu, 1.0 mu, 0.5 mu, 0.1 mu.

From my experience, the 1200 ceramics are virtually identical in scratch patterns to the 15 micron film.  The 9 micron is about 1800 grit, very close to the SF 1600.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Alan, dulledge

[cbwx34]

wickededge wrote:

Thanks for doing your experimentation Curtis, makes me curious and want to investigate more. I guess I’ve sharpened just about everything that’s out there these days, maybe with a couple of exceptions. Steels like M390 don’t seem too different though I didn’t work on them with an eye as to whether they’re harder to polish. I’d like to study it. Can you recommend a couple of knives that I might test it out on that won’t break the bank?

I hadn’t really thought about it either until I read the thread I linked to… I just thought some metals polished better than others and didn’t realize what was being used to polish made that much of a difference.  An S30v blade, or any with a relatively high Vanadium content, would make a good test blade.

If you’re using all diamonds to sharpen and refine and/or polish, it obviously doesn’t matter… I mainly brought it up if someone is considering the ceramics over strops with diamond paste to polish… I’m not sure how well they’ll do on the more wear resistant steels.  (I was going to try it before I answered, but didn’t have time.)

[cbwx34]

So, here’s 1 S30V done with just the ceramics after the 1K diamond (coarse MF –> both SuperFines –> Fine MicroFine)… a bit of a ‘haze’ to the finish, but overall not too bad?

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Organic, dulledge, wickededge, Mark76

[Frans]

wickededge wrote:

I don’t remember when we changed the formulation with the 1200/1600, but it’s been a few years now. Your comment makes a good question. I’ll have to dig up an old pair from before the change and test them against the new ones.

I bought my 1200/1600 in March 2013 but I was not happy with them. The stones felt chalky, easily chipped at the edges and one came loose from the plastic handle. Would the currently available stones be better? Is there any way that I can check/see from which production run/period my stones are?

[Josh]

Alan wrote:

Hey Josh, you’ve probably answered this before. but after the 1000’s, what film progression and what films do you use to finish with a mirror or near mirror edge, without using strops? Thanks bro.

Much like Tom, however, I go from 1k’s to some 30um films then progress down to 3um (anything lower than this I seem to get scratching, really weird), then strops. I could probably go straight to the 15 or 9um films but it goes really quickly w/ my progression. The important thing isn’t to get an exact grit progression but that you play around with it to find what works for you and that all of the prior grit scratches are completely erased =)

4 users thanked author for this post.

Organic, dulledge, Alan, wickededge

[Author]

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